These are the droids you’re looking for

by Jamil Bhatti

Fun factor: Fun

Worth to: Buy

Finally, the ability to play with LEGO’s without breaking your fingernails, chipping your teeth or stepping on sharp bits. A glowing tribute to Star Wars. Huge, comprehensive, and FUN.

Lego Star Wars was released in 2005; its popularity led to a sequel in 2006. Since that time, both games have been improved, slightly revamped, and now packaged together in The Complete Saga, sort of a “Special Edition” if you will. Lego Star Wars II was host to many improvements over the original, most notably vehicle levels that were actually playable. Now both games are comfortably on the same level. Add to that tons of new bonus content and unlockables and huzzah! -- you have yourself a must-own compilation for Star Wars and LEGO fans alike. If you’ve played both previous versions, there probably isn’t enough here to warrant a new purchase; but, if you are a newbie to the series, you are about to hit some form of space-jackpot.



The Star Wars universe lends itself particularly well to being rendered in LEGO. Some things work perfectly: such as Darth Maul being chopped in half, Luke losing his hand, or C-3PO being busted into component parts and getting reassembled. Other stuff, like Slave Leia, tend to lean towards the disturbing. Bits of LEGO rubble can often be built into a useful door, bridge, or vehicle. Any LEGO you see can be interacted with in some manner which makes sense (usually, I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish by building that tractor on Dagobah). My point here is that the marriage between Star Wars and LEGO is a happy one, and relatively seamless. I only hope the “kiddy” coat of paint doesn’t deter grownups from playing; anyone who hated the Ewoks may be dismayed to find them even more cuddly.


Laugh it up, fuzzball!

Gameplay is built solidly around the architecture of all six films. No memorable moment is left out. From the Battle of Hoth to the Mos Espa Pod Race, it’s all here. The story is loosely told in gently comedic reenactments of famous scenes from the films. The characters don’t speak, but their generous facial expressions will communicate with gamers of all ages. That’s not to say the story is complete. If you haven’t seen the movies (what are you doing?, stop reading and go watch them), you won’t get much plot out of this, but Star Wars alums will enjoy seeing their favorite scenes reinterpreted in cute and goofy ways.

Your first task is to tackle the story mode. Here you play through all six episodes using the assigned characters most appropriate to them. Once you complete a mission you can play it again in “free-play” mode. This is the part where I began to realize just how varied and fun the game is. Now missions can be tackled with any character you have unlocked, using any bonuses you wish. Imagine posing as a droid, and then in the midst of your enemies becoming IG-88 and relentlessly tossing super thermal detonators around while Stormtroopers look on in horror as they realize they are holding, not guns, but carrots. I found countless variations of this sort of zaniness over the course of the game. Soon you too will begin to grasp the real depth offered here.



Every play through earns LEGO credits which can be redeemed at the Cantina Bar (think of it as a hub world) for new characters, ships, or my favorite: game changing red bricks. Everything you unlock makes it easier to acquire other things, which in turn begins to alter the gameplay itself, as you now have access to things which were previously unreachable. New characters offer new avenues of exploration that often reward you with hidden trinkets. If it wasn’t for this wonderfully paced out mechanic, I would quickly have tired of destroying objects and trying to gather credits for the thousandth time. But every unlockable item made me want to play more, every new character begged to be controlled, every ship flown, and every game-bending red brick turned “on” to see what it did. I’ll admit, it became an addiction of which I did not wish to be cured.

Although it takes a long time to complete, LEGO Star Wars: TCS is not a hard game. In fact, dying has almost no consequence at all, unless you count annoyance. In story mode you are docked some credits with each death, but that hardly kept me from making potentially fatal leaps in vain attempts to reach secret areas.

Online Co-op is a breeze and works just as well as I thought it would, although for some boneheaded reason both players must stay on the same screen. This would be fine if we were sitting next to each other on the couch, but over the internet? Seems kind of pointless to me, not to mention the fast-moving vehicle levels where even flying in the same direction isn’t really possible. The multiplayer versus mode feels a bit like a holdover from GameCube days -- there’s not much to it -- while the Co-op missions can be a blast if you don’t mind having to hang close to one another.


