• CSM Reviews <--
• Adult Reviews
• Kid Reviews

Common Sense Note

Parents who are familiar with the Star Wars films should know the level of violence they contain: ample gunplay and swashbuckling, no blood, and a few scary moments when evil characters gain the upper hand. LEGO Star Wars duplicates this formula, but with protagonists and enemies built from small plastic blocks.

The game does provide a great, more palatable alternative for kids who want to play a Star Wars game, but are to young for more violent titles such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords or Star Wars:Republic Commando. You may want to talk to your kids about the Star Wars franchise and how games like this promote the movies, especially with a new movie coming out. Also, how does this game promote LEGO's Star Wars products?

Rate It!

Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Aaron Lazenby

The Star Wars franchise has always occupied a lively fantasy world, but LEGO STAR WARS: THE VIDEO GAME takes George Lucas's sci-fi universe to new, silly extremes. The game forgoes the advanced special effects and computer generated vistas of the first three films (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) and instead constructs them from brightly colored LEGO toy blocks. The result is an even stranger invention of otherworldly beings and space cowboy heroics that should entertain fans of the movies and LEGOs alike.

Players use the standard combination of platform game moves -- jumping, running, climbing, shooting -- to enter the early days of Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Mixed in are a handful of racing and flying missions that help break up the monotony of the platform levels and accurately reflect some memorable scenes from the movies. As the game progresses, players collect LEGO studs -- the little single-block caps any LEGO user will be familiar with -- to unlock hints, characters and fun extras (like moustaches for your characters). Collecting characters allows you to explore new areas of each level in free mode, as many characters have special skills that can unlock certain doors or allow them to travel to otherwise unreachable locations.

The LEGO details are excellent. Trees and flowers look like they're straight out of a LEGO box and the round LEGO figurine block heads, with their blank, smiling faces, are depicted perfectly. Players use "the force" to assemble stray LEGO pieces into bridges, steps and other helpful architecture. And when you dispatch enemies with your lightsaber or blaster, they explode in a wash of blocks. As players progress though the game, they collect pieces to minikits (another term that should familiar sound familiar to any LEGO user) that assemble into a variety of Star Wars spacecraft. These details make LEGO Star Wars a refreshing take on a video game franchise that has been overloaded with (both good and bad) title.

Gameplay is easy enough to allow younger kids to solve the simple problems the game throws at them, explore the nicely detailed world of the movies, and have fun in this whimsical take on the Star Wars universe. Hints can help guide them through the more complicated aspects of gameplay. Cooperative play allows gamers to build duos of their favorite Star Wars characters and simultaneously explore each of the levels together, adding a nice element of teamwork and encouraging conversation during what is often a very solitary activity.

Violent scenes from the movies are shown in the game's cut scenes (such as Qui-Jong's death at the hands of Darth Maul), but the fact that characters are unrealistic toy figurines helps diminish the impact of the violence. That, plus the lighthearted treatment of the story and ample humor makes LEGO Star Wars the best choice for younger gamers looking to play a Star Wars title.

Rate It Now

OR