One of the advantages of having a fairly busy week was that my home internet connection was free to download things without interrupting my online gaming or my girlfriend’s streaming Netflix. Which worked out well, since Tuesday saw the release of the much anticipated Dragon Age 2 demo.
Tuesday also brought us a new demo for the Lego Starwars universe’s next installment. This charming little series has certainly earned it’s share of fans, though I’ve never gotten in to them. In fact, I think I’ve only played their demos. Lego Indy, Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter (ugh, that one was not by choice) . . . I think I’ve played them all. In demo form. I’ve never been inspired to go buy, rent, or borrow the full games though. That should tell you something.
For fans of the series, LSW3 shouldn’t disappoint. It seems largely the exact same as any other Lego title I’ve played. As someone who doesn’t like or follow the series, there may be some new or tweaked features. I don’t know; nothing really jumped out at me.
The typical Lego charm is there in spades. I do love the lighthearted and comical approach these games take to such beloved franchises. It’s just a shame that the cute parody is bogged down by mediocre action/platforming, boring simplistic combat, and absolutely horrible controls.
Moving the characters around in and of itself isn’t that bad . . . but it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing special or particularly fun about it. You run, jump, and swing or fire your weapon. Very basic.
The problem I had in the demo is the same problem I’ve had with the other Lego titles; any time you need to aim or guide something, it’s nearly impossible to do so. In ‘Lego Potter’ it was the magic/wand system. In Star Wars, it’s use of ‘the force’ and ranged attack/weapon targeting. Or, rather, lack of targeting.
Without some sort of cursor or cross-hair, you’re forced to let the game decide what you are trying to focus on. This is fine if there’s only one thing for you to target. Get more than one thing in any marked proximity to each other, and it can be downright maddening.
As an example; one segment in the demo has the player take three Lego chunks — one green, one red, and one yellow — and you must use ‘the force’ to move them into place on a single panel. After I targeted one and used the awkward, clunky, broken control to finally wrestle the piece in to place, I turned to pick up the next one.
But instead, the ‘force grab’ button grabbed the piece I had just put in place, despite the fact that my character’s back was to it. This jostled it out of place, resulting in another wrestling match to get it back where it needed to go. When I finally got the second piece targeted, it floated near where it was supposed to go, then snapped into the wrong place. And no matter how I moved the camera and my character, it absolutely would not target that piece, instead insisting I target the first piece that was in the correct place.
I finally had to remove the correct piece and toss it across the room out of the way, then get the second piece where it should be, then wrestle the first piece back into place, then carefully target and guide the final piece into position. I nearly just put the controller down and walked away — spending 10 minutes solving a “puzzle” that took me a half of a second to figure out mentally was not fun.
And that pretty much sums up the game. Uninteresting puzzles that are easy to solve, but oft nearly impossible to execute. If it were a matter of skill, that would be one thing. But difficulty stemming from broken controls is not a good feature of a game. Particularly in a game that will so naturally appeal to a younger audience (even though there’s plenty in the story for older gamers.)
Maybe these games just don’t give the right impression in their demos, or maybe there’s some quirky control mechanic that I just didn’t get used to (though controls for such a simple game should be intuitive and user friendly, so that’s not an excuse.) I don’t know. I just feel like the ‘Lego Title‘ games were something unique and innovative when they first came out, but that they’ve been skating by with no real improvements ever since.
The demo played poorly for a first game, but my quick count comes up with at least nine of these titles between the different franchises involved.
So, in the grand tradition of the other Lego demos I’ve played, this one failed to make my ‘to play’ list. Maybe next time you folks can just make a Lego Star Wars: The Movie and make things easier on all of us?
njoystic 