Lego Star Wars Demo Review - Page 2 of 2

Created on March 18th, 2005
Author: Orion

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Game Play

Familiar Lego shapes
fill the game. As for how the game plays, it's a fun adventure game. There are some very obvious scripted spawn triggers that detract from the game at times; such as running around a certain corner seems to trigger droids out of no where every single time. But at its heart it's fun. Toss these switches and you turn this on and get something. Toss that switch and you get some coins to collect or perhaps a heart to restore heath.

There are no complicated stats, you have a few health icons in the shape of a heart and as you get hit you loose some of your health. You gain various colored coins, silver, gold, blue coins and gain lives, etc. In a way it's like Mario just met Obi-Wan. The coin animations makes me think of arcade games, as you get a coin and it flings itself to the upper left corner of the screen in a very satisfying way.


There was a driod here.
But I chopped him
to pieces. You can also switch between characters, which wasn't extremely apparent at first, but the game pops up helpful tips when they are needed, explaining things in terms of what your keys are bound (very helpful). In the case of switching characters simple face the character you want to play as and press your 'tag' key. You'll see a flash between the characters and there you go. In this manner you can take over droids to open up certain doors. Some doors cannot be opened even with the force, but an R2 or Protocol droid can help you out.

Final Thoughts
This review may sound rather negative. What it really boils down to though is it's a fun little game with controls and a camera system that just don't work out very well. Many games break down this way unfortunately. There is hope though, since this is apparently going to be a series, with inside peeks of Lego Star Wars Episode II already popping up. Perhaps in future editions the PC version will be more than an afterthought.

So what worked and what didn't work for me? First I'll list the negatives and then I'll leave on a happy note with what I liked.

Game Low Points

• The intro movie was extremely rough looking, like someone went crazy with a scan line filter. This could be a codec issue though.
• The controls are horrible on a PC, it's obviously meant to be played with a controller for a console system.
• The camera system isn't very good; you often end up running at the camera awkwardly or can't see everything you would like too.
• There is no mouse support, thus no free look of any sort.
• You can get stuck in option screens if you don't fill in every key binding.
• The AI for your followers isn't so great, you can kill your sidekicks, and they follow you so close you'll find yourself hitting them with your light saber often.
• Poor preset spawn triggers at times.

Game High Points

• It's Lego and its Star Wars.
• Fun touches were added. Such as death means you fall apart. Things break into Lego bricks and it looks like something you could build yourself.
• It's a fun little adventure game with a nice twist in a familiar universe.
• It played silky smooth and should play well on most computers.
• Hints pop up on game play issues, such as switching characters when you need them.
• It's not overly complicated, making it easy to startup and easy to get a quick game in.

Final Scores
So would I buy it? Sadly I probably would not buy Lego Star Wars. Admittedly, I am probably not the target market, but if the controls didn't suck so much I may have dropped a couple bucks to play this game.

Controls - 20%
Horrible PC controls and a camera that annoys you really drag this game down.

Graphics - 85%
The graphics are nothing to write home about, but they do look nice and nothing feels odd about them. The universe looks as it should, like it's made out of Lego, and nice touches such as reflections and glowing lightsabers add the extra touches.

Game play - 80%
What can I say, it's a simple game, but it's still fun. And the charm it has makes it enjoyable.

Average Score - 63.3%

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