You’d have thought that after my not so favourable review of
Lego Avengers that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment would have deemed us
as persona non grata and thrown us a swift middle finger when we enquired about
reviewing Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens but obviously they weren’t that
fussed, or more likely didn’t read it and here we are. My main problem with the previous Lego title was the fact
that it didn’t do anything new, small sections of flying or driving among
countless walk here, smash this, build this, got tiresome real quickly,
especially after Lego Marvel Superheroes did the same three years before and
better.
Needless to say I was not hopeful with Lego The Force
Awakens but enjoyed the film so was willing to give the game a chance, to my
surprise it actually started on Endor as you play the finale of Return of the
Jedi, taking control of Han, Chewie, and Leia fighting your way through to the shield
generators with the aid of the Ewoks, the action then switches to the cockpit
of the Millennium Falcon as you lead the attack on the 2nd Death
Star, and finally facing off against Darth Vader and Emperor Palpantine as Luke
Skywalker himself. Almost immediately new gameplay mechanics are thrown at you,
previously when you were given a stack of bricks to make something to further
your progress it would be a single item, new Multi-Builds give you will give
you the choice of sometimes up to three items to build that will be part of a
larger puzzle or help you move on to the next area of the level.
Vehicles and aerial dogfights punctuate the stages too,
taking the controls of an AT-ST, piloting the Millennium Falcon, and escaping
the clutches of The First Order in a Tie Fighter are just a small number of
things you’ll get to do and really are a joy to play, even the linear sections when
you’re being chased down narrow routes are fun, speeding over the surface of
Jakku narrowly dodging enemy fire, and avoiding obstacles whilst trying to fly
through bonus-scoring rings is exciting stuff. The most surprising of the new features is cover-based
shooting, every now and then you’ll reach an area where you’ll find yourself
under fire from a large amount of enemies and the action will switch to a
closer view, trading gunfire with your opponents is done from conveniently
placed scenery and usually involves taking down a set number of baddies or
playing it defensively until an opportunity to wipe everyone out in a single
blast presents itself. The bulk of the game follows the film’s plot faithfully with
recognisable scenes playing out albeit with the humour we’ve come to expect
from this series, further side-plot levels are unlocked through the collection
of gold bricks and give a little bit of back-story to some otherwise minor
characters in the universe, there’s even chance to take control of Captain
Phasma attacking a rebellion ship which leads into the free
Playstation-exclusive DLC adventure that focuses on how C-3PO gets his red arm
that we see in the film.
Gone are the overly repetitive speech-samples that infected
Lego Marvel’s Avengers luckily, here the only voices you’ll hear are during
cutscenes and elements relevant to the story, unless it’s the occasional Stormtrooper
shouting as they run towards you or during overheard conversations whilst you
sneak your way past them in particular sections, it’s also nice to hear the
cast of the film reprising their roles in the game rather than some guy paid to
do their best Harrison Ford impression. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens features a whole ton of John
Williams’ score from the film woven neatly into the background of moments,
exploring the ruined Star Destroyer as Rey, confronting The First Order outside
Maz's Castle on Takodana, or
sneaking your way onto Starkiller Base, all excellent sequences brought to life
by the inclusion of Williams’ music, especially of course the iconic theme
which crops up between chapters of the story.
You won’t find anything new in regards to the visuals in
this title, but then again you don’t need to, everybody and everything looks
like it’s made out of Lego, and that’s all you need, all the locations and
characters are easily recognised and it all functions to create the impression
that you are playing exactly what the game says it is, LEGO Star Wars. I genuinely enjoyed myself whilst playing this game, at no
point did I get tired of smashing scenery or bad guys, no section of the game
felt too long with plenty of variety between combat and puzzles, though on occasions
I did find myself struggling to work out how to start a puzzle or getting stuck
midway through a puzzle and spending a while retracing steps in case I missed something
or switching between characters to utilise certain special skills.
As with previous titles, each character will have different
abilities to aid progress or unlock new secrets throughout the levels, Chewie’s
thermal detonators, BB-8’s electrical link-cable, or even Finn wielding a light
saber enable blocked areas to be blown open, machinery to be activated and
operated, and metal gates and doors to be cut with ease, you’ll also come
across items that require different powers needed during your play-through but
generally only once you’ve completed that stage, unlocked new character and
returned to that stage in free-play. But of course, you know all of this, the LEGO Star
Wars games have been about since 2005 selling over 100 million on a wide
variety of systems with Batman, Lord of the Rings, and even Harry Potter
appearing on our consoles in multi-coloured brick-form, all you need to know is
this, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is as good of a movie tie-in that we’re
going to get, faithful to the film with a cheeky sense of humour, enjoyable
flight sections, and plenty of replayability, The Force is very strong with
this one.
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out now on Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Steam, PS4, PS3, Vita, Xbox 360, and Xbox One