"The most fun dumb game this year" is how I heard Lego Star Wars described at the local Gamestop. I've always been a huge Lego fan, I have a ginormous collection, but from what I've seen of Lego related games has disappointed me. But when this one came out, it just looked fun. But I had to wait to play it till after I saw "Revenge of the Sith", didn't want it to spoil the movie for me. But now that I saw the movie, I had to get this game. I thought of buying it, but ended up picking up something else. So I went to the local Blockbuster and they finally had one copy in, for the XBOX. (I wanted it for PS2) I also got a scratched disk, but got to work. I had some problems with it being choppy, but this could have been the disk I got. Anyways, after having it for my allotted rental time, I finally sat down with some friends and played the whole game in one sitting. Here's my take on what I played.

Graphically Lego Star Wars is a nice smooth running 3D game, but it is pretty simple looking. But you can't get too detailed since it's Legos. But the backgrounds for the levels did look pretty good against the 3D Lego graphics. Plus there are lots of nice effects to make the Lego action come to life! Some of the coolest are when ships explode, they explode into Lego pieces. Or when people die they turn into the pieces making them up.

This game also has great sound effects and music, it's all right from the "Star Wars" movies. There wasn't really any amazing surround sound, but it wasn't bad. My only complaint, and probably this biggest with the whole game, is that at times the volume of the music would drop for a while. Then in another part be louder. It seemed to fluctuate some and was sort of annoying. But for the most part it sounded great. And all the music works with the scenes it should, just like in the movies. It definitely has a cool soundtrack. The one thing this game could've used, is actually voice acting lines from the movies. That would have been fun. But instead they just make noises every now and then that are sort of funny. The best of course is R2-D2, he probably has the most "voice acting" with all his beeps.

One thing this game does, it uses Legos to make great reenactments of some of the major scenes in the first three "Star Wars" movies. That's what this game covers. You could play this and get an idea of what happens in the movies, but it would definitely spoil them for you if you hadn't seem them first. But the story is the same as the movies, you just play through the major parts of it. There are cut scenes all through the game that add humorous Lego antics to make them fun. Mainly just seeing Lego people portray characters from the movies is funny enough.

Probably the best part of this game is nothing more than the game play. This game is a lot of to play. First of all it's sort of an arcade style, as you can play single player or a friend can jump in and out as they want to. And you don't have to worry about lives or continuing. If you die you just come back, the only thing is you drop money you had and can lose it. This game is full of action. You start out at the beginning of "Phantom Menace" in the Trade Federation ship. When you have to bust your way out. It's pretty easy to control your character, since it's a third person view. You can use you lightsaber to fight enemies and can even reflect laser blasts back at people with it. Some places in the game you have to do this. You can also use the force. You can use it to throw enemies around or to solve puzzles and open doors. This is really cool, since you can move about anything. And everything seems to give you money. There are even some levels with vehicles, like pod racing or flying a fighter. This is all pretty easy to play. Probably the biggest problem I encountered with playing this game, is that if you play with a friend, you have to stay in the screen together. This usually isn't a big deal, but can get annoying when you're in a vehicle or trying to get something when you run out of screen or get pulled back due to the screen moving. There are also some parts that are checkpoint based and make you constantly redo it if you can't get past it. Luckily this game is pretty easy so that's not a big deal.

As you play through the game there is tons of stuff to do. You get more characters to join you and can switch between them to get past areas. You can unlock over 30 characters and use them on levels you've played already to get things you missed. You get to play as all the major characters in the game like: Obi Wan, Anikan, Yoda, ect. And different characters can do different things. And they made Yoda kick butt with a lightsaber like he does in the movies! Even though he can get annoying at times.

Overall Lego Star Wars was a super fun game, a lot better then I first thought. It's a fun game you could play in a few hours if you don't want to do everything. But there is a lot of extra stuff you can do, so you could make it last. This is a good rental, unless you're a huge Lego or Star Wars fan. I'll have to add it to my collection someday, since I thought it rocked. Plus there's a lot I didn't do. And I'd like to see it on PS2, see if it's better.