Lego Star Wars (PS2)

Herald rating: * * *

A video game with Lego-built characters, vehicles and furniture. It sounds like an excuse to release a half-finished game. Sure, the graphics are blocky, but that's the whole idea.

Who knows what led George Lucas to reduce his Stars Wars epics to a pile of Lego blocks? Probably a vast pile of cash.

The result is a reasonably absorbing kids' action adventure game set in space.

Lego Star Wars draws not from the original three Star Wars movies but from the prequels The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and the newly released Revenge of the Sith.

I would have preferred the classic stories of the retro movies, but these have plenty of action to keep the kids occupied. All major scenes from the prequels are re-enacted, pod races and pitched battles included.

You play a stubby-legged Anakin Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi. You can pretty much play as any of the major characters. As the game progresses you gather a band of comrades, including the robotic C-3PO, who can open doors for you. Switching between the characters allows you to use their special powers. Anakin, of course, has the force and can use it to great effect.

Each chapter is loaded with puzzles that have to be solved, hidden treasures and passages waiting to be explored. In that sense, Lego Star Wars is a good educational game. The rest of the time you vanquish enemies who explode into chunks of Lego when you hit them with your light sabre.

The showdown with dark-side kingpin Darth Maul is a highlight and not all of the game takes place in metallic hallways or on platforms floating on air. You can fly spaceships, too.

The familiar John Williams theme music swirls over the action and everything from the bleeps of R2-D2's computer to the sound of swishing light sabres is straight out of the movies.

I don't think Lego Star Wars has the adult crossover potential of a Lemony Snicket, but it will keep the kids engaged and no doubt trigger a new craze for plastic, glowing light sabres.

* 3 years+, $80