Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

"Nothing but a downgrade."

Ok, firstly, this review is mostly for people who have played the first one. Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy was something the fans wanted since the original. Seemed like a good idea, right? Too bad it was so poorly executed.

Story: 5/10
It's the first three Star Wars movies, how can it get a 5 for the story? Well, they screwed around with it so much that some things are completely different. I won't spoil anything, but the last level is completely different from the movie. The first Lego Star Wars had humor in it and this one tried to go farther with it, but the humor in this game is so bad that you would have to be five years old to laugh at it. UH-OH! Han dropped Leia! HAHAHAHAHA!

Graphics: 5/10
The graphics are great, but why did they get a 5? Well, in the first Lego Star Wars the levels were actually made of Legos, not so in this game. The only things made of Legos in the levels are things that you can use the force on or build, not impressive. I would say that at least the characters are Legos, but not all of them are. Jabba the Hutt is in the game and he's not Lego at all.

Sound: 4/10
The sound isn't bad, but its nothing great. When you play as Sidious you have to put up with his maniacal cackle every five seconds. This alone brings done the rating.

Gameplay: 1/10
And here we go! How could they have gone so wrong? Well, as you may or may not know, you have a computer controlled partner with you who fights along side you and help with puzzles (Well, that's how it worked in the first one). In this game, YOUR PARTNER CANNOT DO DAMAGE TO ENEMIES, BUT HE CAN AND WILL DO DAMAGE TO YOU THROUGH FRIENDLY FIRE! I'll let that sink in for a minute...........Okay! Also, they take so long to get to levers that by the time they do the lever has reset itself. They added melee moves into this game which would be fine if they worked. Since your partner is always right in front of you, if you try to punch an enemy you will instead get stuck punching your partner (HA! that's for killing me earlier!) then the enemy kills you. Anyway, the hit detection is abysmal. I hit people with weapons and they don't die. Once, I spent so much time trying to destroy a canister only to have every swing miss that I got shot and died. Here is another problem, infinite enemies. Every level has an endless horde of foes that will constantly assault you. This wouldn't be too bad except for the fact that you have to assemble Lego bricks ( A new, horrible addition to this game) and use the force while they shoot you. One shot and you will have to start the assembly all over only to have the same thing happen again because there are infinite enemies. They wanted to add more vehicles in this game, but the fixed camera in vehicle levels has you going in circles and dying all of the time. If, by some chance, you can assemble a vehicle in a level, you will be able to drive it around the level. Sounds good, right? Wrong! the vehicles aren't Star Wars vehicles, they are Lego tractors and Ice Cream Trucks which can't go very far because the levels have barriers on the ground that stop you. Once you are shot in a vehicle (yes, just once. Good luck dodging fire in these things), you are forced out and you lose a massive amount of studs.

They added force powers to the Jedi characters, cool! No, not so much since you have to block thousands of shots to get close enough to use the enemy to use it, then you get there only to use the force on something else (usually your partner) and then you get shot and die. Yay! that's new. When you finally use the force you have to make sure there are no other enemies around ( Like that's ever gonna happen!) so they don't shoot you while you mind trick them. When you finally trick them, you can't hit them because of the piss poor hit detection in this game. The gameplay would have been fine if they had kept it the same as the first Lego Star Wars.

Replay Value: 3/10
There are lots of extras, but they are all the same and they are over priced. The most expensive one in the first game was 1,000,000 studs. The most expensive one in this game is 30,000,000 studs. You can do some levels in which you must collect 1 million studs, but then you can't keep any of them after the level, THEN WHAT'S THE POINT?!

Rent, Buy, or Destroy: Destroy
This game is horrible, they messed everything up. Don't rent it, don't buy it, just stay away from it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/07, Updated 10/16/09

Game Release: Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (US, 09/12/06)