The controls of LEGO Star Wars are pretty basic; there is one button for attack, one button for the “force”, a jump button, and a use button, that’s the whole package. There is no need for an advanced control scheme because these controls work fine for the game and to be honest it is made for a younger demographic. There are normal levels where you control a slew of characters (you can interchange between characters in your party at any time) and there are also vehicle levels that let you take control of spacecrafts from the various Star Wars movies. Probably the most fun level in the game is the classic Battle of Hoth where you get to take down AT’s with your tow hook, there is also the speeder-bike level as well as the Death Star and more. On the basic levels each one of the characters in your party has a unique feature such as high jump, hover, or light saber and you use these abilities to go through puzzles, open doors, or beat boss battles. This feature makes the co-op mode even more of joy to play because it brings your buddy into the game instead of just making the 2nd player feel as though they have no purpose in the storyline. The game is fairly easy and you have as many lives as you need, saving only takes place at the end of levels so that makes for some challenge. In all honesty this game wasn’t made to be a challenge, it was meant to be fun and at the end of the day that is all that matters.
Graphically LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy looks pretty good. It doesn’t look like a mere port from an old-gen title and has some nice looking features that would make even the most minimal Star Wars fan crack a smile. The LEGO games have a unique looking style so don’t expect the classic graphical look here. Although even with it’s childish and toy-like graphics LEGO Star Wars II still comes across as a game that has had a lot of care put into the visuals. There are never really many things happening on screen at once which adds to the ease and fun of the game. The LEGO character models look cool, as do the space crafts and the similarities to the movies are uncanny, especially considering everything in the game is made out of LEGO pieces!
Probably the best looking part of LEGO Star Wars II are the levels and everything that encompasses them. Pulling off a visually well done Star Wars universe is difficult to do and even harder to do with LEGO pieces. To this end sometimes the camera plagues a few levels by getting stuck, or when you are in co-op mode some characters get lost off screen and never come back; also if you and your buddy get too far apart from each other the camera pulls way too far back and the game is virtually impossible to play. The occasional slow down or stutter, and the barely noticeable clipping and cover up problems are in the game, but they still don’t really take away from the visuals and make no impact whatsoever on the amount of fun to be had. The visuals of LEGO do what they need to do and while it may not be anything revolutionary it still is average for what we have come to expect on the Xbox 360.
The audio portion of this game is pretty easy to explain, awesome. LEGO Star Wars II includes a score by John Williams and the original sound effects pulled straight from the dungeons of Lucas Films. Lucky for us there is no dialogue to mess up (the characters in the game only speak gibberish) and the text is short and easy to read. Seriously the music is amazing, any Star Wars fan will recognize every song and theme in the game, and the sound effects are top notch. Did I mention how awesome this title sounds when blasted out of a 5.1 Dolby Surround system? Well it is, there is nothing that beats the sound of tie-fighters or light blasters racing past you in 5.1 glory.
