Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a game I downloaded a couple
of years ago for no reason other than I wanted the achievement points for it. This
seems pathetic now; I already owned Lego Star Wars and Lego Star Wars 2: The
Original Trilogy on the Xbox. I played through the first few bits a year or so
ago and had barely touched it since; it’s just been sitting on my Xbox 360
gathering E-dust. Until now…
The Lego series is a bit of a funny one. There are those who
say that they’re not true games because they don’t have a fail state, or they’re
too easy, or they’re just for “casual players.” Well, it’s true that you don’t fail
for dying too many times. For that reason, it’s not usually hard to beat the ‘Campaign’
mode.[1] Such
violence as appears in the game is in context and not graphic at all; the worst
thing that happens in the game is that Lego pieces fall apart. And it’s also
almost the only series of games I’ve played with my girlfriend (although we
play Lego Harry Potter, rather than Star Wars,) so it’s absolutely true that
the game appeals to casual players.
Well, I’ve got two answers to that:
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| Zooming through Mos Eisley with Jango Fett? Don't mind if I do... |
The first one is that the challenge in the Lego games is
whatever you make of it, pun not intended. If you embrace the collect-em-up
nature of the game – which, at their heart, is what the Lego games are – and find
all the collectables, characters, gold and red bricks etc, the game is quite
challenging, if only because it will take you ages. In my case, this is pretty
much the only game I’ve got where I’ve got a hope of 100% completing it and
seeing all the content, so that is what I am aiming for. Now, I know you can
use Minikit detectors and Power Bricks to help you, but even then, you’ve still
got to move your characters into the right places and use the right powers in
the right order, etc. There is challenge here – if you can look past beating
the story.
The second one is that none of those supposed criticisms are
a bad thing. Today’s markets are not patient enough to sit through a whole game
where they might have to start all over again if they die three times – I rarely
find a campaign mode in a modern action game that would punish you for anything
other than forgetting to save.
As for appealing to the casual market, well, why not? For
some people – especially younger children – games like Assassin’s Creed, Far
Cry and Space Marine are just not for them. Either they find the violence in
such games objectionable, or they’re not mature enough to appreciate it. Take
Gears of War, for example. One of the principle actions you can take is to
instantly kill an enemy by attacking it with the chainsaw attached to your gun.
Most people are capable of making the distinction between this graphic violence
in a video game and real life, but my girlfriend doesn’t find it even the
slightest bit entertaining, and a younger person would not necessarily
appreciate the spectacle – the enemy is dead, either way.
And it’s not just the violence. Graphically, the games are
great, if only because of the art style. They looked great in 2005 and are
still looking great nearly 10 years later. Does the first Medal of Honor game
still look as good as its last iteration? I think not. Also I follow someone’s
Youtube channel who has a sister who is disabled. About a year and a half ago
she made a video and blog post about how easy modes and casual games can open
doors for more players, including her sister. Here’s the blog post: http://icklenellierose.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/accessible-gaming-gaming-with-disability.html
As it is, I’m actually quite enjoying Lego Star Wars right
now because it’s one of the few games I’ve bought where it’s OK to just pick it
up and have a play, rather than devoting hours to the story or campaign. I’m
having a good amount of fun collecting everything, I’m about 60% of the way
there now and I’m looking on course to get all the achievements in a game for
the first time ever!
I’ll probably still be at it next week, so I’ll talk some
more about it then…
[1]
A generic term probably mis-applied to Lego games.
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