For the first time ever, Lucas Arts brings you the entire Star Wars story from start to finish in a single game. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga encompasses the exact story from Star Wars episodes 1-6. Unlike the many other Star Wars games over the years that take place as prequels, sequels or side stories to the movies, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga allows you to actually play through the stories from the movies! What’s better? The game play is actually fun! Throughout the game, you get to take part in all of the famous battles from the movies beginning with the early adventures of Qui-Gon Gin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Anakin Skywalker’s pod racing, to the epic battle between Luke and the Emperor.

Story

The game begins in the Mos Eisley Cantina. From here you can travel to any level that you have unlocked, choose which type of game you want to play, purchase additional characters to play as and even design your own custom characters to play as! The cantina is populated by all of the characters that you currently have unlocked including every single major character, a diverse variety of minor characters and some characters I’ve never even heard of and are all available to play. There are several different types of characters represented and each has their own unique abilities. Jedi and Sith Lords wield light sabers and can use the force. Humans like Padme and Princess Lea wield blasters and can use a grappling hook to swing across gaps and climb walls. Jar-Jar Binks can jump higher than other characters and Bounty Hunters can throw thermal detonators and fly with their jetpacks for short periods of time. Finally droids like R2-D2 and C3PO can hook into computers and open doors. The combination of all of the characters is used to solve puzzles to get you through each level.

You begin the story by entering Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. It picks up right where the movie begins with Qui-Gon Gin and Obi Wan Kenobi partaking in negotiations with the Trade Federation upon their starship. Within minutes you will be slaying droids with your light saber and using the force to move objects around the room to solve puzzles.

Design

Simply put, Lego Star Wars is just fun. A sense of immersion overcomes you as you become the characters made of legos in the nostalgic movies of the past. The level design is great as no two are alike. Not once do you get a sense of repetition as you destroy waves of droids with your blaster, use the force to throw robots across the screen, dash in Anakin’s pod racer and launch missiles at tie fighters in an x-wing.

After completing a level for the first time, you unlock the ability to replay it as often as you want in a free play mode. Free play mode allows you to choose which character you want to start the level as, and on the fly, switch to any number of different characters throughout the level. This allows you to access portions of the level that you couldn’t access your first time through. As noted earlier, you need to use the additional characters abilities to access the additional areas in the levels. Jar-Jar Binks can jump high enough to get to additional platforms, R2D2 can fly across pits, and bounty hunters can unlock doors. Every level contains 10 hidden lego pieces that when collected create a lego vehicle, which is used to unlock additional content. In addition each level contains a “red brick” that allows you to purchase extra fun things to enhance your game play like wearing C3-PO on Chewbaca’s back!

Scattered everywhere you look are small lego currency called “studs”. This currency is used at the Shop in the Cantina to purchase additional characters and the extras that are unlocked upon collecting the red bricks. Every character has 4 life units and after taking enough damage they die and drop a certain amount of “studs”. Luckily, there are unlimited lives and there is no penalty when you run out of studs other than the fact that you won’t be able to buy anything in the Cantina Store until you replenish your collection.

I think my favorite feature of the game that you don’t find often in games is the ability for another player to hop into the game at any time without having to restart the level or change game modes. That said, co-op play can also be this games hindrance if your partner has their own agenda. The co-op play is not split screen, so when one person wants to move out of the screen while the other player is near the opposite edge, the screen is unable to move until the second player catches up to the first.

All in all, Lego Star Wars is not difficult and yields unlimited replayability, with or without a friend.

Gameplay

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga combines several genres of video games. Third Person Spaceship Shooters, Action, Puzzle Solving , Platforming and Racing are all included in this title. While this game appears on several other game systems, the Nintendo Wii version comes with a fun gimmick. The controls for the game may be played by using the analog stick on the nun chuck to move the characters, and by using the A, B, C and Z buttons to activate certain abilities. The Wii version of the game also allows you to replace certain button presses with motion. To swing the light saber, you simply swing the Wii remote. To use the force you simply wag the nun chuck to the left and right. To build objects out of scattered legos, alternate the nun chuck and Wii remote forwards and backwards.

I think my biggest gripe with this game is the incapable AI. While the AI is always smart enough to follow you by crossing pits, climbing walls and crawling through tunnels, they are terrible at combat. When wave after wave of Storm Troopers or Droids are parading your way, you would think the party of 5 following behind you would be able to use their blasters and light sabers to help you take care of some of them, but no. They stand around aimlessly awaiting you to take care of every single enemy by yourself. This could be by design to offer somewhat of a challenge considering the game itself is relatively simple, or perhaps it provides incentive for a partner to join you in co-op, none the less, it annoys this shit out of me. If you are going to have friendly AI, for the love of god, at least make them useful!

AI aside, the game is extremely easy to play. The controls make sense and never bog you down.

Presentation

The graphics in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga are excellent! The cartoony 3rd person 3d view is fantastic and fun. Every level is unique and you get a full look at the entire Star Wars universe with dark scary environments like the Death Star and bright environments like Tatooine. Each level is broken down into several zones, so there is a short load time when traveling between them, likely to keep up the frame rate.

All of the familiar music from John Williams is represented throughout the game so there is no surprise that the background music is wonderful. But while the background music is great, there is no voice acting at all. The cut scenes make up for this with funny acting and facial expressions, and being that the cut scenes also follow the movies, everyone already knows what’s going on in the story, so you never get lost.

Summary

Finally, we get a chance to play our favorite Star Wars characters right through the adventures we grew up watching. Who doesn’t want to play as Yoda when he saves Obi-wan and Anakin from the wrath of Count Dooku, or fly the infamous X-Wing through the Death Star trench, or save Princess Lea from the detention center? Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is fun, has tons of content, great graphics, the music we are all familiar with and is easy to play. Co-op jump-in and jump-out on the fly allows your friends to play with you whenever you like without the inconveniences of restarting your game. The variety of the levels and game types, level design and replayablility offer hours upon hours of game play, and all for 20 bucks, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii is a must-purchase for any gamer, whether your a fan of the movies or not!

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