So you've decided on a Lego game...
From the start you better not be too serious about gaming, and sitting on a game rated "E for Everyone", you probably aren't. A downfall that might stab you unexpectedly is the lack of sound in the cutscenes. It wouldn't have been hard to put that in, even if they sounded nothing like their real versions. Hell, I wouldn't have had any problem with Leia sounding like a stuck up racist black chick if it was funny, and the game tries hard to spoof and goof; too hard, in fact. Where's Chad for Darth Vader? They got him for The Force Unleashed, so you can see where the money is going and where it isn't going. Some of the cutscenes just overkill and aren't funny for that fact, but for the most part they are entertaining to watch. With no character audio other than some combat sounds or sighs, you are left with the music and sound effects you will have heard a million times. The good news is that the game runs absolutely flawlessly, and you'd hope so, when so little of the consoles horsepower is put to use to run this Lego universe.
Combat in the game is simple, you either hack and slash at them, be it with a lightsaber or the melee attack of any character(Which both do the same damage, sadly), or shooting with a blaster character. There's more to it, but not much. There are a few exceptions, such as force pushing a droid, shocking or choking with an evil jedi, or throwing a grenade as a bounty hunter; but for the most part, its about either mashing X to melee, or mashing X to shoot. The real problem is how fast you die, you have next to no health, and hearts disappear in seconds. You need the Regenerate Hearts Bonus to avoid dieing constantly, I recommend spending your first 100,000 Studs on that, and using a site to find where to Unlock it. It brings life to the games failed Health system. That should be on by default in my opinion, only not so quickly that you are damn near unkillable. But trust me, its more fun to be overpowered than die repeatedly because hearts are either too rare, or vanish too quickly and due to having no real way of healing.
The puzzles that populate about a third of the rooms in the game, are usually simple, if they are a problem, its almost always because its hard to see with the camera or know what you can interact with. But they aren't more complex than you'd expect for a kids game. Still, some of them are just plain too easy, but most of them fit right, especially with the games unique usage of characters, giving them all some kind of ability. For example, only a small droid such as R2-D2 can reach ledges very far away due to its hover ability. Your unwanted Jar Jar pal can jump higher then you, even if you are a Jedi, so you will use him for that reason. Then there is of course, the force, you will need to use it for a million things in this game; from doors to puzzles, the list goes on, and not just anyone can use the force.
But the environment comes with more problems. For example, there are some objects that only a Bounty Hunter character can destroy with his grenades, but these objects look exactly like countless other objects you can hack apart with anything. So there is too much "trial and error" to find out what you can do, when you should be able to tell from just glancing at an object if you've seen it before. Then there is the platforming, where you will die repeatedly trying to jump with a camera you can't zoom in or adjust properly for the jumps. It wouldn't be as hindering if the game helped you in these areas, forcing you to land on certain platforms if you jumped at them from another platform, since that is where you want to go anyway, obviously. Countless times you'll slide to your death, falling an inch short of where you wanted to go or land, due to hindered vision. The camera is the only drawback for 2 players, but I found it to be not much a problem if you learn to share it and stay together. When you split up, the waiting character needs to move with the scouting character that is venturing off in order to keep the camera accessible.
The good news is that it doesn't really matter how much you die. The penalty for death is simply losing some Studs and only on your first run through in Story Mode; a currency you use to buy hidden characters or power ups. You don't actually need any of it to complete the games story mode, so unless you plan to replay with friends in the future, its all pretty pointless. So basically, there's no penalty for death at all, you respawn half a second later right back into the fight or on whatever platform you jumped from. Now me? I'm not too happy with this setup. I'd rather have a stronger character that doesn't die in seconds, and just eat a real penalty for death, such as losing far more studs or having to start a level over if I died one too many times.(Levels are really short) But my main dispute is the constant rush for everything that drops, as you only have seconds before those desperately needed hearts or studs vanish on you. Why do they have to vanish so fast, or at all for that matter? You literally have to drop what you are doing and rush for dropped items since they will vanish before you have time to do anything else. It's so bad that they will often vanish before you can even pick them all up.
Where the game shines the most is in its co op playability. By yourself the game is basically a waste of money. You'll be bored quickly running through by yourself as your bot ally does nothing to help you in combat, other than powering up his lightsaber to look pretty.(And never hurting an enemy with it). Bot allies do not fight, at all, at any point. They appear to, but they never do any damage. This basically destroys any benefit of playing the game by yourself, since you are never alone and are always outnumbered by enemies. You can kill them all alone, but that's not the point, it just isn't as fun to witness a fellow Jedi or Soldier sit there and look stupid. When did Obi Wan ever say, "Sit here and watch Anakin, I'll handle this?" Do you ever remember a Star Wars character sitting back from a chance to fight to mumble, "Ya you take care of it, I'll just stand here and look pretty with this blaster/saber." The bots do a good job of following you and helping with puzzles when a second person is required to proceed, but beyond that, they follow you stupidly and do nothing else. If I'm standing in front of a door that requires my droid pal to open, why can't he just go ahead and open the door for me? Why do I have to switch to him and do it myself, just to switch back 2 seconds later since I can't fight with him? The AI is pretty terrible for reasons like this, which is why you want a friend. You can get a partner over Xbox Live, but you won't always have one, and they'll join/leave as unexpectedly as you'd expect, best you get your own with a second controller.
There are extra modes, but for the most part, they are basically copies of the same run through of Story mode, but without the scenes and with the ability to do any level as any character. I'll admit its fun to fool around and do things like kill Maul with Luke, kill Dooku with the Emperor, fight Vader with Anakin, and so on. You can also make your own character, but you'll find it isn't very customizable, you can run up an outfit with pretty much any skin/face/clothes in the game, but you can't choose how he'll fight. It won't let you use 2 sabers or a dual one like Maul, for example. So even this feature feels tacked on, needing work but somehow banked in while being unfinished. Pretty much the only thing I made was a Dark Jedi with C3 P0's head naming, it Darth C3-PO. Saying, "C3 -PO turned to the Dark Side, who's laughing now?". But the extra features in this game make no sense. There are a ton of hidden characters? And like, 20 of them, have no attack at all. What... is the point here? Why would I want to run around as characters that can't possibly fight enemies? I don't get the joke here. A few of them might have been ok, but there are dozens of them!
This game is very short, taking only 5-10 hours to complete, but you'll find that its short Story Mode is only about 35-40% of the complete tag. You can throw in anywhere from 10 to 20 extra hours if you run back through for stud farming or secrets, and then the alternative modes. I have over 25 hours on mine(and only about 60% complete), so don't doubt my experience. Between the partial run throughs with several friends,(Until they realized the game sucked and quit) stud farming to buy every single character, power brick farming for extras, the hours added up. I do know what I'm talking about before I post things. The game has replayability, but not much of it.
For 20$ its hard to recommend over other better 20$ games(Perfect Dark Zero for one $$$), but if its what you want, it'll probably end well. It can be a must for Lego, Star Wars, or CO OP happy fans. This is the type of game you'll either greatly like, or just not want much to do with. There isn't a middle ground here. Don't play it alone though, one way or the other. I had Lego's as a kid, probably more than you'd want to know. If anything, its funny. But one way or the other, the cost leaves room for risk, and if you bought it used, that'd cut it down even further, to like10$.
Single player:
(Experience) B (Acceptable)
Presentation:
(Video/Audio) A (Good)
Performance: Star (Perfect)
Multiplayer: A (Good)