{"id":88855,"date":"2016-07-06T19:25:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T18:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=88855"},"modified":"2016-07-06T19:25:10","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T18:25:10","slug":"lego-star-wars-the-force-awakens-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/lego-star-wars-the-force-awakens-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fun and familiar: two words you could easily use to describe Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/strong><\/em>. Despite its critical and commercial success at the box office last year, it certainly wasn\u2019t without its detractors \u2013 those crying fowl at how the new characters, locations and story beats felt too much like a retread to things we\u2019ve already seen before from the franchise. Those people were wrong, obviously – because the film was amazing – but the same criticism can be applied to its videogame adaptation, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Developer Traveller\u2019s Tales offers very little here in Lego Star Wars: TFA<\/strong><\/em> that we haven\u2019t already seen before, enjoyed immensely and exhaustively content completed time and time again over the decade. The basic structure continues to work well for the series \u2013 as does TT Games\u2019 trademark goofy humour \u2013 but it\u2019s starting to feel a little well worn. But just because the game has little to offer in terms of surprises doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t fun, that impossible to gauge metric by which we judge all of our entertainment on. In spite of its familiarity, it is a charming, constantly entertaining and family friendly game that shouldn\u2019t be missed by any Star Wars<\/strong><\/em> fan.<\/p>\n

Following the plot of the movie closely (not to mention a little prequel section taking you back to the Endor battle from Return Of The Jedi<\/strong><\/em>), Lego Star Wars: TFA<\/strong><\/em> lets you tackle some of the most memorable sections from the new film, albeit in adorable Lego form. You\u2019ll be able to stalk through the desert wastes of Jakku, tear through the ground and skies of Starkiller Base and, of course, explore the forests of Takodana. This is a game that\u2019s slavishly dedicated to fan service, constantly giving you collectables to hunt, wider universe characters to play as and poking fun at the lore and story at every opportunity it gets \u2013 it\u2019s legitimately laugh-out-loud funny at times, and that can\u2019t often be said about modern videogames.<\/p>\n

For every time you may roll your eyes at yet another grate only small characters can crawl through or those times you\u2019ll need a specific character to climb a ledge, it\u2019ll find something that\u2019ll have you smiling from ear to ear. As you stumble into Kylo Ren\u2019s poster-covered teenage bedroom \u2013 a shine to everything Darth Vadar \u2013 or notice Rey\u2019s \u2018BB on Board\u2019 sticker adorning the side of her land-speeder, Traveller\u2019s Tales always finds a way to distract you from the sometimes monotonous task of smashing things down and building them back up again.<\/p>\n

Admittedly there are a few new additions to the core and expected gameplay, but they don\u2019t always work as intended. Boss fights have a habit of turning into tedious non-specific quick-time events, while the introduction of cover based shooting mechanics are a nice idea, they can sometimes spoil the pacing of an otherwise amazing level. But when you\u2019re playing with another person \u2013 instead of letting the accursed AI assist you \u2013 they become less of an annoyance and more of a small speed bump before you can get onto your next adventure.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s the key here, Lego Star Wars: TFA<\/strong><\/em> always feels like you\u2019re taking part in a huge adventure. It\u2019s a beautiful looking game, well polished and perfect if you want something to play with your kids. But if you\u2019ve played a Lego game at any point in the last three years, just don\u2019t expect it to offer anything substantial that you haven\u2019t seen and enjoyed before. Then again, if you love Star War<\/strong><\/em>s why are you still reading? Go get it already; you usually have to beg for this level of fan service from creators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does Lego’s take on The Force Awakens match up to the movie?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":88856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[8,848],"tags":[5210],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/LSWTFA_E3_Rey_Finn_BB8_1465839179.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}