Lego Star Wars III: First Impressions

March 23, 2011 at 10:28 am | Posted in Reviews, The Clone Wars, Video Games | Leave a comment
Tags: LEGO Star Wars, lego star wars III

Reek in action.

Lego Star Wars III is a game riding on the success of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy which managed to make a game that is irresistibly fun for Star Wars fans of all ages. However, with all of the films covered, and the game designers setting their sights on the Clone Wars, I wondered to myself if they could actually pull it off again or if this one would lose its shine. Thus far this third entry into the Star Wars Lego series has proved to be far better than what’s come before it.

First off the game started with an absolute bang that’s hard to top. The gamer is thrust into the Battle of Geonosis right smack dab in the middle of the arena switching between Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme as they escape from the pillars they’re chained to. From that point you find yourself quickly subduing the raging reek. That’s when you realize that this is easily the most fun you’ve had in a Star Wars game since abusing the Force in The Force Unleashed. By chance I ended up playing with Obi-Wan after battling through a swarm of battle droids with my lightsaber. But even the thrill of a lightsaber cannot compare to the primal joy of rampaging around the Geonosis arena on the back of a reek.

Picture this: Obi-Wan is saddled on top of a four legged horned beast easily fifteen times bigger than himself. He is in an arena surrounded by battle droids, super battle droids, droidekas, and Jedi. Obi-Wan stares at the carnage for a moment, awed by the numbers and sheer ferocity of action. Then he realizes that all of these poor fools are trapped in here with him.

Coincidentally the game begins to prompt you “hit A to gain speed with the reek.” How could I resist? What followed was a full on romp and stomp as I ran over the helpless mob and had the reek butt it’s head tossing dozens into the air. For a few minutes I reveled in the power. Then, as surely as time itself marches on, boredom crept in. That’s when I realized the game was prompting me to charge the nexu. Ah, the poor little messed up kitty cat on steroids torn straight out of some kid’s poor nightmare. Finally a foe worth smashing with my reek.

As you can see, I had a lot of fun with the reek. After taking out the nexu and ramming the acklay for good measure, I finally went back on foot and hacked through the crowd some more. It was a great way to start off the game and my only regret was that I didn’t have someone to test out the two player function.

Aside from the Battle of Geonosis, the game then launches into the episodes of The Clone Wars animated show. You can battle Ventress on Christophsis, chase Grievous through the Malevolence trilogy, and wheel around as R2 in Battle of the Droids. In between missions you get to explore one of the Venator-class Star Destroyers and acquire gold bricks to unlock new areas. The interior of the ship is a huge place to explore and this is just with only one area unlocked. I’m not sure how many of the episodes of TCW will be covered in the game, or how much of Episode II Attack of the Clones, but with what I’ve seen so far I expect a lot of hours of gameplay.

One last thing I’d like to touch on is just how much humor they’ve packed in Lego Star Wars III. When the game started off on Geonosis, they had a little ongoing joke involving ice cream. It may sound corny, and it is, but regardless it had me smiling and laughing. There were Jedi hidden in the Geonosian crowds handing out ice cream cones. Then the camera pans to the booth where Dooku and his entourage are standing. Nute Gunray is shown enjoying his ice cream cone along with the others. However Dooku doesn’t have an ice cream cone. Enter Jango Fett, the most bad ass bounty hunter in the galaxy…looking silly and waving an ice cream cone at Dooku. It’s hard to write the humor because the game doesn’t have any dialog and relies completely on visual gestures and grunts, but the scene was funny. The humor continued when Jango got his head cut off and the Jedi proceeded to play soccer with it. There are also a ton of gags making fun of Anakin and Padme’s love affair.

Overall, my first impression of this game is that it couldn’t get much more fun. With all the new interactive elements they added, the heaping helpings of humor, and the wide range of freedom, I highly suggest checking this game out. If you liked the previous two games, you’ll love this one.

If you enjoyed this review then stay tuned for the full review next week.

Posted By: Skuldren