LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (2011)

Lego star wars 1 & 2 were my childhood games, but I never got around to playing this one as a kid. So I played it for the first time this year after getting obsessed with star wars again.

I really love this one. I think the gameplay in terms of combat and puzzle/manuverability is definitely at its peak here for lego games. It follows seasons 1-2 ish of the clone wars show. And its still got the immense charm that the lego games have. There are some almost like large scale battle missions which are pretty cool. And the hub world is a bit more expansive that previous games. Overall, I really like it. Lego Star Wars games have such a simple charm and fun.

I played this on steam deck, and it functions very well on the deck.

Probably the sandiest of all the Lego Star Wars games and therefore it gets a 3 out of 5.

I have really mixed feelings about Lego Star Wars 3. For the record, I adored the original games and a lot of the older Lego games. There's plenty of stuff to see and do here, the 'hub' element from the originals is still present, and they've really placed the emphasis on collecting everything which is great if you're a completionist!

There's your standard minikit and stud collection pieces to complete which both earn you gold bricks. These gold bricks are really the key to unlocking everything the game has to offer and it's here that I have my main general grievance with the game. In previous games I have happily collected most minikits and studs but for some reason I really struggled here to even pickup all the studs. This resulted in me ending up with 25 gold bricks after 15 hours of gameplay. Because of this I am locked out of certain areas in the hub. I could of course consult some guides to help me obtain the rest of the bricks but it ties into my next issue.

After completing the story I noticed I didn't have any sith characters unlocked. That's when it dawned on me that you can leave your republic ship and fly over to the separatist ship and buy sith characters there. On one hand it felt pretty cool to discover a new feature, but so late into the game? It felt like there were pieces of the game that they just weren't telling you existed. Furthermore, you need these gold bricks to unlock more rooms in the hub to access more characters to buy. Some of these characters are essential to unlocking even more doors and puzzles.

As far as the missions go they're pretty fun with a lot of secrets and easter eggs packed in, but I did get stuck a few times. Some missions are really long and the puzzles or way forward aren't always well thought out. The over-focus on ground assault style missions got very repetitive. They must have used the format 5 or 6 times throughout the campaign. Once you've done it once you've done them all. I get that it's a new mechanic to the series but yeah, pretty boring the 5th time.

I hate concentrating on the negatives when it comes to a game and I rarely give a bad review, but Lego Star Wars 3 got on my nerves too many times. I applaud the hub and the easter eggs / humour. The variety of missions, modes, and collectibles are really neat too. Just wish it didn't feel so confusing at times.

Always had a soft spot for Lego games and it's taken me a while to get around to this one. Played it for a while last year but only just discovered some of the areas in the hub ship. Cool to see that you can create your own character which was a neat feature from the original saga game.

I noticed Lego The Incredibles is on sale for £3-£4 on the playstation store. Wonder if that's worth picking up? I'm finding that I enjoy these older Lego games compared to the newer open world ones.