The more we know about Star Wars, the more we want to discover. Eagle-eyed fans have been desperately trying to squeeze every bit of info out of the The Force Awakens story, spurring many to comb through the books, comics and wiki pages, searching for clues to Rey's parentage, Luke's past, and the many other unanswered questions. But they’ve been looking in the wrong place: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is full of Star Wars-y goodness and additional unexplored content, meaning the game might just be a better source of info than the deleted scenes on Blu-Ray.
Lego games typically cover broader slices of subject matter. The previous Lego Star Wars games plowed through the prequel trilogy and original trilogy stories at light speed, which diluted the details. In Lego The Force Awakens, we're getting a full breakdown of a single movie, plus a few extras. That includes closer looks at every major location and more than 200 characters. Do you even remember seeing 200 characters in the movie? No, me neither, but we will be able to play as all of them in the game.
The majority of Lego The Force Awakens is focused on recreating the important scenes from movie, which amounts to 11 missions centered on story points we already know about. However, there are seven additional levels that touch on entirely new story elements. Players will get back-story on characters like Lor San Tekka, discover how Han and Chewie captured the Rathtars, and follow Poe on additional adventures. Plus, the developer mentioned that some of the gameplay will detail events that take place before the movie's text scroll... including information on how C3-PO got his red arm.
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens plays like every other Lego game with the addition of some flight segments and new building elements. You can bash on Stormtrooper heads with Rey's twirling staff attacks, and break down Lego blocks to restack them into useful devices. There's even a new multi-build feature that lets you choose between multiple Lego constructs that interact with the environment in different ways. The gameplay doesn't deviate far from the previous games, but from what I played in my demo, the Lego formula is still fun. The gameplay is by-the-numbers, but what makes Lego The Force Awakens so intriguing is its expanded look at the new worlds of Star Wars.
The environments are extremely detailed and do well to replicate what you see in the movie (with lots of Lego blocks added in, of course). One level gives me a better look at the inside of a wrecked Star Destroyer on Jakku. Another mission has Rey, Finn, and BB-8 fighting through the town of Niima Outpost, which is filled with aliens, stormtroopers, and other characters from the movie. And the last mission recreates Rey's first flight in the Millennium Falcon and expands on the chase, moving from on-rails segments to a free-flight, arena dogfight. Plus, each level is interspersed with classic, quirky Lego cut-scenes. I haven’t seen them, but have been told to expect to see the same treatment for the story segments that aren’t from the movie.
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens might just bring answers to some of the biggest Star Wars questions, or introduce some new mysteries of its own. However, what we see in the game does need to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, it does depict Kylo Ren as a comically whiny child who speaks to his grandfather's helmet in a room filled with dark side posters and Darth Vader merchandise. Yeah, the Lego humor is strong with this one.
