Lego Star Wars II (Pre-E3 2006)

At first thought, Lego and Star Wars seem to go together like…well, like Hilary Duff and Guinness…that is to say, not well at all. However, the folks at LucasArts and Traveler’s Tales proved otherwise with last years Lego Star Wars game. The game was admittedly aimed at children, but it was a solid game that stood on its own merits. Banking off the success of the first title, the two have paired up again to bring us Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy.

The game, as if it weren’t already obvious, will follow the events of the original flicks, episodes four through six. The game maintains the Lego look and feel and throws in plenty of humor to keep a light hearted feeling. If you’re an older Star Wars fan, fear not, for even though the game looks a tad goofy, all the characters are there and many nods are given to the films as you’ll discover. For instance, remember the story of Wookies pulling arms off of people? Bingo, using the Lego anatomy, Chewy is free to rip arms off all he likes in this game. The Lego look keeps it kid friendly and the action itself is fun for the older crowd too.

The gameplay in the new game has been tweaked slightly from the first one. For starters, you can say goodbye to the handholding of the original title. The difficulty in this one will change depending on your performance. If you’re sending Stormtroopers home by the dozen, things will get a bit harder to keep you on your toes. Also, the camera isn’t quite as restricted as before and there will be many new vehicles to pilot this time around. The game also allows for some custom characters to be created. As any Lego fan knows, it was always a lot of fun to pull the arms, head or what have you off one Lego guy and stick them on a different Lego guy, or Lego girl if you were so inclined. This is nicely replicated as you can concoct a nearly limitless amount of unique characters using the editor.

Since the story of the game follows the movies, there should be relatively few surprises in terms of plot. In order to give each movie some time in the spot light, the game features over twenty levels equally split to allow the player to progress through each of the films. There are also hidden stages and mini-games for those that like to be thorough. While on the subject of being thorough, the game will allow you to take control of more than fifty different characters! That should be more than enough for even the hardest of the hard core fans out there.

Lego Star Wars II is still a few months off from official release so there’s plenty more the developers can cram into it, but it’s already looking solid. The developers seem to be doing the right thing by not straying too far from the original path, but weaving around a bit here and there to make it a more enjoyable game. Right now, things are looking promising so keep an eye out for this one in the future. Oh, and it’s pretty neat how I was able to get through this preview without using any cliché Star Wars quotes, huh?