Lego® Star Wars: The Video Game for Windows

Lego Star Wars is a very creative and fun game that puts your favorite Star Wars characters from Episodes I-III into the Lego world. You'll get to use your force powers to assemble Lego pieces, cut down enemy soldiers with your lightsaber, and much more. This immensely popular game spawned a sequel that lets you play in the original trilogy of movies.

In this game, you play one of many different characters from the Star Wars movies, and you get to play through the various locations used in the actual movies. For example, the first levels in Episode I have you running through the halls and space from the movie. You also get to do a little piloting, like where you reenact the opening space combat flight sequence from Episode III. Essentially, you play through the movies in this game.

The gameplay and controls are pretty straightforward. You control the characters using a third person perspective, and the levels are laid out in a pretty linear fashion. In addition to your weapons, you also have Force powers you can use in combat. You'll also find that different characters have different special abilities that are needed to get past certain doors. For example, R2-D2 is exceptionally good and hacking into control panels to unlock doors.

The graphics are what really make this game fun to play. It's not that they are all that sharp or realistic, because they aren't compared to more modern games like Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock. What make the graphics so neat in this game is that everywhere you go, things are made of Legos. The characters you play look like little Lego men, and the ships they fly in look like they were built with Lego pieces. Throughout the game, you'll encounter puzzles that require you to use your Force powers to actually assemble piles of Legos in order to build bridges or other things to get you past certain barriers.

Using your Force powers to put together Legos amounts to nothing more than pressing and holding a button. You don't actually assemble Legos in some kind of virtual reality type thing, though that would be incredibly cool. Instead, this is a rather straightforward action game that is set in a unique environment – An environment that is highly interactive. Whenever you put something together or defeat an enemy, they will drop little pieces that you can pick up like money.

The sound is also excellent, and features music lifted right out of the movies. The sound effects are great, especially when you hear the Lego pieces clatter together. There are no voices in the game, since we don't normally think of Lego pieces as talking to each other, so the soundscape for the game is filled mostly with battle sounds and explosions.

There have been a lot of complaints about this game being too easy, and I somewhat agree. It's not so easy that anyone could breeze through it, but sometimes it isn't all that challenging to get through the main parts of the game. The real challenge is in unlocking all the hidden extras in the game. A lot of times you might have to play through one area more than once in order to get all the goodies, but these extras will unlock new things for you down the road.

Ultimately, I think Lego Star Wars has a lot to offer both younger and older gamers. It's OK for younger gamers because it is bloodless, since enemy robots just fall into a pile of Lego pieces when they get cut down. Older games will appreciate the ingenuity of the level designs and the way the whole Lego scheme plays into the game. You can't deny this game's originality.