'lo all.

 

I'm actually going to make the odd attempt to update this blasted thing every once in a while. Especially as I have set out my entries ahead of time. I'm actually working on a deadline or something, it's rather creepy.

 

Now, first off, some things I neglected to mention about Gurumin:

 

A. The little girl fights with a DRILL. Giant magic drill, it's fairly awesome. In addition to this, every strike you make levels up your drill, and there are up to three levels to achieve--however it's not a set thing, if you're hit too many times at any level, you will be forced back to an earlier level. This is easily tracked on the drill gauge.

 

B. The attacks you learn are fabulous and awesome, in addition to the standard hilarious attacks (Pretty missile kick, etc) there are learnable attacks that you gain by purchasing drill upgrades--why are these so wonderful? Because they were made for the button masher. Lah and I button-mashed our way through more combos than ever before, but it was also very possible to learn the combos and execute them precisely. Plus there are elements for the drill, Fire parts, shock parts, and ice parts. It's a surprisingly customizable weapon.

 

C. Unlike most other games, Healing is awesome. Rather than taking a med-pack, getting a band-aid, drinking medecine, etc...there are two different ways of healing in this game. The first is the heal point, which looks like a stone platform which suddenly engulfs you in light and has a circle of runes encircling you. It's surprisingly cool looking. Two...you eat, but you don't just eat boring foods, no, you eat COOKIES and CHOCOLATE and STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE (which Parin loves more than life itself) each of which restores a different amount of life. Of course the kid's also able to ingest GEMSTONES, which is slightly creepy..but hey!

 

Now to the main reason of this entry...

 

 

 

This game is also awesome, super-awesome even, it is basically TIED with Gurumin in levels of awesome--and I even have a slightly glitchy-slowish-annoying-at-times copy!

 

LEGO Star Wars II is fairly obviously all 'bout Star Wars--but in this case it is the ORIGINAL Trilogy (Which I adore, ew, prequels) AKA episodes IV, V, and VI.

 

The story naturally follows these three episodes, tying each together flawlessly. The central hub of this game is Mos Eisley Cantina, wherein you can go to various destinations. Listed here.

• The Bar - where you can receive hints, unlock extras, input codes, and buy extra characters (As well as check your overall progress and time.) It also autosaves for you here
• The Bacta tanks - where you can create your own terrible LEGO Monstrosity. I call mine Princess <3
• The Outside - where you can look at your various spaceships and vehicles that you unlock.
• Wireless cafe - which is fairly obvious. Here's your WiFi area for multiple players
• The Episodes - At first only IV is available, but upon completing the first mission V and VI are unlocked, allowing you to play them in any order you want (I'm a purist, IV first!)
• Extras - a PSP exclusive where you can fight the bosses of Episodes I, II, and III (As well as unlock certain characters)

But that's not all! If you're a character with a blaster, blow the stuffing out of the chairs in the Cantina and you'll receive studs--if you're a Sith or Jedi you can use your mumbo-jumbo on the lightymajigs and get more studs. (They're money, Puffin. Money, not men)

 

Gameplay is fairly simple, if somewhat disturbing in that you are an unholy ghost that posesses people's bodies--I'm semi serious. By pressing the triangle button a shock of blue light goes from one character to the other (If you only have two characters on screen) and suddenly you control the other. Kinda creepy o.o;

 

Luckily the fun doesn't end there! (Because if it did, this would be one lame game) as there's so much unlockable content--the game can be 'beaten' and then it can be Mastered. Beating the level does litttle unless you can find the various things hidden within. For example, in every one of the 30(!) levels, there are 10 Mini-capsule kits and One power brick, discovering each of these is worth one gold brick (There are seemingly 150 in all) Additionally beating the level gets you another gold brick, attaining True Jedi status (IE: Getting a lot of money. Apparently all you have to do to be a Jedi is get lots and lots and lots of money. I'm down with that) gets you a fourth, and finally playing the level in the PSP-exclusive Challenger mode gets you a fifth. There are five gold bricks in each level.

 

Naturally it would be too easy for you to only have to play through once to hit all the Mini-capsules, so the creators made it a wee more difficult--and fun. Once you've played through the story mode you unlock freeplay, in which you can choose which character you play as (7 or so additional characters will be randomly assigned in order to give you the best range of abilities) Which is incredibly fun, especially as each character is unique. For example: Captain Antilles does a strange little dance before removing his blaster, Princess Leia seems to enjoy slapping people a bit too much, and Imperial forces cannot double-jump--instead they fall flat on their face.

 

Certain areas are only accessible to certain members, for example some doors are locked by a Stormtrooper only camera, whereas some areas are available through certain abilities that you must discover, IE: Blowing up everything with thermal detonators until something finally explodes.

 

IN ADDITION TO THIS (Kind of scary that there's more, isn't it?) There are also vehicular levels--and vehicular levels with Freeplay, where you can play with the various ships and transports you unlock.--which is a lot--and getting all those Golden bricks let you build something else.

 

But wait, there's more! (It just goes on and on, doesn't it?) Each of the Power-bricks allows you unlock special abilities, for example I have thus far unlocked: Super blasters, (It's in the name, blow things up!) Super Lightsabers, (They turn purple and go scary powerful) Invincibility (You don't die from shots, or lose studs when you plummet off an edge), and Self-detonation (I'm fairly sure I don't want to use that one...yet)

 

As for the characters? Oh there's just a few, only around ONE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY to unlock. Additonally, for every character you unlock you gain more pieces for your Bacta-horror.

 

And then you finally get to the levels, the levels just plain rock, each is tricky and interesting and undeniably Star Wars--with LEGO humor thrown in, such as hot-tubbing Stormtroopers (Playable character, by the way!) And Darth Vader popping minifig heads off, rather than choking.

 

My personal favourite is the fact that there is not ONE utterance of dialogue throughout this game so you get to watch LEGO Star Wars characters act crazy with only facial expressions and the occasional grunt or groan--or unintenilligble mutter.

 

Overall, once again, BUY THIS GAME. It rules the PSP.

 

My only complaint is that, unlike Gurumin, LEGO Star Wars II is not a fan of you turning the system off in midplay to conserve battery power, and goes through a laboriously long boot-up phase.

 

Coming up next: The Claidi Journals

Why my Room is a nightmare

On the current state of BIONICLE.