A long time ago in a Legoland far far away…
Finally, the two things that dominated my childhood have come together to create the ultimate experience. That’s right, Star Wars has been “Legofied”. This time around you won’t have to read steps 1 through 25 to make the object on the front of the box, or worry about getting to step 13 and finding out that a piece has gone missing. Nope, this time it’s all done for you. With the press of a button you can do in seconds what took you 10 minutes as a kid. That building speed has united with, one of my favorite, and I’m sure the favorite of many, Sci-Fi movie trilogies to walk the earth - Star Wars. The game follows the story of the original trilogy almost exactly. Even with the lack of dialogue in the cut-scenes, you know what’s going on. They’ve even added a splash of Lego humor to keep the dialogueless scenes interesting. Either way, this game provides hours of fun, so grab a six pack of suds...uh...I mean Coca Cola Classic and a friend and have fun reenacting the greatest trilogy as Legos.

Play Han Solo or Obi Wan Co-opinobi
Clearly this game was designed for two players; this is obvious by the easy drop-in/drop-out option for a second player. No matter where you are in the game, if a friend wants in all they have to do is hit start and they join right into the action. No more restarting when a friend wants to jump in. As a game geared for “kids” they’ve made the controls extremely simple; attack button, action button, and that’s pretty much it. The attacks vary depending on which character you control and the action button is used for pulling levers, building Lego objects, and using force powers. Nice and simple.

So simple, in fact, that a person (such as my roommate) who hates video games found themselves glued to the screen playing into the wee hours of the night, and updating me every time they unlocked something. The only feeling that accurately describes their enthusiasm is Christmas morning, too bad he’s Jewish. But they now know and understand my joy and pain when I accomplish or don’t accomplish something in video game land. Every level in Lego Star Wars is filled with mini puzzles that lead to bigger puzzles that keep the game moving, as well as, unlock secret objects. This game is loaded with unlockable items. While you play you also collect Lego currency which can be used in the Mos Eisley Cantina, your home base, to purchase other items. Some puzzles are hard; others are so simple they’re hard. Let’s just say a few puzzles had two twenty-somethings ready to turn the game off and go to the bar. There are also side puzzles in each level that can only be solved using other characters, which can be done in the free play levels. Each of the three movies is broken down into chapters. Every chapter you complete you unlock a free play level of that chapter. With the free play you can go back and complete the level with anyone of the many (about 100) different characters you unlock during the game. There are also all the flying missions from the original movies, bonus levels, and even really cool bounty hunter missions. Basically, what I’m getting at is this game is filled with all sorts of goodies. Even if you run through the entire story mode the game isn’t over by a long shot. Granted, it doesn’t really take that long to finish the story mode of the game (took me and a roommate about 13 hours) but once you finish the story mode you’re only about a third of the way done. So like the movies, there is plenty of re-play value.

“Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?”
Looks wise, the in-game graphics are great. Simple animations of characters faces when they’re standing around too long add an extra bit of humor to this already funny idea. Some of the cut-scenes are blocky, no pun intended, but still look good and replicate scenes from the original trilogy. The sounds and music of the game are awesome because they’ve been lifted right from the movies. From the sound of a blaster firing to the wave of a lightsaber to the Imperial March, it’s all there.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.”
So far I’ve only pointed out the good in the game and I probably sound like Qwi-Gon hyping Anakin, but it is Star Wars + Legos. How can you go wrong? Well there are a few things that aren’t necessarily wrong, but reallllll annoying. One thing is the camera angle; it’s a static third person view. Sometimes things are hard to see and if you’re playing with two people and one person moves across the opposite side of the screen, so will you, which is annoying when one person can jump over pitfalls faster than the other. This camera angle also makes it difficult in some areas to see if storm troopers are approaching. All of a sudden a blast will go off from across the screen and you’re done. Another thing that is fairly annoying is that being a Jedi isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I died many times as a Jedi because I couldn’t land a hit with my lightsaber…very annoying. All in all this game is great, provides a lot of fun and will have you remembering and reciting lines from the original movies. One last thing, when I say original I mean Han shoots first.