Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
We've already established in previous reviews that the LEGO Star Wars series is a great, surprisingly fun franchise that extends the sci-fi epic into an unexpected direction. The console games, and to a lesser extent the Game Boy Advance conversions of that design, offers a lot of solid and tight action based off of the immediately recognizable scenes from each of the film. LEGO Star Wars II may be a sequel to last year's game that was based upon the prequel trilogy, but it's the first time that the game's been made for the Nintendo DS handheld. And though the entire DS rendition pulls from the same excellent design that the consoles, PC, and PSP systems are currently enjoying, it's absolutely riddled with bugs and glitches, and in many cases these bugs make some portions of the game -- mostly, the multiplayer aspect -- almost entirely unplayable.
The idea of LEGO Star Wars II is to present the theatrical movie scenes as action-based levels of blaster or light saber-wielding action, but in the form of LEGO block characters and environments. It's a goofy idea that's succeeded in an original design last year, and that game foundation has been built up for the original three Star Wars movies A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Bringing it into the world of Episode IV, V, and VI makes the concept even more awesome since the classic series is way, way more recognizable and offers much more for players to relate to. It's just inherently cooler in this universe: playing as Luke Skywalker in his progression as a Jedi master, piloting an X-Wing, Tie Fighter, or Millennium Falcon, or taking down AT-AT walkers with a tow cable is just much more awesome than anything Episode I, II, or III ever offered.
Thrusting it all into the LEGO universe is just the icing on the cake because it gives the designers license to not take themselves seriously. These are goofy plastic toys, and it opens up a world of humor even if the action itself is straight-forward serious stuff. Cutscenes break down the storyline into pantomimed animation from these single-jointed characterizations, and even when the plot takes its more dramatic direction, that drama is translated into goofiness that works.
So we've established that the concept is a great one, and on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PC the game design works. Even in limited fashion the 2D-ized Game Boy Advance rendition did a decent job working that concept into its limitations. And had the DS version received the same attention to development detail as the console versions everything would be peachy. But it's not.
Oh, it starts out promising enough: the same 3D graphics of the console game have been ported over to the not-quite-as-powerful DS hardware, as has the familiar Star Wars soundtrack and audio effects to supplement the action. This handheld version has the same huge assortment of available and unlockable characters, as well as the cool "Create a Character" mode. There's even the "jump in at any time" co-op mode through the Nintendo DS system's wireless connectivity feature. And even though many of the cutscenes of the console games have been abridged or removed, they're still there in some fashion offering a taste of the humor of the original design.
But then things start straying in a direction that tells us that this game was rushed out the door. The camera system, admittedly one of the weaker elements of the console design, is handled horrendously on the Nintendo DS platform -- half the time it works as it's intended, but in that other half it'll get stuck or move too slowly, or not get close enough to the action to see gaps properly. Environments and characters will simply vanish off screen an obscene amount of times throughout the experience; you'll be walking along when suddenly "poof!" There goes the backdrop. There goes Han Solo. There goes your X-Wing or the asteroids you're flying around. It happens so much that I wouldn't be surprised that people will think their copy is defective. When we played it for review we tested it on multiple retail copies, on multiple games. This game is riddled with bugs and it's entirely unacceptable to find this many in a final retail product that can't even be patched with a post-release download.
The worst glitch culprit is the sloppily handled multiplayer aspect. The cooperative mode understandably requires a copy for each of the two systems linked together, but it enables one player to play through his own story mode and opt to turn on the Wireless function to let someone else control the second character that's tagging along by default. But when we tested this we couldn't play it for more than three minutes without a system lock-up. Ditto for the four-player single cartridge deathmatch: a good idea, but either it wasn't tested or simply given the thumbs up after a single minute of play -- lock-ups occurred almost every time we tried to duke it out in this mode.
©2006-09-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The idea of LEGO Star Wars II is to present the theatrical movie scenes as action-based levels of blaster or light saber-wielding action, but in the form of LEGO block characters and environments. It's a goofy idea that's succeeded in an original design last year, and that game foundation has been built up for the original three Star Wars movies A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Bringing it into the world of Episode IV, V, and VI makes the concept even more awesome since the classic series is way, way more recognizable and offers much more for players to relate to. It's just inherently cooler in this universe: playing as Luke Skywalker in his progression as a Jedi master, piloting an X-Wing, Tie Fighter, or Millennium Falcon, or taking down AT-AT walkers with a tow cable is just much more awesome than anything Episode I, II, or III ever offered.
Thrusting it all into the LEGO universe is just the icing on the cake because it gives the designers license to not take themselves seriously. These are goofy plastic toys, and it opens up a world of humor even if the action itself is straight-forward serious stuff. Cutscenes break down the storyline into pantomimed animation from these single-jointed characterizations, and even when the plot takes its more dramatic direction, that drama is translated into goofiness that works.
So we've established that the concept is a great one, and on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PC the game design works. Even in limited fashion the 2D-ized Game Boy Advance rendition did a decent job working that concept into its limitations. And had the DS version received the same attention to development detail as the console versions everything would be peachy. But it's not.
Oh, it starts out promising enough: the same 3D graphics of the console game have been ported over to the not-quite-as-powerful DS hardware, as has the familiar Star Wars soundtrack and audio effects to supplement the action. This handheld version has the same huge assortment of available and unlockable characters, as well as the cool "Create a Character" mode. There's even the "jump in at any time" co-op mode through the Nintendo DS system's wireless connectivity feature. And even though many of the cutscenes of the console games have been abridged or removed, they're still there in some fashion offering a taste of the humor of the original design.
But then things start straying in a direction that tells us that this game was rushed out the door. The camera system, admittedly one of the weaker elements of the console design, is handled horrendously on the Nintendo DS platform -- half the time it works as it's intended, but in that other half it'll get stuck or move too slowly, or not get close enough to the action to see gaps properly. Environments and characters will simply vanish off screen an obscene amount of times throughout the experience; you'll be walking along when suddenly "poof!" There goes the backdrop. There goes Han Solo. There goes your X-Wing or the asteroids you're flying around. It happens so much that I wouldn't be surprised that people will think their copy is defective. When we played it for review we tested it on multiple retail copies, on multiple games. This game is riddled with bugs and it's entirely unacceptable to find this many in a final retail product that can't even be patched with a post-release download.
The worst glitch culprit is the sloppily handled multiplayer aspect. The cooperative mode understandably requires a copy for each of the two systems linked together, but it enables one player to play through his own story mode and opt to turn on the Wireless function to let someone else control the second character that's tagging along by default. But when we tested this we couldn't play it for more than three minutes without a system lock-up. Ditto for the four-player single cartridge deathmatch: a good idea, but either it wasn't tested or simply given the thumbs up after a single minute of play -- lock-ups occurred almost every time we tried to duke it out in this mode.
©2006-09-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved