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LEGO Star Wars II Review
Chris Leyton
14/09/2006
Traveller's Tales are back with another stylishly witty take on the original Star Wars trilogy...
Typically, the words LEGO and videogames have never made a good match, usually resulting in woeful handheld games or learning titles aimed at a younger market. So the success of LEGO Star Wars came as something of a surprise last year, its bundle of accessible gameplay and irreverent humour making it a constant fixture in the UK Top 40 and enjoying similar achievements across Europe and North America.
So it's somewhat unsurprising to find a sequel to the title, based around the events from the original Star Wars trilogy, arriving from the UK outfit Traveller's Tales. Recognising the success of the original title, LucasArts themselves have actively got involved in the development of LEGO Star Wars II, pushing Eidos out in the process who initially got the brand off to a winning start.
Set across Episode IV, V and VI, Traveller's Tales have wisely stuck to an "if it aint broke..." methodology to the sequel's development, so essentially the main game is very similar to what came before. Each episode is broken down into six different chapters, with the Mos Eisley Cantina providing the HUB like structure to the game. Shooting your way through level after level, LEGO Star Wars II blends simplistic blaster/lightsabre combat, with subtle puzzles based around a character's varying abilities and the Force's power over LEGO bricks!
Beginning with Darth Vader's capture of Princess Leia on the Tantive IV along with R2-D2 and C3-PO subsequent escape to Tattoine, LEGO Star Wars II follows crucial events through the trilogy concluding with the destruction of the Death Star. Much like the original, the main appeal behind the game is the heightened level of charm and personality that Traveller's Tales have managed to inject into a bunch of plastic bricks, bringing to life iconic cinematic moments with a unique twist and strong sense of humour. Despite the lack of dialogue and voice-overs, cut-scenes within the game are instantly familiar and play upon classic Star Wars scenes such as Princess Leia opening up R2-D2 like a dustbin to conceal the Death Star plans or Darth Vader's Force-Choke literally popping the LEGO head off a Rebel soldier!
Traveller's Tales biggest achievement with LEGO Star Wars was creating a game that appealed to such a vast audience - Star Wars fans, LEGO fans; children, adults; hardcore gamers, casual players; Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans (well maybe not)... In doing so there were issues, one being the relative ease of the game and the way in which the lack of challenge harmed the long-term appeal for the more hardened gamers. To address this Traveller's Tales have introduced an adaptive difficulty feature, which supposedly scales the difficulty up to suit the player's skill. In actuality all this seems to provide is an increased supply of opponents to keep you busy, which only begins to get annoying when all you want to do is move on with the level. Despite the flaws, it is a welcome addition to combat one of the biggest issues in the original and the option is always there to switch it off â“ perhaps you just can't make a videogame for everybody!
Sticking so closely to the original continues to reveal niggles that we hoped would have been ironed out for the sequel. The fixed camera positions can still cause the occasional moment of frustration, and there's little doubt that the theme of simplicity running throughout is both the game's strongest and weakest aspect. Mission objectives rarely require more then progressing through a linear level, dealing out LEGO styled death to Stormtroopers, collecting thousands of LEGO studs and occasionally solving a LEGO take on the archetypal videogame block puzzle. Further issues from the original continue to exacerbate the action; the lightweight jumps feel shallow and unresponsive; combat little more than blind luck and, more unacceptably, making a lightsabre feel woefully inadequate, unexciting and about as useful as a cheap, merchandised imitation.
Designed with a drop-in/drop-out two-player co-op mode, LEGO Star Wars II is best played with a friend, particularly when the AI controlling the characters does such a pathetic job of helping when you are playing alone. Perhaps it would have made the game too easy if AI controlled allies actually destroyed the LEGO Stormtroopers or perhaps an aspect of the adaptive AI; the result can be highly irritating as you're attempting to build up a heap of LEGO bricks, but kept getting shot because Chewie won't do what he's told. Whilst we're on the subject, switching between characters by needing to be close by also remains frustrating, particularly when there is more then two characters huddled in a close group.
Nevertheless, these seem like minor complaints when considering what LEGO Star Wars is all about; it's not the best platform title in the world, it's not the best action title, but it does manage to create an entertaining and stylish experience for a wide audience that keeps you hooked with its bite-size take on the Star Wars trilogy.
It would not be a sequel without a handful of new additions (jokes about EA seem a tad overused these days), the most notable being the inclusion of fully controllable vehicles throughout the game. The hostile icelands of Hoth provide the backdrop to take a Snowspeeder for a spin, whilst the LEGO Millennium Falcon gets an outing once or twice. Unlike the original vehicles feature in properly designed stages and no longer merely on-rails action. Bacta tanks at the Mos Eisley Cantina also introduce a new "mix-and-match" feature, swapping character parts on two figures to create some truly deranged combinations.
Away from the instantly recognisable, yet distinctively different, cut-scenes, the cast of playable characters covers pretty much every character from the original Star Wars universe. Many of the game's puzzles and secret areas are solved and discovered by using the various attributes of the different characters, opening up specific doors, using grappling hooks or moving objects with the Force. One such example is the creative approach to the introduction of Episode VI and the rescue of Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt. Players have to guide Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker and the 2 droids around the palace, along the way making use of the force, a droid's ability to hack terminals and don Bounty Hunter hats to open certain doors and destroy objects with thermal detonators. Although the puzzles are unlikely to keep you stumped for too long, they are a stronger aspect of the game and provide many of the game's most satisfying moments - watching Jabba's Gamorrean Guards jam away on their axes to "The Imperial March" on a LEGO amp you have just assembled never grows old.
A stack of unlockable extras, cheats and secrets provides a strong sense of compulsion to the game and should be enough to keep even a Star Wars fanatic happy. Players with a saved game from LEGO Star Wars will be able to use characters unlocked in the original, adding to an already comprehensive cast of characters to discover (yes Princess Leia in her slave outfit is there in all her synthetic glory!). Unlocking the secrets provides genuine rewards that significantly expand the game, from mini Death Stars on tow to seeing Darth Vader donning the original comedy disguise! A game that is designed to keep you coming back for more with a Bounty Hunter mode opened after unlocking all of the bounty hunter characters, players must have to scour each stage to find a certain character and do what bounty hunters do... only in LEGO style!
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 30th Dec 2006 09:02
Arry
Date Added:Thu 28th Sep 2006 12:53
DeadLegs
Date Added:Thu 28th Sep 2006 12:31
Anonymous
Date Added:Fri 22nd Sep 2006 13:01
Chromedome
Date Added:Sat 16th Sep 2006 23:36