Before I get into this, I need to set something straight. Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI are not the sequels to Star Wars Episodes I, II and III. How the hell can you release IV, V, and VI 20-some years before I, II, and III and call them sequels?! GAH!
But I digress... I find the Star Wars franchise to be horribly overrated. The original Star Wars movies were fun when I was a kid, but upon review once I was older their glossy venear was gone. The recent Star Wars movies were tedious and boring when they came out as an adult, as well as offensive as I watched them rape the last vestige of my childhood with stupid characters like Jar Jar Binks and moody, stupid Anakin. Why I watched Episode III when I knew it was going to suck is beyond me.
This is why I was so surprised that I loved Lego Star Wars I (which was Episodes I, II, and III re-enacted by Lego people) so much. Perhaps removing all the spoken dialog, adding tons of "Lego humor", and making all the characters waddle like Lego people was just what this peice of shit story needed.
When LSWII was released, I had to be one of the first people to get it. Naturally, since my 360 is my system of choice now, I got it for the 360.
In a nutshell, LSWII is everything that the first game was and more. However, it does have one feature that is both a strength and a weakness.
LSWII is Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI re-enacted by Lego people. Duh. It has humor and lots of great action. On the 360, it's gorgeous. There are a few improvements over the gameplay of the previous game.
First, you can assemble stuff. This almost seems like a given seeing as it is Lego, but it wasn't present in the first game. This allows for lots of simple button-mashing puzzles, and isn't a drastic change in the gameplay or anything, but it is a nice touch and one that I really would have missed from the first game had I thought of it then.
Second, you have lots of vehicles. This changes things significantly as certain vehicles (and animals you can ride) allow you to do very unique things.
Third, and this is the big change, you now have a heavy reliance on cooperative gameplay. Puzzles that are required in order to pass, abilities and battles with enemies now have a cooperative focus. This means that you either need to have a second player there, or you have to rely on generally stupid AI.
For those of us who are generally friendless except for virtual friends, this can make the game greatly frustrating in key places. I'll give you an example from very early in the game.
In the first level of Episode I, you find yourself with one or two Rebel Guards escorting R2-D2 and C-3PO to an escape pod on the Blockade Runner. You get to a point where C-3PO is needed to unlock a door across a chasm, and C-3PO can't jump. However, in the room there is a crane that can lift and move characters around the room. What you're supposed to do is pick 3PO up and move him across the chasm. If 3PO is being controlled by a second player, this wouldn't be a problem.
However, if 3PO is controlled by the AI, his automatic behavior is to follow you around. This means that instead of standing still for the crane, he stupidlly follows you back to the crane controls (and well out of range of the crane itself).
Ok, you might be thinking, all I need to do is tell him to stay, right? Well, you would be right if this game was set up like other squad-based games and you could order the people in your squad to do things. However, you can't. You can't give any orders or otherwise convey what you want these AI-controlled characters to do.
What you can do is use R2-D2's "shock blast" to knock 3PO out for a short period of time. Unfortunately, R2-D2 isn't the one who can operate the crane, so immediately after you shock blast 3PO where you need him to be, you have to roll R2 up to a guard and switch to the guard (you can only switch to characters nearby). You then need to run the guard back to the crane controls (which are far away), operate the crane, and grab 3PO. You have to do all this before 3PO comes to (because if he wakes up, he's going to be running after you).
If you're not quick enough to grab 3PO with the crane, or if you accidentally switch to the wrong character (it can be pretty imprecise), you have to start all over again. AAARGH!
Which brings me to what is the biggest problem with the 360 version of the game (and presumably the Xbox version as well). Since it is on the 360, it has access to Xbox Live. Why not make it so the second player can be on Xbox Live?! I'm sure I'm not the only person with nothing but virtual friends who is struggling with this game simply because the AI is stupid. This seems like a severely stupid thing to not make support for Xbox Live.
At any rate, even with this annoyance the game is brilliant. Playing as a single player the cooperative aspects are an annoyance, but they don't really detract too much from the overall good game here. However, if you are on the Xbox or the 360 you will probably wonder why there is no Live support.
