Lego + Star Wars = Fun

Got $20 burning a hole in your pocket, and looking for some fun? Might I suggest Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy? Based on the "good" Star Wars trilogy, it's a bit of an oddity... sort of an adventure/puzzle game disguised as an action game. Yes, you do get to run around blasting and light-sabering stormtroopers and the like... but that will only get you so far. Besides which, there's one big unexpected mechanic for an action game... you can't die.

I should clarify... yes, you do have a health meter, and you can get "killed"... but you don't have any limit on how many times you can die, and all dying really does to you is lose some in-game cash (and not even a particularly large amount of that). This mechanic allows you to take your inevitable demise from a horde of troopers or a bad jump in stride, while you concentrate on another major mechanic... building stuff.

This is a Lego game after all... creation and destruction are part and parcel of that system. In this game, building comes both from manually gathering bits and pieces to form objects and controls (and pretty simply at that), or, in some cases, "using the Force" to accomplish the same sort of thing writ large (can't have a Star Wars game without the Force now, can you?).

Apart from that... well, you get some running-around levels with a team of Legoized characters from the films, and fly-around levels with Legoized vehicles from the films, and the encompassing collection game that surrounds the whole mess... it's good, clean, wholesome fun... and, unlike my usual usage of that phrase, I mean that literally this time. Those of you on next-gen consoles might have to pony up for the "complete" Lego Star Wars... I might balk at what they're wanting for that just now, but keep an eye on it... at some point, it'll be cheap enough to "take a chance" on... and I heartily recommend you do.