Lego Star Wars II
XBox 360

The game: Lego Star Wars II is primarily an action adventure game in which you control the characters from A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to take down the Empire while doing some puzzle-solving along the way.

The play: You’ll begin in the Mos Eisley Cantina and continue to revisit this place as it’s where you purchase extras like cheats and additional characters as well as how you access Empire and Jedi after progressing through the first chapter. The size of your group of fighters will expand and contract (up to seven or as little as two). While you can switch very quickly between characters, the AI for your companions is worthless – they won’t have your back. Each character has its strengths and weaknesses and you’ll need your team as you progress through the levels, which shouldn’t take longer than around seven hours – although there’s plenty of content worth revisiting. The characters have individual melee attacks, for example, Chewie rips off enemy’s arms. There’s a large emphasis on vehicles including small carts, landspeeders, AT-STs, racing speeder bikes and more. Disappointingly there’s no dedicated multiplayer component and although there’s a two person co-op there’s no online warring.

The terrain: The XBox visuals are good with good reflections and sound effects. Worthy of mention is the smart programming that makes objects too close or too far from the camera appear slightly blurry. The character camera, however, is clunky, easy to confuse, slow to slew and leads to your character getting stuck as the path is obscured. The original movie score combined with the sound effects make the experience feel authentic.

The experience: Great for the kids and Star Wars fans. Worth the purchase.

– SQNLDR Nick Hogan