Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy review

Wednesday 6 September 2006
Lego Star Wars II looks, feels and plays like it's been designed by a group of people who love games, understand gamers and know how important it is to have fun.For instance, you might think that the 'you never really die' system shouldn't work - avoiding dying's the most important part of games, right? Well, no - for younger fans and casual types it's perfect, letting them see the entire game without dying.

For serious gamers, though, there's the challenge of collecting blue studs and earning 'True Jedi' status, which means you can barely afford to die a couple of times in a single level.

Then there's the plethora of other stuff in every level - minikit parts, power bricks and stupid little extras to find once you've got other characters at your disposal. Lego Star Wars is about messing about, bashing things with your lightsaber and trying new things, secure in the knowledge that if you get exploderised by a Gamorrean guard it really doesn't matter that much.

But this was all in the last Lego Star Wars. So what's new? Well, for starters, it looks prettier than anything you've ever made out of real Lego, even if you polished it and spray-varnished it and took pictures of it under really flattering lighting. C3P0's shiny, the studs gleam, and the depth-of-field effects (making things in the foreground or background look fuzzy and out of focus) are beautiful.