When the original Lego Star Wars game debuted in 2005, the series became notable for two distinct reasons: It combined the fun of Lego building blocks with Star Wars action figures, and it allowed players to take part through all the major events of the Prequel Trilogy. By comparison, Lego Star Wars II continues what made the first game so appealing, but just adds on to it.

To elaborate a little more, the first game made its mark by adding scenes that you wanted to play, but never could in other games, and just the fact that it made the Prequel Trilogy an actual interesting place to explore. The sequel takes this mold and simply adds on to it, not taking away any of the elements that made the first game so appealing. With this game, players get a stronger storyline (based on the original, unaltered DVD releases that coincided on the same day - in other words, Han shoots Greedo first, and the Ewok “Yub Yub” music returns), a fun character creation, new vehicles to build and ride in, and the humorous takes on familiar scenarios. I personally enjoyed the first game quite a bit. This one is even better.

Without a doubt, one of the coolest features of this game is that it allows you to export all of your characters from the first game to give players 100+ characters to play with in “Free Play”. Anakin and Luke Skywalker? Check. Mace Windu and Lando Calrissian? Yes. Boba and Jango Fett? It’s possible. Wicket the Ewok and Jar Jar Binks? Well, if that’s your thing…. Players also get the opportunity to create their own Lego hero avatar, whether it’s a character from the Expanded Universe of stories, or even the chance to put themselves into the game. There are a lot of character pieces to work with.

Vehicle modes are greatly improved. In the regular levels, characters can jump in and out of vehicles at will, allowing for new areas to be explored, and it’s simply fun to tool around Tatooine in a Landspeeder. The vehicle-exclusive levels are no longer on rails, which allows for greater exploration of the levels. Some of the key scenes and battles genuinely are exciting, especially to see how they will be handled in humorous toy form.

And there is more than a fair share of things to explore. New areas that are completely off-limits unless you have the correct character class with you, and some of the areas are surprisingly huge. The items found increase the depth of the game, so there is actually a lot of incentive to keep earning and buying items to open up more and more areas of the game.

Graphics are pure Star Wars…. albeit more silly and playful. But they animate well, are accurate representations of the levels and worlds, and it’s admittedly very cool to have your entire party of heroes working together as a team to complete tasks as they did in the movie.

Sound is… pure Star Wars. You know what to expect with the John Williams score and the lightsaber hums. It’s hard to rate a Star Wars game in this category because you know exactly what’s supposed to be there, and it is.

The humor in this game should also be noted. It provides a lot of funny moments without being overly silly in its presentation. It tells the classic scenes from the trilogy… with just a slight humorous twist. And some scenes made me genuinely laugh.

The game also has a small share of problems that slightly dampen the fun, stemming largely from AI and camera issues. The team member AI for the heroes seems much more “stupid” in this game. One of the more impressive aspects of the first game is that the AI controlled characters would have your back during a firefight. In this game, there’s a lot of wondering if their shots do any damage at all, or they just stand there and do nothing. The first game handled this much better in execution.

There is also talk of a new feature called “adaptive difficulty”, which is supposed to ramp up in challenge based on the player’s skill level. The only thing I saw what might for this supposed feature are the waves upon waves of endless Stormtroopers that fill up the screen in some levels and blow your characters to pieces repeatedly until you somehow manage to be fast enough to accomplish the task at hand. To add to the so called “challenge”, this task must be completed before the puzzle resets itself. If this is the developer’s idea of more responsive AI, it’s cheap and not well thought out. Not to mention very frustrating.

Also frustrating is the two-player camera. The camera needs to better adjust its perspective if the characters get too far away each other. There is nothing worse than the camera pulling a character towards a cliff trying to compensate for the distance, only to push them over the edge and lose precious Lego pieces.

Despite its quirks, Lego Star Wars II is a virtual romp through a very big toy box. It’s a fun experience playing with all of the little action figures in and out of vehicles, and it’s like revisiting a part of childhood again. That said, it does provide enough challenge that doesn’t make it a “kid’s game”, which I’ve grown to think of as a derogatory term used for those games dumped on a system at the end of the console’s life cycle.

