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LEGO Star Wars Review

Chris Leyton

20/04/2005

The excellent union between LEGO and Star Wars is often enough to look past its simplicities...

A long time ago, the reputation of Star Wars videogames was strong with titles such as the excellent X-Wing series and a number of notable excursions on the 16-bit home consoles and arcades. The force however grew weak as the masters of Star Wars became too reliant upon it, with a deluge of uninspired tie-inâs to follow, the once mighty franchise fell from grace until a group of Canadians gave it a shot.

So itâs a somewhat startling surprise to discover that the slightly dubious union between LEGO and Star Wars has turned up trumps on many issues, creating an overall experience that has evidently had more thought and care lavished upon it then the vast majority of tie-inâs pre-Knights of the Old Republic.

Conceived by the clever folks at Giant Interactive and created by the talented team at Travellers Tales, LEGO Star Wars is unashamedly targeted towards a younger market and hoping to appeal to a larger Star Wars audience then the typical Lucas nut. As such the game could be labelled as simplistic, a combination of events that weâve seen many times before, encompassing routine combat, platform mechanics, collect, collect and collect... However thereâs just something about it that appeals thanks largely to the overall charm, while the structure of the game lends itself brilliantly to quick "pickup-and-play" sessions.

The game takes place across the prequel trilogy from 1999âs Phantom Menace to this yearâs Revenge of the Sith, so the fanatics will have a little to shout about thanks to the sneak preview â“ albeit in super-deformed yet often highly entertaining proportions. The vast majority of missions pit you as a Jedi and simply require you to progress from the start to finish, destroying hordes of Battle Droids and Droidekas via a few repetitive combat manoeuvres and combos, chucking in a variety of puzzles to spice up the occasion.

Throughout your adventure youâll come across new characters that join the party, each of which can be controlled and feature a variety of unique abilities that are essentially grouped up into Jedi's who can use the Force and the trusted lightsabre (Obi-Wan, Anakin); Blasters that can carry a pistol and can use grappling hooks (Princess Amidala, Captain Panaka); Droids which can open sealed doors (C3-PO, R2-D2) and finally Jar Jar Binks who can rather strangely jump higher then the others. In total there are over 30 characters to collect in Pokemon styled proportions throughout the game, and itâs this level of âcoming backâ that provides the main dynamic for the game.

Sadly the game is over way too quickly, with the trilogyâs seven hours condensed amazingly into 18 relatively short missions. Itâs credit to all of those involved that an amazing sense of continuity survives throughout the game and something quite concerning that the lack of dialogue is largely unmissed, replaced by the injection of humour via the many blanked and comical expressions on the little LEGO faces. Many of the most important scenes have been lifted from the films to lend this sense of continuity, with missions such as repelling the droid onslaught on Genosis, pod-racing on Mos Espa and many more â“ including the perfectly captured and stylish execution of Darth Maul towards the end of Episode 1.

Despite its short length, the game urges you to come back and play more; successfully completing a stage racks up the points and counts how many special items youâve collected, rewarding you with LEGO blocks to build up certain vehicles. The âFree Playâ mode is also opened, allowing the level to be played again with any of the characters currently unlocked - setting up the scope for some bizarre situations and more importantly the ability to access secret areas you couldnât find the first time around.

Away from the uninspired combat, LEGO Star Wars features a variety of puzzles that make crucial use of the Force and its new-found ability to manipulate LEGO blocks. The level of thought is easily apparent, but sadly ruined by limiting the sense of challenge to pressing the circle button when an object goes blue. Itâs a real shame that thereâs simply no challenge whatsoever to this aspect as thereâs obviously been a lot of thought; one notable example set on the mysterious world of Kamino sees the player rearranging blocks, only to find the floor light up DISCO-style while the native Kaminoans boogy along to classic Star Wars funk.

One of the major features of the title is the ability for a second player to drop-in and out of the action as they wish ala Microsoftâs Brute Force. It a feature that suits the âpickup-and-playâ nature of the game, but is also the cause of one of the gameâs main frustrations. Every mission within the game features at least two characters, so thereâs always the option to jump into the game or let the AI do a good job of partnering up to solve the various character ability puzzles. Due to the fact that there could be two players playing however, there's no control over the camera and not even a first-person option, which leads to some frustrating moments during the many platform sections throughout the game. Thankfully the vast majority of pixel-perfect jumps are required to collect secret items and not progress through the game, so it's easy just to carry on with the game after the umpteenth attempt... but it seems a little strange that the game structure does a good job of keeping the player coming back for small doses, only to punish them with jumps from hell when theyâre trying to unlock everything the game has to offer!

While weâre on the subject of gripes, there are a few little glitches throughout the game that could have been ironed out after an extra few weeks of development. Often you can get your character stuck into the environment and looking quite odd, while occasionally a jump to doom results in your character being re-spawned at the lip of the platform, immediately falling to his death once again.

Itâs hard however to find true faults with a game like LEGO Star Wars â“ itâs not trying to be anything like Knights of the Old Republic and youâve got to love it for that, kind of like the fan-made fictions that Star Wars nuts seem so obsessive about.

The visuals and more particularly the animation brings this strange sounding partnership to life with startling effect. Little LEGO representations of Obi-Wan, C3-PO and many, many more have been brought to the small screen with a level of dedication that shines through easily â“ even Jar Jar is tolerable throughout the game! From a technical point of view there's little to get excited by and the âchildishâ look could put a number of people off â“ however we guarantee people will be smiling the first time they catch C3-PO hopping around without an arm or a leg!

Naturally the game has the typical arrangement of Star Wars tracks that weâve come to expect, although thereâs something a little odd about a Star Wars game without bad voice-acting â“ itâs funny, the little LEGO guys often upstage their bigger siblings.