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I received a copy of LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga on the PS3 for Christmas. it's been on my wishlist in various incarnations on the previous generation for some time, I'd just never gotten around to buying it. Oddly enough my daughter's boyfriend bought it for me, which made me immediately suspicious, but so far there appear to be no strings attached. Or engagement rings.
One of the things that has really irritated me this generation is not just being able to stick a game in the machine and start playing, far too often they're plagued by a huge update before I can even begin, pleasingly LSW:TCS had none of this, nor did it require any installation. Travellers Tales have earned my respect immediately.
The music, as is to be expected, is excellent. For me the sound of the theme music is enough to make the hairs on my neck stand up, it takes me back to the day when my parents took me to see Star Wars (none of this 'A New Hope' rubbish, it was just 'Star Wars') and even hearing it play at the start of every level and chapter it still has that effect. It's just that good.
The sound effects are straight from the movies and I have absolutely no complaints about them; lightsabers hum, blasters shriek, tie fighters squeal, Jawas do whatever Jawas do, Tusken Raiders wave their arms about and do that funny laugh thing, droids say 'Oh no' in a robotic voice just before you shoot them.
Unlockables are present by the ton. For a collector it's a dream, and even after about 30 hours of game time I'm still only just over half way through. Some of them are the usual useless filler, a la big head mode in beat 'em ups, but then there's some genuinely useful stuff that helps, improving fighting abilities, and guiding you to locations of hidden items. I won't spoil the game by revealing what they are, but suffice it to say one of them makes you feel like a real jedi when you use it, none of this Luke Skywalker learning stuff either, proper Yoda in full battle mode.
The levels are big enough to provide a challenge, but not so big that they feel overwhelming, although the ones involving vehicles can be somewhat frustrating as the control scheme is a little odd, I found it far to easy to flip whatever ship I was flying in a 180 and suddenly I was heading heading in a direction contrary to the one I intended. That aside these levels are few and far between, and the pod race in Episode 1 is a heap of fun, I just wish that blasters were enabled in subsequent playthroughs, then Sebulba wouldn't have it so easy.
The fighting aspect leaves me feeling a little disappointed. It's not a massive problem, it's just that I can't aim where I want with a blaster, it's taken care of by the game, frequently shooting harmless bits of scenery when I could really be doing with blowing the crap out of the fully shielded Droideka that's hammering away with it's blasters right next to me. The Jedi and Sith are also pretty ineffectual in large scale battles as they tend to flail around waving their lightsabres as they please and deflecting blaster bolts anywhere but back at the enemy who fired them. As I mentioned one of the unlockables addresses this, and from then on playing one of these is pure awesome.
Each character type has a small range of different abilities; Jedi & Sith can move objects using the force; Gungans can leap really high; Jawas can enter small tunnels; droids can unlock doors. After completeing story mode for a chapter the ability to switch between these types at will makes figuring some of the extras out in the level quite a challenge.
Hidden within each level are 10 minikit cannisters, which you must collect to increase your stash of studs (the LSW:TCS equivalent of money) which you can use to buy extra characters, ships etc, and these contribute towards your brick count for the game. There are 160 bricks to earn in total, earned by collecting minikits, acheiving a certain number of studs in a level, completing the level, and the most onerous: a timed challenge mode where you have to locate 10 cannisters in a different location to the minikit ones. It takes long enough to find all of the minikit cannisters, without dragging it out by timing you to find another 10. I've only attempted a couple of these, and failed on both count., I loathe timed sections in adventure games, they seem such a forced (no pun intended) way of extending what is otherwise a great game. Because of this simple fact I'll probably never complete the game 100%, fortunately as it's the PS3 version and it was released before trophies became mandatory there's no huge incentive to do so, unless of course they release an update that enables them, and then? Well, we'll just have to see.
I love the game. It's LEGO, it's Star Wars, it's a video game. I really don't need much else.
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