The best way to describe this is as an “all ages game”. It’s fun as a single player experience, and can be enjoyed with two players as long as both play as a team. I looked forward to this sequel all year, and I am glad to say that I was not disappointed. It captures a lot of the excitement and appeal of the original films, and proves to be a worthy companion piece to the first game.

A very fun and humorous title. Recommended.

Based on the 2007 CG animated film of the same name, the Game Boy Advance version of the green foursome stands out as not only a surprisingly good movie based outing, but a fun title that draws back to the quarter-munching days of the original arcade.

There is a certain rush of fond nostalgia similar to the overall feel of Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. A feeling much better captured than the more recent TMNT games released for the last generation of systems.

The graphics are well done with bright, recognizable and detailed sprites for all the Turtles, each with their own distinct animations for attacks. The cut-scenes are pulled from the recent movie, and while they don’t match the gameplay’s look, they don’t feel out of place, either. In beat ‘em up games such as this, a player is guaranteed to face endless sets of generic bad guys, and while plentiful here, they at least are well-detailed generic bad guys, with good animation.

The music is also well done. Kind of generic hard-hitting rock music sets the tone for gameplay. Nothing outstanding, but appropriate for the action, and reminiscent of the old Turtles games, with plenty of good grunts, “oofs”, and fighting sound effects abound.

The game itself controls like a dream, providing fast, responsive gameplay. Players don’t feel like they pulled off a move only to not have it register on screen. The Turtles are given the basic attack/jump button combos, but can pull off a few special moves and charges. The framerate is also smooth and easy, with no choppy animation here.

As far as updates to the classic formula, players can strengthen the Turtles to make them better fighters by purchasing power-ups and equipment in a free-roaming hub. April, Casey Jones and Splinter each offer you various challenges of skill. There’s a “trophy room” that gives you awards if you meet certain requirements. The level backgrounds are quite interactive and allow for some destruction. You can find and use weapons along the way. There are even attacks where you can call in your brothers for some temporary extra help, and surprise! They’re actually helpful and competent, removing an annoying bad guy too many, or dropping a pizza your way. The game also offers battery save. It’s all good stuff that doesn’t clutter the main focus of pounding endless villains.

Basically, this game is the old arcade games. Same vibe. Same feel. Same reasons you liked them, but with all these little added bonuses that actually feel useful and work.

If there were criticisms to be leveled at the game, the co-op feature of arcade games is sorely missing here. This is strictly a one-player game. If Ubisoft had somehow found a way to implement that as a feature, this game would have quite possibly been the greatest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game ever created. No exaggeration.

You also get the “flaws” of the arcade gameplay in this version. A lot of semi-unintelligent, relentless bad guys who have fairly easy patterns to exploit make up a majority of the encounters players will face.

The overall challenge, however, is fairly forgiving. If a player loses all their lives, they start over from the beginning level. If power-ups are bought in between levels, the next level must be completed in order to keep them. A little frustrating, but bearable.

At this stage in the life cycle of Game Boy Advance, with the DS reigning supreme, this is the phase where we are supposed to get mediocre kids titles, and budget games from publishers that we’ve never heard of. It’s the death knell of any game system, and you stop expecting “good” games because everyone’s moved on to the next big thing.

Don’t let this game slip you by. Even if you no longer have your GBA, it will work on your DS just fine.

The online sites were calling all the other version of the new TMNT game average at best, but were going crazy over the GBA version. So I decided to check it out, and it turned out to be well worth it.

Someone at Ubisoft clearly loved the old arcade games, more than the Konami programmers who worked on the later TMNT games for the last-gen systems. The update feels fresh, even though the gameplay is easy enough to remember and pick up. It doesn’t break new ground. It just refines it. And there is a genuine sense of cheery nostalgia playing through this title. Players can find a lot of replayability by doing some of the levels over to unlock more awards or earn more money.

In the last two years, I’ve seen some great “updates” on classic games. Mega Man: Powered Up. New Super Mario Bros., Ultimate Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins…. And they’ve all been on portable game systems. Add TMNT to the list. It keeps what you love about the original game, and just gives it a bit of modern flourish.

If this is the last new Game Boy Advance game you get, then your purchase was a good choice.

Highly recommended.