Lego My Star Wars II

Legos make everything more fun! It’s true!

by Wootini

The original Lego Star Wars achieved the impossible by somehow turning George Lucas’ flawed first three chapters to his space opera into an original, entertaining and surprisingly playable videogame. Who knew that simply turning everything into Legos would make everything better? Well, the fact that they don’t speak helped. Removing the dialogue was an important first step. Anyway, as good as the first game was, you can only imagine how much better Lego Star Wars 2 is, being based on the original (and actually good) trilogy!

Available for every single platform under the sun (though I understand the DS version is totally busted), I used the PS2 version because my Lego Star Wars 1 game save was supposed to unlock extra characters. Not that I actually noticed that happen at any point, but whatever. The game follows the same model as the first, where each movie is broken up into separate chapters, and you play through each of them in turn, either running around on foot or flying in a vehicle. Once a level is completed in Story Mode, Free Play is unlocked, allowing you to go back through it using the characters of your choice, making it possible to uncover all the hidden secrets. And there are a lot of secrets hidden in the nooks and crannies. It doesn’t take long to blow through Story Mode, but Free Play will consume your life if you really are intent on getting 100% completion.

The graphics are fine, but then again, Legos aren’t hard to render in polygons. Everyone looks adorable in miniaturized toy form, and there’s even the option to combine various heads, torsos and legs to create your own monstrous Frankensteins. So if you’ve ever wanted to put Yoda’s head on Slave Leia’s body, your dreams have come true! As I said before, there’s no dialogue, because Legos don’t speak, so the sound is all music. And since it’s the Star Wars theme, it’s obviously good. That’s all I can say about that.

The only real spoiler for the sheer atmosphere of fun that permeates this game is the AI. Basically, you control one of the three characters on screen, and the AI controls the others. Unfortunately, they’re mostly useless, especially since even when they do think to shoot at the enemies, their attacks can’t actually kill them. You want to take out those stormtroopers interrupting your attempts to build a bridge with your Force powers? Gotta do it yourself. It’s not a fatal flaw, but it sure does interrupt the flow as you’re coasting along.

All things considered, though, Lego Star Wars 2 is a whole lot of fun, and while it doesn’t necessarily improve on the original, it’s automatically better because the source material is so much more awesome. It may look like a kiddie game, but don’t let that keep you from playing one of the most fun games ever made!