Lego Star Wars II - a great game for a family of Star Wars fans

No movie franchise in the world has seemingly had as many video game incarnations as the Star Wars saga. A few of them have been good, but most have been mediocre, if not altogether bad. Developer Traveler Tales struck gold a few years ago when they made Lego Star Wars. Now the sequel emerges. Does this sequel live up to the original?

Read on, Dear reader…

•• Story ••
The story in Leg Star Wars II follows the story of the original Star wars movies :A new Hope, the Empire Strikes Back and Revenge- er Return of the Jedi. I won’t rehash the plots of these stories because everyone knows them, but I will say that they are told in a humorous way. Keep in mind that the characters are all legos, so taking a serious slant on these sagas is out of the question. Instead, they take quite a few liberties with the stories and make them funny and accessible to a younger crowd through dialog-free cutscenes.

•• Gameplay ••
At heart, Lego Star Wars II is a platformer. You play the main characters of the Star Wars movies as little Lego people. Depending on your character you have either a laser blaster or a lightsaber. The controls of these characters are all basically the same and easy to master. Controlt he guys with your thumbsticks, jump with the A and shoot with the B. As well, X allows some characters to use the force to move heavy objects and Y allows the player to take control of a different character in the party. It doesn’t ever get any more complex than that which makes it accessible to kids of just about any age.

The majority of the game consists of blasting bad guys (who “die” by breaking up into their prime lego pieces) and jumping around opening doors. Does it get repetitive? Yes, but it’s also quite a bit of fun. The levels are full of platformer type puzzles such as pushing big blocks around to open doors and freeing characters that are needed to open other doors. It’s very simple a kid friendly, but not remains enjoyable for adults as well. This is game that my son and I can play together without him throwing the controller in frustration.

In a nice break from jumping around platforms, there are a few levels of flying. The controls are little different and take some getting used to, but they are a nice break from the usual gameplay. It’s quite a bit of fun to act out the best parts of the movies such as tangling up the webs of the AT-ATs and riding through the forests on speeder cycles. And thankfully, the Ewoks are far less annoying than they are in the movie. And since your party consists of at least 2 different people, you can switch who you play at any time.

Along the way, blowing up trash cans and finding hidden spots will unveil little Lego coins called studs. Collecting these studs makes your stud meter go up (get your mind out of the gutter) which unlocks achievements and special pieces. Get enough special pieces and you can unlock hiudden levels and characters.

While the core game weighs in at 8 hours, the replayability is quite good. Again, secret levels can be unlocked as well as new characters. Once a level is played, it is open for free play and the player can take any group of people. Want to take Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker into the Ewok village? No problem! And some doors are only able to be opened by characters that did not appear in the original playthrough. This is good reason to take a new character just to see what hidden goodies lie behind secret doors.

Of annoyance are some bugs I ran into. I crashed the game once and a couple of other times certain things didn’t trigger when they should have. Restarting the level made them trigger, so the problem was not very reproducible. One time I even fell through the world (That means, my character slipped through a crack in the geometry somewhere and “fell” into an inky nothingness below the world. The only way to recover is to restart the level).

•• Graphics ••
Everything in the world is made with Legos, so while the graphics were very good, they weren’t outstanding. Nor do they need to be. Instead of going for realism, they went for style and this game has it in spades. It’s fun and light and the performance is excellent throughout. For those who care, the blocks are fairly shiny and the world is nicely detailed. However, this is not a game that taxes the hardware of the console so it won’t stand out as the must-show game. As well, the worlds tend to be very small to fit in the memory space of the other consoles this title is released on.

•• Sound ••
The sound of Lego Star Wars II is excellent, but curiously, there is no new original sound except for a few effects. The original score of the movie is included along with the original weapons sounds. As well, there is no dialog (for easier and cheaper localization, I’m sure). So what of the sound design? Quite an excellent use of license materials. And if anything was created for this game, then it is blended in well with the existing material. This game won’t knock your sonic ears off, but it does impress with a wide range of sounds and music.

•• Multiplayer ••
The only multiplayer in this game is same-box cooperative play. This is great game type and another player can join in at any time. It gives the game a lot of replayability and especially makes it a fun game to play with the kids.

•• Parents Should Know ••
This game is rated E+10 which means its safe for anyone over the age of 10. This seems appropriate because while all the serious aspects of the game have been replaced with comic ones, Luke still gets his arms cut off and you do still wield weapons to shoot stormtroopers. That said, this is the safest and most family-friendly Star Wars game that I know of.

•• Conclusion ••
Well worth the price of admission, this is another great Lego Star Wars game