[.ca] Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Fun for everyone!:
People new to video games will find themselves in the familiar Star Wars universe... With the exception that everything is made out of Lego. You can build things out of Lego, when things blow Lego blocks fly across the screen, even the characters you control are made from Lego, from their stubby legs to the blasters or light saber they carry in their two fingered (or would it be considered a claw?). Part of the fun is that you never really die. If you loose a life your character will blow-up (in true Lego fashion) and respawn at the location you bit the dust. The only consequence is the loss of some studs, which is a kind of currency in the game collected as you would 'coins' in some other video games. But do not worry, if you run out of studs you will continue to respawn. Some might question the difficulty of a game where your character never truly dies but this is what makes it so much fun! A more experienced player can easily play through the levels with a player less experienced (e.g. parent & child, older & younger siblings). In fact, learning to work co-operatively is probably the most difficult aspect when starting out on the game. On the Xbox360, co-op can be played over the Live network. Graphics although not technically impressive (by which I mean, there is probably no advantage to playing on a 'next-gen' console), they are visually pleasing and smooth; everything on screen _really_ appears to be made out of Lego. Load times between levels was short. The menu, which is really a small level on its own can be confusing at first. You just need to find the correct door to walk through and you will find yourself in a level. Doorways are well labelled however the menu area is quite large. In the menu level, you can 'spend' studs to buy special Lego bricks, unlock special characters and do other things I have not figured out yet. The manual might help out in this regard but I have not felt the need to read it yet. The only annoyance I found was that camera angles could be quite bad on certain levels. Either too close to the action, or too far out. However, most of the time it was just right - or at least good enough.