Lego Star Wars II

I have to confess to being a bit of a lego fan, and I have had the opportunity to play a bit of the new Star Wars lego game on the playstation 2 over the Christmas holiday.

This is the second installment of the game, and is based on the original star wars trilogy. As described on the official site, its a very tongue-in-cheek take on the original films. There are two modes of play – story and freeplay. In story mode you select a movie to play levels from and work you way through the different sections of the film. Each level starts with ‘lego-ized’ animated sections of the movie with some comic additions\alterations. You then get to run around as an appropriate lego star wars character fighting storm troopers, building items and picking up bricks, mini-kits and ‘coins’. These collectable items can be used to develop your ‘true jedi’ score and to exchange for hidden characters, tips and quite possibly other things I haven’t seen yet. There are also puzzle types of activities where you have to work out what to do next to overcome a certain obstacle or move on to the next section. You can ride in different vehicles – from what i’ve seen so far – including snow-speeder, at-at and even bantha! The AI of the other characters wandering around the landscape with you also seems pretty good. The freeplay mode you can select the characters that you want to play, and skip between them. This mode allows you to go back to played levels and pick up objects, and access special areas using new characters that you pick up or buy.

The graphics and gameplay are excellent. This is a two player game as well if you want, just pick up the second controller and two can play in either mode. I’ve only seen a bit of this game but I think it would keep kids of all ages busy and challenged for quite a while!

In the first few minutes of the game you can be running round as Princess Leia and slapping storm troopers – what more can I say? Definitely recommended for the gloomy winter evenings – must get myself a copy!