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> Results: LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
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The ESRB says...
Cartoon Violence: For the amount of blasting that goes on, all that ever happens is falling into LEGO blocks. Even when Luke gets his hand cut off it is just a LEGO piece, and the replacement scene is hilarious! Crude Humor: This is pretty mild stuffﾗunless seeing Stormtroopers in a hot tub in their underwear, or coming across a rebel hiding in a stall in a bathroom on Hoth bother you. Load times for this game are unacceptably long. You wait as long as thirty seconds to wake up from sleep mode or transition between areas, and much longer to load an episode. When you put the system to sleep for any significant amount of time, the auto-save feature is disabled and the system complains about it and makes you work through the manual save system again at the next save point. These issues are notable because otherwise this might be the best version of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy available! The core of the game is identical to the version for the PC and consoles with all of the entertainment and replayability intact, but the PSP version has a bunch of exclusive features that add to the experience! You can unlock and replay the boss battles from the original LEGO Star Wars and even explore levels in a special Challenge Mode where you race to collect special blue canisters within a certain amount of time. You can even watch ﾑstory so far' videos associated with each of the bosses from the Prequel Trilogy. You only lose the bounty hunter missions, and your entire cast of unlocked characters doesn't stroll around the Cantina as they do in other versions. Playing through the Original Trilogy is easy for anyone to pick up. Your goal is to work your way through the stories while searching for canisters, LEGO studs, and power bricks. The controls are simple and direct, even better than the PC version because the analog stick allows expert handling of vehicles and subtle angle movements that are impossible with arrow keys. The lack of a second analog stick removes camera control, but I never had a problem with that. Replayability is central to this game despite a lack of internet multiplayer options. There is simply no way to earn everything by playing the story mode, regardless of how thoroughly you search. Some areas require Bounty Hunters or Dark Force users such as Darth Vader, while there are other rewards for getting a certain amount of LEGO studs in ﾑfree play' mode. The game is good at letting you know what rewards you've unlocked and how much progress you've made. It all adds up to another winner that you will share with your family when you are done playing it yourself.  
This game teaches important lessons, such as that Greedo most certainly did not shoot first.
One thing I loved in the original game was how it took a light-hearted look at everything. Even the tragic Jedi Temple scene was transformed into something sympathetic with some entertaining elements. Traveller's Tales imbued the Original Trilogy with that same feel. This game makes it apparent you will not find everything the first time through. Placement of Bounty Hunter doors and other items inaccessible by your current characters are more obvious than in the original LEGO Star Wars, and there are separate gold brick rewards for free play and story mode. You find yourself compelled to go back for more stuff again and again and are rewarded with hidden areas and lots of fun little puzzles. None will make your brain hurt, but they do provide an entertaining distraction from the path. Specific to the PSP version, you get to battle the end-bosses from the original LEGO Star Wars. Once unlocked, you face them in Story Mode, Free Play, and have the option to see ﾑThe Story So Far'. The integration of these makes it a great way for those who haven't played the original game to get a flavor of the entire game without having to buy a copy for another system. The movies are essentially trailers that show a capsule view of the LEGO Star Wars version of Episodes I, II and III leading up to the final boss battle. They are polished, exciting and entertainingﾗand a great way to introduce kids to the movies if they haven't seen them. The end battles naturally give away the entire ending of each movie, so I suggest avoiding them if you haven't seen the films. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy |
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