Who’s scruffy-looking?

Never have I played a game with this many playable characters. Prepare for your mind to boggle: I counted 128 personalities and 57 vehicles (not to mention the character generating Bacta Tank where you can “grow” any monstrously hideous hero you want)! I don’t care what side of the galaxy you hail from, that is a staggering amount of options. In fact, there are so many, that some characters by default are completely useless. The Gonk droid just waddles around going “gonk” and Chancelor Palpatine has no weapons and can’t jump. I suppose he could pull levers, but why would you bring that guy when you could be flipping switches as Jango Fett or the quietly-mysterious Lo-Bot?



When you replay missions in free-play and pick a character, a whole slew of ancillary characters are assigned to you, which at any time can be hot-swapped between. Most come in a certain class: Jedi wield lightsabers and use the Force; gun toting characters come equipped with a grappling hook; Protocol Droids open doors; Astromech Units hover and can disable other droids; Bounty Hunters throw thermal detonators; Dark Jedi are the only ones who can affect “dark” LEGO’s; some characters jump extra high (like Jar Jar Binks -- SEE! He is useful!); small characters can wiggle through tiny hatchways, etc. And that doesn’t even take into account the specific abilities of certain main characters: such as Vader with his force choke or Chewbacca pulling Stormtroopers’ arms off (is it wrong that something so horrific can now be so adorable?). Add this all up and you have a frightening amount of variety. While it may seem trifling, all of these skills are essential if you are to search out every nook and cranny.

The graphics are easily the worst part. They’ve been given the obligatory update to comply with HD output, but even fancy reflections can’t mask their “last-gen” roots. During gameplay itself this is barely noticeable, but cut-scenes zoom in a little too close and betray the jaggy edges and blurry textures. It’s not enough to hurt the experience, but if I want to wow someone with the raw power of my 360 this is not the game to choose. I did notice some weird redrawing problems, almost like dropping frame-rate, but it only happened a few times and was easily dismissed.


This R2 Unit has a bad motivator!

Unfortunately your A.I. companions have been through one too many forced memory wipes. It’s not as if they are actively working against you, but they are pretty apathetic to your plight. There are always two main characters on screen, but even if both characters are controlled by humans, at some point more characters will join your party (up to six at once). Your computer buddies are rather insecure and will hang together in a huddle. I suppose that’s better than wandering around all over the place, but it becomes tedious to switch characters when they are so close together. And since one of your primary duties in a level is to destroy and pick up LEGO “studs” (I’m not fond of the name either) it is a little exasperating to run around trying to catch these little things before they disappear while your teammates hang out in their little hacky-sack circle. You shouldn’t count on these guys to have your back when the fur starts flying either. Oh sure, they go through the motions, swinging their sabers or firing in the right direction, but it’s clearly on your shoulders to win the war. Interesting then, that when it comes to tripping switches or doing various tag-team duties, the computer A.I. is all over it, if only they could be more consistent in this regard.




Stay on target!

Remember that time you played a 3D action game and had no camera problems at all? I don’t either, and this game isn’t going to be the exception. The camera is loosely stuck in predetermined corners and can only be panned around slightly. In general it works fine, although for some reason if you are moving toward the screen the camera will not show what is in front of you (it’s a SURPRISE!). This comes up seldom, but two levels in Episode III had me running towards the camera while fleeing some kind of imminent danger. There was little hope of me avoiding those holes in the floor/lava pits on the first try, but at least I was able to see my hero’s face as he happily plunged to his death…


Summary

Even with such minor irritations, it’s hard to find too many faults with this game. It’s really a giant piece of fan service that pays homage to all things awesome about Star Wars and LEGO. Some may find it repetitious, which it is, but the shear volume of content should win over anyone with the stamina to see it through.