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September 3, 2006 | 3:46 PM PST
by: Adam Beck
There only can be a few unique titles released each year and last year Lego Star Wars was one of them. Mixing the Star Wars and Lego was a difficult approach as it wasn’t usually what you’d except from a Star Wars title. But LucasArts and Traveller’s Tales pulled it off releasing an entertaining and humorous title, what looked like a childish game turned into a game that could be loved by everyone. In September this year LucasArts will be releasing a sequel to the original Lego Star Wars promising more puzzles, characters, stages and constructible items.
Like the original title, the second installment of Lego Star Wars will go through three different movies of the series. Each movie will include six chapters and they will also offer two bonus chapters for each volume you play. Not to mention an "ultimate" secret level you can obtain by finish all of the chapters. This said the original title didn’t really balance the vehicle and on foot gameplay, but now LucasArts has made it so each movie will include at least one if not more vehicle chapters such as Jetfighter missions. This will help even out the variety of gameplay.
If you thought the first installment of the Lego Star Wars universe was too linear as they plugged you down in a small room or didn’t give the abilities to choose your own path, you can now put that a side because the Original Trilogy will include more open and adventurous environments, allowing additional freedom to include secret passages and items. Each massive level must be completed with specific characters. The characters in the first game were basically the same when it came down to what they can do such as build parts or hack into doors. But now each character will have their very own specific abilities in order to complete a mission. It may sound a bit linear thinking you need these specific characters to pass this part of the game but it actually gives the game more variety having a character with their own unique set of skills and strengths.
What’s fun when playing with Legos is the fact you have the ability to create what you want. In Lego Star Wars II, there are parts scattered throughout each level of the game that will allow you to build unlockable characters, items and even vehicles. What’s great about Lego Star Wars is all the playable characters. There are up to 50 unlockable characters throughot the game, not to mention characters you can build yourself. With fifty different characters, you’d think the developer would slack off and give each one the same lame animations over and over again, but they didn’t! Each character is equipped with their own original melee attack (Chewbacca karate chopping a stormtrooper’s head off never gets old) and animations that deal with each characters abilities and skills. Although not too effective, this gives the game more of a strategic value.
Hon can never get a smile up.
Gameplay is simple; you have both on-foot and vehicle missions. On foot, you start a stage with one or more characters and/or slowly find other faces you may recognize through a level. For example, in one level you can play as Hon Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and C3-PO. Like explained before, each character will have their own abilities that lead to helping you complete a mission. When playing with more than one character, all you have to do is press one button and you can swap between any characters in your party. When you are running around, the game will make you do various puzzles from pushing blocks to finding a specific helmet to get past a door. These puzzles don’t come as a surprise and don’t seem all that hard, but depending on your puzzle solving skills, so difficulty may vary. Now when you’re in a vehicle it’s a whole new game. Through each level there are usually vehicles to your disposal where you can hop in and out of and cause some good old fashion havoc. Say you’re plugged into… a Jetfighter you are given even more new and entertaining ways to "disassemble" your enemies. You can of course take down the AT-AT Walkers by shooting your grappling hook around their legs and tripping the giant machine. This of course won’t kill it, so you then grab onto a giant explosive sphere and roll it over to the temporarily disabled Walker. Of course this is just one way to defeat your enemies but a fun and interactive way none the less.
What’s one of the biggest changes in the new title is the adaptive difficulty setting. Now they’ve created an interesting system that monitors your progress whether you’re finding the game too easy or too hard to your liking. The system determines how you’re doing and automatically changes the settings, such as if you haven’t been killed in three levels they’ll decrease the dropped health items or increase the amount of enemies at a time. Or if you continue to find yourself in pieces every couple seconds it’ll give you more dropped hearts or more ammunition. This seems like a fun and new innovative setting but some people may not take a liking to this, but luckily they’ve included an option of turning it on or off to meet everyone’s expectations.
Look how shiny my helmet is!
The camera system in the Original Trilogy is very similar to the first game, you won't have full control of it, but you now have the ability to pan in and out with the right analog stick, helping you find those tight spots if you ever want to go treasure hunting. It would have been nice if they included a fully controllable camera because the fixed camera angles have always been a frustrating part in video games, but I guess it’s just something they’ll need to improve on in the next title.
Multiplayer, again, is similar to the first game. Basically it's just co-op play, a second player in your current home set up can join your game at anytime and he can fight along side you… and if that person gets on your nerves you can always blast him away with your gun or chop him up with your lightsaber. What is disappointing is the lack of Xbox Live support. As much as there is cooperative play, there is no Xbox Live multiplayer. We hope in the next installment they’ll enable some the Xbox Live gameplay.
Another new interesting feature the developer has given us is the ability to build your own character! That’s right, now you can make Darth Yoda! You will have the option of attaching heads, hair, bodies, legs, arms and different weapons to your customizable character and depending on the items equipped you can obtain either dark or light Jedi powers. So now you can play through the game with whoever you please.
Graphically, on the Xbox 360, it’s no next-gen title that’s for sure, but it was never meant to wow the audience. Characters of course are blocky as they are, well… Lego creations, the environments on the other hand look very polished and actually start to look like a next-generation video game, as do some of the special effects from focus blurring to the glow of Jedi lightsabers. From what was shown, graphics won’t blow anyone away who is looking for a highly detailed game but these graphics do capture the humorous and Lego feel.
Shhh… I’m in Disguise!
The game is going to be released on all the current platforms, but if you have ever played the original game on the last generation systems (GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox) you’ll be able to load your saved file and have the option of playing as any of the characters you have unlocked from that title. It’s a nice feature, but not very useful for us Xbox 360 gamers. Luckily LucasArts will be offering downloadable content such as characters later on. No charges have been announced.
