|
|
OCTOBER 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
LEGO STAR WARS
"The Complete Saga"
Here comes the third
installment of your
favorite lightsaber brick
busting game.
|
|
|
|
|
By Emma Boyes / Yahoo Games
NOTTINGHAM--It's not every event that you walk into to find stormtroopers
patrolling the cinema and Darth Vadar sitting in the audience. Jonathan
Smith, Lego Star Wars producer at TT Games, had obviously felt the need for
some backup as he discussed the latest incarnation of the successful Lego
Star Wars franchise, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
Coming out on November 9 in the UK on the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
and DS, the latest game will allow gamers to play through all six Star Wars
movies in a mash-up of the first two games, along with some new surprises.
Smith started the event by explaining that some members of the press had
become confused about what was coming in the demo. He told GameSpot,
"This press release came out, and I think people heard what they wanted to
hear. It said, something like, use your Wii remote as a light saber... it's no
secret that your character has a light saber and you fight with it, but I think
many people took that to mean that we'd created a new peripheral." Not
wanting to let those people down, Smith said that he would be trying
something in the talk to see if it would work.
He duct-taped his son's light saber to the Wii remote, "Here is the Wii
Lightsaber, TM." He joked. "Anyone can make one of these at home." The
experiment seemed to work with a surprising amount of success, but
Jonathan soon separated the two. He explained why sadly, he thinks that a
Wii light saber peripheral might not work. He said, "In the real world it's
much easier to use the original Wii remote because it's much lighter and it
doesn't make your arm hurt...There are design reasons why it might not be
great, because you'd miss a lot of the time--you're not going to be able to
fight with style. You're not a jedi, you know. So, we very, very quickly thought
that it's not going to happen in this game."
The new game will be big, explained Smith, "It's a vast game. A massive
game. An almost amazingly huge game." But size isn't all that matters: the
game will also boast a host of new features and levels, including a variety of
environments that have been redone to "make them more fun." Gamers will
also be able to play as some 120 playable characters (some of which will
need to be unlocked) and take them into scenes where they don't originally
appear.
There will also be a variety of special bricks to find, which will add extra
abilities, including Super Cronk (a request from Smith's son), which makes
the character go really fast, Poo Money, Stud Magnet, Fast Force, Super Jedi
Slam, and Tracker Beam.
He also showed off the grapple feature, which he said was his "favourite
thing" in the game. By moving the Wii Remote upwards, when a character is
standing on a red grapple point, he (or she) will sail upwards in the air to the
next grapple point.
There will also be a variety of new levels, including some which were
missing from the first two games, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Star Wars
2--such as Anakin's Fight, and a Pod racer. He showed the Lego Towns
level, where you enter a Lego city and have to complete tasks such as
rescuing a kitten from the top of a cathedral. The character customiser has
also been much improved, and now allows gamers the full range of Lego
bits and pieces from both the original games to customise a character with.
Smith commented, "You can create really outrageous character
customisations."
The game will feature co-op online play for both the PlayStation 3 and the
360 but not for the Wii. Smith explained the decision by saying, "Our
reservation is not many people play the Wii online. Let's see what happens
in the future."
Smith also hinted that despite the title, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
might not be the last Lego-themed Star Wars game. He said, "We've made
games that encompass the six movies, but the Star Wars universe is so big,
and there is lots of stuff that could be done, particularly in a Lego way."
When asked by a member of the audience if he knew what George Lucas
thought of the use of his beloved franchise as a Lego video game, Smith
said, "I understand that he thought it was 'awesome'."
|
|
|
|
|
