LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga Xbox 360 Review

All the famous characters from the movies have been recreated as LEGO caricatures and legendary scenes have become amusing parodies. There’s no doubt about it, Lego Star Wars is absolutely steeped in charm, so much so that it could induce a wide smile on the face of even the most miserable of sods. LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a coming together of both of these delightful games.

For these who are yet to be touched by the warmth of the LEGO Star Wars series, the games are essentially of the action and platforming genres and are obviously aimed at the younger gamer. Because of this, the difficulty level is gentle and the game is more about rewarding the player. That said, the two licences have the potential to produce tears of nostalgia for a particular type of person, and if mentally mature adults can disregard the primary target audience, they’ll perhaps find much to enjoy.

The majority of Star Wars fans would be content with just playing as a Jedi, but throughout both games you’re forced to play other popular and not so popular lightsaber-less characters. Constantly having to switch playing styles works to the games advantage though and keeps things interesting throughout.

Jedi’s of course have their iconic lightsabers, with which they cannot only swing vigorously into their enemies, but can also gratifyingly deflect laser fire back towards its sender. Blaster characters, possess laser guns so of course are of the long range variety and can also grapple up to certain higher areas in the stages.

There’s plenty of puzzles throughout, and each solution is largely simple but it’s always enjoyable nonetheless. They normally amount to no more than switching to the correct character and using their abilities. Building a bridge with the Jedi’s force abilities, or triggering an otherwise out of reach switch via the blaster characters for example.

Another common element are the LEGO studs (these can be used to unlock the plethora of extras in the game, which consists of additional characters and more) that flood the stages. Not only are you rewarded a smattering of these by killing enemies (is such a dark word as killing the right word for such a charming game?) but they also are littered all over the game world, and at times you are often required to play around with or smash objects in the environment to obtain them. LEGO Star Wars is the sort of game that is enjoyable even when you’re simply just interacting with your environment.

The core of the game may have little in the way of challenge, but there is plenty of optional challenges for the more experienced of gamers. The True Jedi meter encourages you to survive as long as possible, the meter slowly fills with every LEGO stud (you’ll lose some studs when you die, you see) you pick up and if its at its apex when you reach the conclusion of a level you’ll earn yourself good old personal satisfaction and, if you’re seeking something a bit more physical (well virtual) for your hard work, you’ll also be rewarded with a gold brick (these shiny bricks are used to build doors to access secret areas within the hub) and aside from this there are also plenty of items to find hidden around the stages.

The cooperative mode is a highlight of the series and easily the best way to play the game. Those who were disappointed with the omission of any online options when the games were released singularly, will be delighted at the presence of online cooperative for this package.

The visuals with their charming simplicity and chunkiness are certainly more LEGO than Star Wars, but all the characters and locations are immediately recognisable in their comical LEGO forms. Such is its basic looks, the 360 certainly won’t be breaking a sweat when this game is placed in its gob, but given the subject matter it doesn’t need to be.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a great value package that has charm coursing through its veins and this is without doubt part of the appeal of the series. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the game offers immense levels of enjoyment either and has such a broad appeal, which is to say if you’re a fan of Star Wars, LEGO or just enjoyable games, you’ll probably fall deeply in love with this.

9/10