Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 97

97: Lego Star Wars – The Complete Saga (multiple platforms)
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Year: 2005-2006-2007 (in its respective parts)

Star Wars games suck. Historically speaking, if you take all the games ever produced under the Star Wars title, you’re left with a festering stink pot of pure video game bile. Examples include: Star Wars’: Masters of Teras Kasi (an unresponsive fighter), Obi-Wan’s Adventures (a poor platformer on the original X-Box), and even Galaxies (the first attempt at an MMO done horribly, horribly wrong. Who REALLY wants to play as a Wookie Dancer? Oh, everyone? Ok. That’s cool). But for every Star Wars: Demolition, there was a piece of solid gold, a chance for the series to redeem itself. And one such example is the overly popular Lego-brand space opera adaptation.

What might be the single EASIEST game on this entire list, Lego Star Wars is as pure as fun can get. There is little challenge, really, and the levels are very straight-forward. But the real heart of this series isn’t in its difficulty (or lack thereof), but really in its heart, its character, and its blow-the-hell-out-of-everything-on-screen-for-points attitude. Also, Chewie can pull the arms off of EVERYONE, so that’s pretty cool.

The “story” is just that of both sagas; Luke and Han and Vader and Stormtroopers, and Anikan and Mace and Dooku and clones. Each single episode is broken up by a hub world, and each trilogy has its own, too. The good part is, there is no voice acting, and only Lego expressions. This means that your story is told through hilarious miming and comical sound effects. For example, the Darth Vader reveal, in which he points to a picture of Padme to signify Luke’s parentage stands out. But the jokes don’t end here. Put together the pieces lying on the floor in Jabba’s palace and suddenly a jukebox and dance floor appear, with dancing enemies jumping in and busting their only grooves.

Its simple hack-and-slash to get to the end, but that’s not really the point, is it? No, the single greatest objective someone has while playing this game is to collect. You need “studs” (money, in this game) to unlock extra characters, bonus “cheats”, and sometimes extra levels. To get 100% you’ll need to “catch ’em all” and that will take hours of your life away, as finding things like the last red brick in the second level of an episode can be difficult without the proper tools, tools you need to find things to buy in the first place. It can be taxing, but when you stack stud multipliers on top of each other near the end of your collecting, you’ll realize just how awesome the game is as your riches double and double again before your eyes.

All in all, this is a Star Wars game for all ages, and for your game shelf. One of the greatest bonuses of its simplicity is that it is available on almost ANY system, from the PS2 to the Nintendo DS, meaning just about anyone can experience the fun. It has a great multiplayer system, to boot, meaning you can have a friend hop into the game at any time, making it a perfect party game to have going in the background if everyone is getting tired of Rock Band. Plus, its a good Star Wars game with lightsaber combat. There are really only two others in the history of time.

Classic Moment:
Starting a brawl in the Cantina hub of the Original Trilogy episodes is hilarious, especially after you’ve unlocked dozens of secret, extra characters. The blazing gun-and-fist battle is potentially hilarious as you watch Vader fight Padme to death, or see five different version of Han Solo shoot it out, with Lando and/or Lobot taking most of the damage. Its a treat to watch, to be sure.

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Added September 29, 2016
Man, so many better LEGO games have come out, since, including the game for “Force Awakens” – while this one is good, it would no longer make the cut.