So, we all know the story of George Lucas's Star Wars saga, we've all seen the movies, bought and collected the toys - far too many in my own life - and all put our hands to our heads when Jar Jar Binks just did not die horribly in the first thirty seconds of the Phantom Menace ! So how was the greatest story ever told (apologies to Christians throughout the world) going to be translated into Lego ?
The answer ? Superbly ! This is a fantastic little game in my opinion, even though I prefer playing games like Obscure, Doom 3 and Silent Hill - I think working for my company for 23 years is slowly making me realise working for the Umbrella Corp might be a better idea.
It was a total break from the norm, an entertaining and refreshing, silly piece of non-sense. Any game that you can put a moustache on R2-D2 cannot really be held too highly in the Mastermind fraternity !
The game is divide into the 3 movies and you can play your way through any of the three - you do not have to finish them in any order, so you can go straight to `Revenge' , if that's your thing. Each movie is divided up into 5 or 6 sub-levels - these you do have to play in order.
The idea of the game is simply to go through the levels, defeat your enemies, collect lego studs and kits, and achieve `jedi' status to gain super-kit bonus's. As you meet fellow characters, you can take control of them and those you defeat you can buy - with exorbitant amounts of studs - in Dexter's shop after finishing the level, to replay any level with purchased or `met' additional characters. This is where the designers of the game have put a lot of work into the planning of the game, as some of the collectables can only be reached or obtained by characters you meet in later stages of the game. And as much as I hate to say it - this is where Jar Jar Binks really comes into his own.
Other really fun characters to control are the extensively jumping and powerful Yoda, General Grievous with his multiple sabres and Darth Maul - lets face it, we all want to play the bad guy !
The publishers of this game advertise it as being suitable for children as young as 3+, and yeah I guess a very small child could well move the characters around the screen and fight a few battles, but - and I would not put my house on it with new generations - I doubt very much that there is anyway that their eye to controller co-ordination would allow them to finish it. I don't play many video games - if I am honest I am slowly working my way through cheap pre-owned ones - and I have to admit I struggled a little on some of the levels. They will especially not find the Pod-Racing and Battle over Coruscant too easy.
Other good features of this game are that when you die (in exploding lego pieces), you do not have to start the monotonous trek from the beginning of the level again, you simply lose a few studs and carry on from where you left off - in fact if your quick you can pick up what you dropped. Even some of the really useless characters have uses, children that can crawl through vents to collect items, Droids that can fly short distances, troopers that can fire grappling hooks to other high levels. Fighting with Tea-cups ? Two player drop in and out allows Dad to play along too.
I never thought that I would say this, but I found myself totally addicted to 3+ rated game !
As a final note I would just like to add `4PR28U' and `LD116B` !!!