Game Review: 'Lego Star Wars' breathes new life into blocks

Lego's movie-based franchises are standard fare. They follow the story, and are a bit predictable, but have stood the test of time. Though the last few games have lost momentum, the new Lego Star War: The Force Awakens seems to breathe new life into the Lego games.

The differences begin right off the bat. The game begins 30 years prior to the events of new movie, from the Battle of Endor. It lets you play as Han Solo, Chewbacca and others from the original movies. It's a great start, especially if you were expecting to play directly from the events of The Force Awakens. Thirty years later, you are taken right into the resistance base with Poe Dameron and BB-8. The new storyline commences from here. We won't give away spoilers just in case you haven't watched the movies yet. The game has done a good job of using the original voice-overs while managing to give it a humourous touch.

The story is followed through and you get to live out the movie, with a few puzzles and blocks thrown in for good measure. You can also break stuff around you for points, and then build them in to other things that can be used to complete parts of your mission. The story mission is fairly short, around eight hours, but at the end of the story, you would have completed only a fraction of the entire game.

To complete the game, you have to accomplish a number of missions that fill gaps in the movie story line.

What we didn't like is reading the introductory story in the typical Star Wars scrolling way before every section of the game. These are just small peeves though. Overall the game is laudable.

It is recommended for both Star Wars and Lego fans alike, and if you haven't played a Lego title yet, this is the one you can start with. It is also one of the rare titles to be available for PS3 and Xbox 360 right now, when most other game developers have abandoned it.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Rating: 4/5
Developer: TT Games
Publisher: Warner Brothers
Platform: PC, PS3, X360, PS4, XBO, PSVita
Price: Rs 499; PS3/X360: Rs 1,999; PS4/XBO: Rs 2,499; PSV: Rs 1,799