We all love a good old LEGO video game. The comedy, the cutscenes; basically the whole collection. Well, the newest out is LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a LEGO-themed action-adventure by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Fusion.
As you could probably tell, it is based off of the 7th movie in the franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The story follows the same route as the film, which consists of Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku who is extremely strong with the force, though is unaware of this fact. Finn, a rebel stormtrooper of the First Order who will escape by all means necessary. Poe Dameron, a Resistance X-Wing pilot captured for having a piece of the map to Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, in his possession and Kylo Ren, son of Han Solo and Leia, who commands the First Order in the footsteps of his grandfather, Darth Vader. The First Order wants the last piece of the map to find Luke, whereas the Resistance plan to get to Luke first and protect him.
Throughout the game, you play as many characters, some of which are listed, to get to the Resistance base with the help of iconic characters like Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, and Princess Leia. The game includes simple mechanics from all LEGO games, such as building using LEGO bricks, riding and flying vehicles, collecting studs and fighting enemies. The studs are your currency, used to purchase more new characters to play as, red bricks which implement extras into the game (Fast Build, Unlimited Torpedoes, Score X2, etc.) and new vehicles to drive or pilot.
This LEGO game includes many more new mechanics and gameplay options compared to others in the series. For example, Multi-build objects are now a thing. With these, you can build an object as normal, but you are able to break it and build something else instead if you so choose. Some of the options may do the same thing in the long run, for example, when a tentacle monster blocks your path, you can choose to build either a fishing pole to get rid of it, or a large weight to drop on top of it, both leading to the same conclusion of the path being cleared. Another new factor is the different styles of flying battles. In previous LEGO games, especially Star Wars, there are gameplay missions where you would fly a spaceship through small tunnels and pathways while shooting at enemy ships and the turrets.
The new style is aerial dogfights, where you can fly freely and complete the mission in your own time. Almost like a Star Wars: Battlefront Multiplayer-esque aerial battle. While on the ground, generally once per mission, is a new feature, being cover-based battles. Where the camera will hover over the shoulder of a character behind cover; allowing you to pop up, shoot enemies and retreat back into cover.
Smaller details would be and galaxy map, allowing for the travel between hub worlds on different planets. (Jakku, D’Qar, the Millennium Falcon, etc.) Medals for your battle performance, rewarding studs, and charged-up super attacks which are unique to each playable character.
The prologue mission takes us back to Endor, to play as Han and Leia from Return of the Jedi. This gives us some backstory, or nostalgia for the long time players. Shows us the new mechanics and gameplay options within the game, showing us just how far the LEGO games have evolved, have changed over the years.
The graphics are of course blocky, being all made of Lego, but now has had an incredible high definition characteristic to it. There is a new dynamic lighting and shadows, which instantly jump out to the player, and smoother cutscenes, to better the comedic value of the game. This works well, again showing how much the LEGO games have evolved, and how modern they’ve become in relation to the movies. The voice acting is taken from the movie, using the exact dialogue and conversations used in The Force Awakens, which really appeals to me as they didn’t change it too much. There are generally two types of LEGO game, one where the characters don’t speak, and one where they do. This falls into the second category, which I’m generally not a fan of, as it takes away from the comedic value of gestures and actions, but this game did it so well, I am still laughing at every cutscene and conversation within. The blasters and lightsabers all have their iconic sounds, pews and swooshes, with the satisfying sound of a lightsaber being activated.
In my opinion, this is one of the best games in the LEGO series, and being a large fan, I have played every one. Also being a large fan of the Star Wars franchise made this all the more better for me, and I’m sure many others would agree. I would say this game is worth the prices (PC – £24.99, PS4 and Xbox One – £39.99 and PS3 and Xbox 360 – £34.49) Normal LEGO Star Wars games include a full trilogy, so a game with only one film may not seem worth it, but with the amount of content they’ve implemented, it’s worth every penny.
Overall, the gameplay, graphics, and sounds are all outstanding, but have a lot of repetition with the new multi-builds for example. With this, I’d have to score it a 9/10, which may be slightly biased for a hardcore fan.
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