Lego Star Wars II The Original Trilogy

I have just switched this game off in annoyance, but there is more to it than just a badly designed game cashing in on the names of a popular film franchise and a popular toy.

When I wrote about the first Lego Indiana Jones game I said I found the games parallel story and freeplay modes annoying, but I take that back.  It is an especially understandable part of the Nintendo DS version as it is an effective way of making a longer game out of limited content; not that this is a short game.

Cross controller on the left makes it hard to move characters precisely.

However, there is plenty to complain about in this game.  Camera Angles are a total nuisance.  Sometimes you cannot see the character you are playing.  If you are running along a narrow walkway (going from one side of the screen to the other), as the camera angle swings round to follow you the direction you have to run in relative to your view gradually changes.  This would be a challenge to adapt to using a thumb-stick, but with the DSi's cross type controller it's a total pain.  For this reason the game is not as ideal for the DS as its blocky graphics and childish appeal might at first make it seem.

I have to spend some time moaning about the Forest Moon or Endor.  This contains a section where you will probably be playing as Han and you have to do so much awkwardly jumping between platforms and generally falling down that you will hate the world and everything in it by the time you finish.  I say probably playing as Han because Chewie is with him to start with but is very quickly trapped in a cycle of repeated falling and gets left behind.  I am not going to go into every detail about why it is the single most frustrating section in any game I have every played but I will say that what made it doubly awful was that twice, through no fault of mine, Han became stuck or the game would not do what it needed to do to move on to the next part and I had to switch off and re-start the chapter.

Chewie is wearing a Storm Trooper's Helmet in "Rescuing The Princess"

Despite all the times that I screamed and swore while playing this game, I played it all the way through in story mode and proceeded to immediately restart in freeplay.  The game's ability to make you want the collectibles on offer is uncanny and I cannot help thinking that this must be a virtue of the game in itself.  If people like a game, then surely that is what defines a good game.  If I want to play this game, doesn't that mean that I like it.  Does that follow?  I don't know and have no wish to resolve that or any other question.

I am glad I played the game and will go back and play other Lego games but I will stuck to the ones available for the PS3 and play them on that from now on as control issues made this too much like hard work on the DSi.