[Games] LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (PS2)

Sometimes a game concept comes along that just totally works and it becomes hard to imagine how one could possibly screw things up. And yet time and time again, game developers will do exactly that and come up with sequels that totally fail, which is probably why sequels, even for video games, rarely get rave reviews.

Then there are the exceptions to this rule of sorts that make everything so worth it - games that allow us to continue to enjoy what makes a game great with the addition of a few additional tweaks that work with the existing game instead of against it.

One can only wish that more game developers manage to achieve that with their games.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is the sequel to LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game and it continues the brick-building fun of its predecessor while still playing around the Star Wars universe. While the first game dealt with the three prequel movies, this second game immerses the player in the fun experience of the original movies with a whole lot of fun.

Image by Official Star Wars Blog via Flickr

The game manages to maintain its quirk sense of humor in how it re-tells the Star Wars saga using LEGO bricks and minifigs with its largely wordless cut sequences and surprisingly humorous facial expressions given the limited appearance of the common minifig. It manages to cover most of the original story while glossing over the bits that don't have as much dialog or action through the creative use of cut scenes.

Still relying on the character-based skill / ability system introduced in the first game, this sequel adds to that by adding more sort of job or class related skills for Stormtroopers and Bounty Hunters and even tweaking certain aspect of the game like making sure any character can build things and not just Jedi.

There are an insane number of secrets and unlockables that will force any gamer to re-play levels over and over again if only to assemble the various bonus display items that act as "rewards" for fully completing a stage in terms of all hidden items. Plus there are all those bonus sequences that make the game more fun such as making characters dance inside Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge. Yeah, it's all part of the LEGO Star Wars humor.

While many may find the game highly repetitive, I enjoy the nature of the game and the real diversity of it all, which lies in the puzzles. There were sequences that were a lot harder this time around, especially since both the Story and Free Play modes have bit goals that you need to achieve in order to truly clear the stage and get all bonus blocks needed.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original trilogy is a great way to add on to an existing franchise without seeming overly tacky. It deserves a full 5 LEGO Death Stars out of 5.