Lego Star Wars

You know what were really awesome when I was a kid? Legos. You could do freaking anything with Legos, which usually meant taking every one and building endlessly complex structures in my room. That was awesome, fun, and everything about that said “Legos Rock”. That was, at least when I was a kid.

But nowadays, there is so much going on in the world for kids that Legos have taken a backseat, but the people down at the Lego company aren't stupid. About 7 years ago in what could be considered a genius marketing move, Lego signed with Lucasarts to begin making Star Wars Lego sets. From the (at the time) new scenes from Star Wars Episode 1 to old school stuff like a huge rendition of the Millennium Falcon, Lego really did something impressive with what used to be pretty basic building blocks. I've always been amazed by these little things in a quite geeky way, because not only does it contain the geeky feature of being official Star Wars merchandise, but it also is really cool to build, with a bunch of little plastic blocks, huge works of art in a few minutes.

So, I can honestly say I was happy when I heard there was going to be a Lego Star Wars game, and now I finally got my hands on it. Developed by Giant Interactive for virtually every next gen console on the market, Lego Star Wars combines the look of Lego (That has been put into previous game titles with varying results) and the look of Starwars and creates a one to two player hack-and-slash fest through the classic areas of episodes 1-3.

So, let me begin by saying I was pleasantly surprised with this game. As I played this on the PC, I first noted a unique factor- the fact that it is meant to be played two player. Instead of dropping any features in the PC version, all versions of Lego Starwars feature a unique two player aspect that allows a buddy to pop in the game at any time to help you kill enemy droids. While this gets a little cramped on the keyboard, I can honestly say that not only is this unique to this time period (Most companies don't do this kind of thing anymore), but it expands the game somewhat nicely.

What Lego Starwars is, when it all comes down to brass tacks, is almost a Gauntlet-style hack and slash game where you take any given character from the Starwars series (Well, episodes 1-3) and fight your way through barrages of enemies familiar to the series. All you need is two buttons- attack and “force”, and the game ends up being rather simplistic, but overall a fun psuedo-parody of the genre. Where games like Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows end up being somewhat mediocre and mundane, Lego Starwars keeps things simple with an overly basic engine, and ends up being surprisingly deep with this kind of play mode. Of course, this engine was obviously designed with little kids in mind, but as you will see even in the Amazon.com game reviews for this title, adults enjoy this kind of mindless plastic droid bashing, too.




Just like any game targeted at kids, Lego Starwars tends to gain a lot of it's length by creating a lot of incentives to replay levels. While the game has something like 20+ levels to bash your way through, it also features a lot of collectible items in aforementioned levels. By going back and working hard, virtually any gamer can earn all of the different little collectible items- and if you work hard and look hard enough, you may be able to find enough to “Build” yourself a ship in the diner (Which acts as a hub to the levels). Of course, this is mindless collection ala Nintendo or Rare, but I actually found it a delightful throwback to the days I played games like Banjo Kazooie and tried to collect all the little shiny objects for whatever reason.

One of the cool things about Lego Star Wars is how it takes the Star Wars universe and manages to port it to a very childish format. As I mentioned, you will go through Episodes 1-3, but you will do such in a story based fashion, meaning the primary scenes of these movies will be reenacted- in Lego form. While, just to not take itself to seriously, the game tends to be a little childish and make light of a lot of the scenes of the movies, these little videos really remind me of a “The Sims” esque rendition of a movie, due to the pseudo-lifeless characters and the blabber they speak in replacement of voice actors.

One crazy thing about Lego Star Wars is the sheer amount of characters in this game. With FIFTY SIX playable characters that can be interchanged at virtually any time, and each one having his own special skills (For example, Anakin being able to crawl under things, whereas Jar Jar Binks can jump higher), it is very obvious that this game was really designed with quality in mind, and I really enjoyed the fact that this much attention was put into the game. As the game was released so relatively close to the release of Episode 3, I was worried that it would end up glossing over the Episode 3 scenes to somewhat preserve the movie, but I was happy to see an equal amount of attention in this respect, even to the point of featuring a playable General Grievous. Four plastic light sabers can be fun at times.

One of the only issues I found with this game is just something that an average gamer will have to deal with- the fact that this game is way, way, way too easy. Even compared to other games that this target age range plays, Lego Star Wars is so insanely simple, a 4 year old could play it with no trouble. This generally boils down to the simple battle controls, which do not only attack, but block blaster attacks, which means that as long as you continue to hit whatever button attacks, you are set for life, and are essentially invulnerable. Even the hard enemies fall to your character's excellent attacking-and-blocking skill with the light saber, and it means that even though the levels are long, they can be blasted through in seconds. It is important to note, though, that as the purpose continues to be collecting things in the levels, that two-second run through Episode 1 will reap you nothing.




As for the presentation and overall sheen of Lego Star Wars, I was actually floored. Generally, when you see a backwards Lego game being developed by a small third party company, you generally expect bad graphics and horrific music. However, not only is the music straight from the movies (the orchestrated stuff, which gives the whole game a more dramatic feel, if that's possible), but the graphics are so real and look so much like Legos, I can almost see the greasy fingerprints on them. The game loads in seconds on my PC, and it loads in seconds on virtually any PC- so really, the graphics settings are borderline useless, due to the fact that even the highest setting is very simplistic, but it all looks good, so I'm not complaining. Every bit of plastic has that plastic sheen we all are so familiar with, and every-single-part-of-the-game is made with Legos, which is also something impressive (Instead of cheating and just making normal looking levels).

One cool thing I will note before I end the review is the force ability. Instead of doing odd particle effects and just making things look stupid, force effects actually rearrange the Lego bricks. I'm sorry, I know that's simplistic, but that's freaking awesome. The ability to change a huge fuel tank to a bridge on the fly is something of a novelty ability, and still drives in the concept that “Yes, this is a Lego game”.

In closing, Lego Star Wars is a great game, but it isn't for everyone. Obviously, I really enjoyed it, but it can't be ignored- this game is obviously for “Everyone”, which means it's specifically targeted to be easy for little kids, which means that obsessive gamers like myself can't play this game expecting a fun Star Wars experience. If you can stomach the easy game play that will last you about two hours and the repetitive god mode like ability to slash and attack/block at the same time, you may find yourself actually liking Lego Star Wars. But, if you are looking for a genuine Star Wars experience, I recommend picking up the official Star Wars game(s), which tend to feel like they aren't made for people who suck their thumbs. But screw you guys, I'm gonna order some stuff from Lego.com.

4 star(s) out of 5

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