Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
PS2
Traveller's Tales

After the huge sales of the first title, it was hardly a surprise that Traveller's Tales would release a second 'Lego Star Wars' title. Though the first game had its moments, it was still flawed. So what went wrong? How on earth did they manage to make a game that is significantly less enjoyable than its predecessor?

The answer, it seems, is that 'The Original Trilogy' was rushed to meet the DVD release of its source material.

For the most part, the game follows the same routine as the first title - each of the three movies represented are divided up into six levels, of which most are 3rd person action adventure and the other one or two are vehicle-based. Unfortunately, the reasonably enjoyable rail shooter levels that featured in the first title have now been replaced with horrifically bad free roaming vehicle levels, where the aim is often unclear and frustrating to accomplish, even once it has been ascertained.

As for the 3rd person levels, they have not changed much - they are still mostly linear, with a few hidden rooms or passages here and there that can only be unlocked by exploration or using the abilities of different characters. However, when it does come down to some of the game's light puzzle solving to progress, it more often that not relies upon the same 'shoot everything 'til something happens' mentality that grew so tiresome in the first game.

Even more tiresomely, while problems regarding the first game's length were apparently duly noted and supposedly fixed, it seems to have just come down to adding more boring objects to collect and a time trial level at the end of each episode.

That said, 'The Original Trilogy' is still a good game, but with the benefit of hindsight following the first title, it should have been a great game. What could have been a real cross generational hit has ended up as another disappointingly standard, licensed kid's game.

Alistair Wallis