Developer: Traveller's Tales
Publisher: Eidos
Release Date: October 25, 2005 (North America), November 4, 2005 (Europe)
Platforms: Sony PlayStation 2,
Nintendo GameCube,
Microsoft Xbox,
PC (
Windows XP only),
Macintosh
ESRB Rating: E (Violence)
Introduction
At first glance, Lego Star Wars: The Video Game
sounds like crass commercialism at its finest: not only a licensed game
but a licensed game based on licensed Lego! However, much like the
first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the apparent cash-grab
fell into the creative hands of people who, through actually caring
about their subject matter, make something much better than its origins
might otherwise suggest. What Traveller's Tales has done is take the
'Star Wars in Lego' conceit and make an enjoyable, lightweight
platform action game with a plethora of secrets and goals and quality,
seamless co-op multiplayer. That it retells the story of the Star
Wars prequel trilogy (in a rather silly and enjoyable way) only
increases the familiarity of the setting and character, adding Lego Star Wars
to the long list of worthwhile Star Wars games.
Gameplay
Most of the 'Chapters' of Lego Star Wars
consist of relatively conventional 3D platform game worlds, only with
everything made up of Lego pieces. The player(s) lead around a party
of two or more characters, which they can switch between at any time,
battling enemies and passing through movement puzzles. Even in
single-player, the team aspect persists, as the different types of
characters have different ways of fighting and interacting with the
level. Jedi characters fight with lightsabers and can manipulate a
variety of (helpfully highlighted) objects and even (certain) enemies
using their Force powers, and also have the now standard
double-jump ability for moving around the level. Non-Jedi humans and
aliens fight with blasters (or bowcasters for Wookiees) and
compensate for the lack of double-jump with a grappling hook.
Finally, droids, though mostly helpless in battle, allow the party to
pass through locked doors and activate machinery, and some can
also hover over gaps wider than other characters can jump.
This
toolbox of abilities is pressed into action fighting the legions of
enemies populating the platform levels, collecting the ill-named Studs
which act as score, extra lives, and currency, and finding secrets.
When playing in the 'Story' mode the composition of your party is set
by the necessities of the plot, while completing Chapters allows for
'Free Play' mode using any character yet unlocked in the Story Mode.
Combat is a fairly straightforward affair, with additional subtlety for
lightsaber-wielders by allowing them to deflect, and hopefully deflect
back, the blaster bolts of the enemy forces. Each player has four hit
points, replenished by collecting Hearts dropped by vanquished foes,
but defeat is even more minor than it is in many other modern platform
games; the character collapses into a pile of Studs, which are lost if
not recollected, and then regenerates with full health in the same spot
where they were defeated. This greatly decreases the difficulty of the
game, as the only penalty for failure is the possible loss of a few
Studs.
A few Chapters forgo the usual platform gameplay for
minigame-style racing or shooting. The pod race from Episode I is present, as well as a couple of space combat
scenes and one ground-vehicle sequence. Unlike the forgiving gameplay
of the platform sections, the minigames are fairly exacting. Anakin must win every section of the pod race, or he must do
it over, and the rail shooter space combat sections are similar with
the many hazards found along the player's path. Furthermore, many of
the (sometimes complex) objectives are not explained in any way and
must be figured out by trial and error. In general, I found the
perfectionism and vague direction of most of these segments clashed
with the lightweight and accessible nature of the rest of the game.
Presentation
As one might expect, the graphics for Lego Star Wars
are blocky and flat-textured. All of the systems it is available
for are capable of rendering plenty of Lego bricks and Traveller's
Tales uses this to great effect. Many recognizable locales appear,
clearly made at least partly out of Lego. When called on by the
player's Force powers, objects smoothly break into their constituent
bricks or assemble into useful structures. The simplicity of the
graphics engine also allows the replication of many complicated scenes,
especially during Episode III. While the gameplay
of the opening space battle may be lacking, the dizzyingly complex
battle from the movie is recreated convincingly in real-time all
around the player, and a beach invasion on Kashhyyk later on includes
hordes of troops and the clones' proto-AT-ATs without any slowdown.
In the sound department, Lego Star Wars,
like any other Star Wars game, gains strongly from the movies' music
and sound effects. The music consists mostly of excerpts from John
Williams's scores edited to fit the game's requirements, while
familiar Star Wars artifacts all sound like you'd expect, from the buzz
of the lightsabers to the swish of the doors to R2-D2's trademark
beeping. Notably absent, though, is voice acting, but its absence is
entirely mitigated by the hilarious cutscenes where all the pivotal
moments are acted out solely through the gestures of the Lego-piece
characters.
The control is simple, with the four face buttons
mapping to jump, attack, special ability (usually the Force), and 'tag'
to another character. Unfortunately I found that the control was at
times annoyingly loose, especially during lightsaber combat. At no
point during the game did I feel I was adequately controlling the
lightsaber as opposed to randomly flailing at my enemies. After the
smooth melee combat of other current platform games like Sly Cooper and even Ratchet and Clank, the lightsaber control felt lacking. It does
seem that the developers recognized this, though, as most of the major
boss battles have been redesigned, at least in part, from lightsaber
duels to environmental battles often involving Force control of
objects.
Replayability
Lego Star Wars was
designed with many reasons for people to keep playing after finishing
the rather short Story Mode for the first time. The Lego Studs found
throughout the game's levels, in addition to acting as currency for
unlocking various bonuses at the game's hub, Dexter's Diner, are also a
scoring method and fill up each level's Jedi Meter. If the player finds
enough Studs to fill the Jedi Meter and keeps them through the end of
the level, the player is said to have attained True Jedi status and a
Superkit piece is acquired. If the entire Superkit is found (one piece
for each level), a rather futuristic secret is unlocked. In
addition, each level hides ten Minikit pieces, often hidden away or
inaccessible using the characters from Story Mode. Collecting these has
no practical consequence besides the 'gotta catch 'em all'
factor, besides a few bonus Studs for completing each level's Minikit.
Although
I was unable to try it, the co-op
multiplayer is pervasive and is supported in all gameplay modes and
levels, with a second player able to join or leave at any time simply
by pressing the Start button on the second controller. Reports from
elsewhere have been overwhelmingly positive on the multiplayer, and I
can definitely see it being an enjoyably social experience. Only the
final battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the nascent Darth Vader
breaks with the co-op focus of the game, with normal co-op platformer
sequences confusingly alternated with player-versus-player lightsaber
dueling.
Summary
Lego Star Wars is a fun and
accessible game. While designed for a younger crowd than the usual
hardcore gamer, it has a style and depth that make it a worthwhile play
even for serious gamers. Its success has spawned a sequel based on the
classic Star Wars trilogy and a port for newer systems called Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
A Game Boy Advance game of the same title was also released but is
vastly different due to the technical limitations of the platform. Now
that the full Star Wars saga has been Lego-ized in game form,
Travellers' Tales is moving on to a new license: Lego Batman.
Pros:
- Accessible, lightweight gameplay
- Pervasive co-op multiplayer
- Humourously retells the Star Wars prequels with Lego people
Cons:
- Loose, imprecise controls
- Minigame levels not up to the standard set by platform levels
(CC)
This
writeup is copyright 2007 by me and is released under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial licence. Details
can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/2.5/ .