The game will sure to please the fans of the original and the Star Wars series as it takes what everyone loved from the first game and improves on it. Check back with AMN this September when we give our full hands-on review.
Like the original title, the second installment of Lego Star Wars will go through three different movies of the series. Each movie will include six chapters and they will also offer two bonus chapters for each volume you play. Not to mention an "ultimate" secret level you can obtain by finish all of the chapters. This said the original title didn’t really balance the vehicle and on foot gameplay, but now LucasArts has made it so each movie will include at least one if not more vehicle chapters such as Jetfighter missions. This will help even out the variety of gameplay.
If you thought the first installment of the Lego Star Wars universe was too linear as they plugged you down in a small room or didn’t give the abilities to choose your own path, you can now put that a side because the Original Trilogy will include more open and adventurous environments, allowing additional freedom to include secret passages and items. Each massive level must be completed with specific characters. The characters in the first game were basically the same when it came down to what they can do such as build parts or hack into doors. But now each character will have their very own specific abilities in order to complete a mission. It may sound a bit linear thinking you need these specific characters to pass this part of the game but it actually gives the game more variety having a character with their own unique set of skills and strengths.
What’s fun when playing with Legos is the fact you have the ability to create what you want. In Lego Star Wars II, there are parts scattered throughout each level of the game that will allow you to build unlockable characters, items and even vehicles. What’s great about Lego Star Wars is all the playable characters. There are up to 50 unlockable characters throughot the game, not to mention characters you can build yourself. With fifty different characters, you’d think the developer would slack off and give each one the same lame animations over and over again, but they didn’t! Each character is equipped with their own original melee attack (Chewbacca karate chopping a stormtrooper’s head off never gets old) and animations that deal with each characters abilities and skills. Although not too effective, this gives the game more of a strategic value.
Gameplay is simple; you have both on-foot and vehicle missions. On foot, you start a stage with one or more characters and/or slowly find other faces you may recognize through a level. For example, in one level you can play as Hon Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and C3-PO. Like explained before, each character will have their own abilities that lead to helping you complete a mission. When playing with more than one character, all you have to do is press one button and you can swap between any characters in your party. When you are running around, the game will make you do various puzzles from pushing blocks to finding a specific helmet to get past a door. These puzzles don’t come as a surprise and don’t seem all that hard, but depending on your puzzle solving skills, so difficulty may vary. Now when you’re in a vehicle it’s a whole new game. Through each level there are usually vehicles to your disposal where you can hop in and out of and cause some good old fashion havoc. Say you’re plugged into… a Jetfighter you are given even more new and entertaining ways to "disassemble" your enemies. You can of course take down the AT-AT Walkers by shooting your grappling hook around their legs and tripping the giant machine. This of course won’t kill it, so you then grab onto a giant explosive sphere and roll it over to the temporarily disabled Walker. Of course this is just one way to defeat your enemies but a fun and interactive way none the less.
What’s one of the biggest changes in the new title is the adaptive difficulty setting. Now they’ve created an interesting system that monitors your progress whether you’re finding the game too easy or too hard to your liking. The system determines how you’re doing and automatically changes the settings, such as if you haven’t been killed in three levels they’ll decrease the dropped health items or increase the amount of enemies at a time. Or if you continue to find yourself in pieces every couple seconds it’ll give you more dropped hearts or more ammunition. This seems like a fun and new innovative setting but some people may not take a liking to this, but luckily they’ve included an option of turning it on or off to meet everyone’s expectations.
The camera system in the Original Trilogy is very similar to the first game, you won't have full control of it, but you now have the ability to pan in and out with the right analog stick, helping you find those tight spots if you ever want to go treasure hunting. It would have been nice if they included a fully controllable camera because the fixed camera angles have always been a frustrating part in video games, but I guess it’s just something they’ll need to improve on in the next title.
Multiplayer, again, is similar to the first game. Basically it's just co-op play, a second player in your current home set up can join your game at anytime and he can fight along side you… and if that person gets on your nerves you can always blast him away with your gun or chop him up with your lightsaber. What is disappointing is the lack of Xbox Live support. As much as there is cooperative play, there is no Xbox Live multiplayer. We hope in the next installment they’ll enable some the Xbox Live gameplay.
Another new interesting feature the developer has given us is the ability to build your own character! That’s right, now you can make Darth Yoda! You will have the option of attaching heads, hair, bodies, legs, arms and different weapons to your customizable character and depending on the items equipped you can obtain either dark or light Jedi powers. So now you can play through the game with whoever you please.
Graphically, on the Xbox 360, it’s no next-gen title that’s for sure, but it was never meant to wow the audience. Characters of course are blocky as they are, well… Lego creations, the environments on the other hand look very polished and actually start to look like a next-generation video game, as do some of the special effects from focus blurring to the glow of Jedi lightsabers. From what was shown, graphics won’t blow anyone away who is looking for a highly detailed game but these graphics do capture the humorous and Lego feel.
The game is going to be released on all the current platforms, but if you have ever played the original game on the last generation systems (GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox) you’ll be able to load your saved file and have the option of playing as any of the characters you have unlocked from that title. It’s a nice feature, but not very useful for us Xbox 360 gamers. Luckily LucasArts will be offering downloadable content such as characters later on. No charges have been announced.
The game will sure to please the fans of the original and the Star Wars series as it takes what everyone loved from the first game and improves on it. Check back with AMN this September when we give our full hands-on review.
February 8, 2010
