Reviews
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Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Platform: PS 2
Publisher: LucasArts/TT Games
Developer: Travelers Tales
by Russ Capasso A long time ago in a Legoland far,
far away…
Finally, the two things that dominated my childhood have come together to yield
the ultimate experience. That’s right; Star Wars has been “Legofied”.
This time around you won’t have to read steps 1 through 25 to create the
object on the front of the box, or worry about getting to step 13 and finding
out that a piece has vanished to Lego heaven. Nope, this time it’s all
done for you. With the press of a button you can do in seconds what took you
10 minutes as a kid. That building speed has united with the greatest Sci-Fi
movie trilogy to walk the earth - Star Wars. The game follows the story of the
original trilogy quite closely, so even with the lack of dialogue in the cut-scenes,
you know what’s going on. They’ve even added a splash of Lego humor
to keep the dialogueless scenes interesting. Either way, this game provides hours
of fun, so grab a six pack of suds...uh...I mean Coca Cola Classic and a friend
and have fun reenacting the greatest trilogy as Legos.
Play Han “Solo” or Obi Wan “Co-op” inobi
Lego Star Wars was clearly designed for two players; this is obvious
by the easy drop-in/drop-out option for a second player. Regardless
of where you are in the game, if a friend wants to play all they
have to do is hit start and they join right into the action.
As a game geared for “kids” they’ve made the
controls extremely straightforward; attack button, action button,
and the analog stick to move around. The attacks vary depending
on which character you control and the action button is used
for pulling levers, building Lego objects, and using force powers.
Nice and simple.
So simple that my roommate, who hates video games, found himself
glued to the screen playing into the wee hours of the night, and
updating me every time he unlocked something. The only feeling
that accurately describes his enthusiasm is Christmas morning,
too bad he’s Jewish. But he now knows and can understand
my joy and pain when I accomplish or don’t accomplish something
in video game land. Every level in Lego Star Wars is filled with
puzzles that keep the game moving, as well as unlock secret objects.
This game is loaded with unlockable items. As you progress you
collect Lego currency which can be used in the Mos Eisley Cantina
(your home base) to purchase other items. Some puzzles are hard;
others are so simple they’re hard. Let’s just say a
few puzzles had two twenty-something’s ready to turn the
game off and head to the bar. There are also side puzzles in each
level that can only be solved using certain characters, which can
be done in the free play levels. Each of the three movies is broken
down into chapters. Every chapter you complete you unlock a free
play level of that chapter. With the free play you can go back
and complete the level with anyone of the different characters
you unlock during the game. There are also flying missions from
the original movies, bonus levels, and even really cool bounty
hunter missions. Basically, what I’m getting at is this game
is filled with all sorts of goodies. Even after completing the
story mode the game isn’t over by a long shot. Granted, it
doesn’t really take that long to finish the story mode, running
about 13 hours, but once you finish you’re only about a third
of the way done. So like the movies, there is plenty of replay
value.
“Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium
Falcon?”
Looks wise, the in-game graphics are great. Simple animations of
characters faces when they’re standing around too long add
an extra bit of humor to this already funny idea. Some of the cut-scenes
are blocky, no pun intended, but still look good and replicate
scenes from the original trilogy. The sounds and music of the game
are awesome because they’re been lifted right from the movies.
From the sound of a blaster firing to the wave of a lightsaber
to the Imperial March, it’s all there.
“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.”
So far I’ve only pointed out the pleasant side of the game
and I probably sound like Qwi-Gon hyping Anakin, but it is Star
Wars + Legos. How can you go wrong? Well, there are a few things
I find a bit irksome. The camera angle is a static third person
view and if you’re playing with two people and one person
moves across the opposite side of the screen, your character will
follow. This is especially irritating when one person can jump
over pitfalls faster than the other. It would have been nice if
Travelers Tales incorporated a split screen option for co-op play. The
camera angle also makes it difficult to see when storm troopers
are approaching. All of a sudden a blast will go off from across
the screen and you’re done. Another thing that is fairly
frustrating is that being a Jedi isn’t all it’s cracked
up to be. I died many times because I couldn’t land a hit
with my lightsaber…very annoying. All in all this game is
great, provides a lot of fun and will have you remembering and
reciting lines from the original movies. One last thing, when I
say original I mean Han shoots first.
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