Use the Force

Cue the music. In a galaxy, far, far away, a rebel alliance fights to overthrow the evil emperor who would enslave them. You know the story. You know the characters. You do not, however, know them like this.

LEGO® Star Wars® II: The Original Trilogy takes us back to the first three movies with all the style of everyone's favorite building blocks. This is the stuff of legends. Play through all three, following the storylines of the films—with an entertaining LEGO twist.

Relive the classic duel.

Luke, Leia, and Han are all here, with their stumpy little block legs and flat faces. Even as they've lost their fleshiness to the LEGO universe, they've also gained a good dose of humor. These LEGO games are renowned for their tongue-in-cheek take on the movies.

While this game is completely kid-friendly,
it's the adults who will most appreciate
the humor and wacky stunts

Their gentle irreverence surprises and delights. This game inspires immediate affection and addicting curiosity about "What next?" in both new players and in anyone who loves the original trilogy.

A Puzzle a Day
One of the hallmarks of the LEGO Star Wars games is the string of puzzles you must solve in order to make it through the game. These puzzles challenge you to use teamwork, character-switching and special moves to get past obstacles, overcome enemies and escape from traps.

When you first enter the game, you're playing Leia. She has just been captured by Darth Vader and must fight her way through the ship, destroying everything in sight as she goes.

Beware the Wookie with the crossbow.

The gameplay alternates between puzzles and shooter-action-adventure gaming. On the action side, for example, Leia has a blaster with which she shoots Stormtroopers who get in her way. She can also shoot objects to release studs of various colors and values.

She doesn't shoot her allies, fortunately, but if she gets close enough to them, she can give them a feisty smack just for good measure. Because your character has freedom of movement in open areas, explore and look for hidden caches of studs, hat dispensers, or other cool treasures.

Depth and Breadth
Total, you can play over 100 characters in LEGO Star Wars II. There are 50 characters resident in the game, and you can also unlock an extra 50 from the original LEGO Star Wars game and import them into this one.

All the characters have interchangeable parts, so combine different heads with different bodies to make your own mutant specialty characters. Every character has unique talents and abilities, so your strategy may change depending on whom you're playing.

The Millennium Falcon to the rescue.

The developers at Traveller's Tales wanted to improve on the original game, so they added more of what people loved about that first one. The levels have grown, adding hours and hours of additional gameplay and fun. Furthermore, there are more cut-scenes and extra challenges than in the original.

Bounty Hunting
In comparison to the first LEGO Star Wars, this one has more vehicles and creatures to ride, interspersed throughout the areas where you have to walk. The vehicles are no longer always on rails like in the first game. Free-roaming area add to both the challenge and the fun.

Take off in the Millennium Falcon, cruise around in your landspeeder or speeder bike, or climb up on a Tatooine Bantha and see how far you can go with it. In one of the most pivotal scenes of the story, you fly your ship in an attack on the Deathstar. "Use the force, Luke."

Throughout the game, find hidden treasures that add to your point score, reveal extra cinematics, and unlock mini-challenges. Be diligent as you explore or you might miss something fun and/or silly.  Your point score depends on collecting studs, those little round LEGO parts that drop out of things when you shoot them. These parts may be hidden in unexpected places, so shoot the walls, shoot boxes, shoot anything and everything—just in case.

Anyone old enough to have seen the first Star Wars trilogy in the theater will especially love this game. It takes the beloved story and has a lot of fun with it. While this game is extremely and completely kid-friendly, it's the adults who will most appreciate the humor and wacky stunts you can do with your characters.

To make the game even more accessible to all ages, it employs an adaptive difficulty option that responds to your skill level. If you're good, the challenge increases to match your skills. If you're just learning, it automatically tones down the difficulty to avoid frustration.  Very user friendly, it is. So, get the whole family together and rediscover the original Star Wars trilogy from an entirely new angle.

All screenshots from the Xbox 360 version.

Article by Angel Leigh McCoy