Over the course of my admittedly impressive and prestigious career here at Xbox World Australia, I have reviewed so many Goddamn Star Wars games that sometimes it feels like the only thing I do. It's not that I don't have a deep, passionate nerd-love for all things Star Wars; rather that it makes it pretty hard to come up with a witty introduction for a review, let alone find new ways to say the same thing in the rest of the review.

So when the first LEGO Star Wars game was released in early 2005, the unique use of ubiquitous building blocks and charming cuteness came as a breath of fresh air. At the time most people who played the game were totally besotted with it, but mused somewhat rhetorically about why Traveller's Tales opted to run with the vastly inferior new films, rather than the classic original trilogy, or 'OT' as those in the know call it. Now, all those silent prayers to the great Jedi Masters above have been answered: Episodes IV, V and VI have finally been turned into LEGO!

LEGO Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy is exactly what you'd expect if you played the previous game: all your favourite characters, scenes, locations and moments entirely recreated in loveable little LEGO pieces. The tongue-in-cheek style remains of course, so when Luke is walking the plank to become Sarlac stew, expect to see him just bouncing up and down doing star-jumps and flips! The game is endearingly cute, and should bring a smile to even the most cynical gamer's stoniest visage.

This time around your home base is - not surprisingly - the Mos Eisley Cantina, which as any true fan knows is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy. Of course when it's populated by adorable little LEGO people its reputation is a little undeserved. From here, you can wander around and explore, or you can jump straight into the game. Logically divided into three areas (one for each episode), once you've beaten the introductory mission you are free to begin with whichever episode tickles your fancy in Story Mode.

Each episode features six missions that follow the narrative of the film in some way: fight the Rancor in Return of the Jedi, blow up the Death Star in A New Hope, or bring down AT-AT's in The Empire Strikes Back. The fun comes not only from seeing classic scenes hilariously recreated, but from collecting all manner of goodies that lurk within the level. LEGO studs (the bits on the top of the bricks that let them join up, geez, get with the program people!) are the game's currency of choice, and collecting them allows you to buy all manner of odds and ends from the Cantina. The Mini-Kits return as well, and collecting all 10 pieces will assemble a miniature vehicle to admire out in the Cantina's parking-lot. There's two new collectibles however: Gold Bricks and Power Bricks. The Power Bricks essentially allow you to unlock a variety of cheat codes and extras, but the Gold Bricks are a little more mysterious. The first use allows you to unlock the bonus missions when you complete an episode, but the other use, well, I wouldn't want to spoil anything!

Finding all the collectibles in a mission and earning a True Jedi ranking by meeting a stud-target will prove to be quite a challenge even for veteran players. Which is a good thing, because much like LEGO Star Wars before it, the 'OT' is extremely easy to beat. The bonus missions for each episode are also pretty damn tough, requiring you to collect 1,000,000 studs in under five minutes or beat the entire episode again in one sitting in under an hour. All this, in addition to the Bounty Hunter missions that are only unlocked upon completing all three episodes, equal a helluva lot of gameplay if you want it. Much of it is predicated on multiple replays of missions, in fact, you pretty much have to replay every mission if you want to collect everything, and most levels have restricted areas that can only be accessed by certain characters.

So there's a lot to do in LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy, and for the most part, it's enough fun to warrant the replays. If you had to level a complaint at the game, it would be that the fixed-camera system can make it difficult to negotiate some of the platforming elements present in the game. This was equally true of its predecessor, but when you've got genuine Gamerscore points and Achievements on the line, it can be much more frustrating! But really, the beauty of the game is that you can breeze through it once in a couple of hours, finish it, and move on if that's how you roll. Or you can spend dozens of hours collecting and completing things, it's entirely up to you.

There are a couple of other improvements in this sequel that bear mentioning for one reason or another, and we'll start with the create-a-character mode. As you progress through the game and unlock new playable Star Wars figures, you'll be able to use their various appendages to create some sort of God-awful Frankenstein's monster in the Cantina, and then take them into the Free Play mode. It's obviously geared more towards kids, and it's an entirely pointless addition, but it can be kind of fun. More fun than this however is the new range of vehicles you can use in the game. You'll be able to pilot landspeeders and AT-STs among others, but the real joy comes from the space battles that see you in command of the Millennium Falcon or Luke's X-Wing. You can unlock a host of Imperial ships too, and replaying levels with them will allow access to other hidden areas.

Visually, LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy is pretty much exactly the same as the previous game, albeit with a lot of nice enhancements courtesy of the Xbox 360's superior grunt. Not only is the whole thing running in high-definition, there's a lot of neat touches like reflections and foreground blurring that mimics the camera's focus, and of course the whole thing runs silky smooth. We're still just talking about simplistic LEGO figures and purposefully blocky designs obviously, but the game looks much nicer than the Xbox version of the game. The question you've got to ask yourself is whether it's worth the extra $20-30 for enhanced visuals and some easy Gamerscore Achievements, because other than that it's identical to the other iterations of the sequel...although the promise of Downloadable Content in the form of new characters certainly helps justify the purchase for Xbox 360.

The audio for Star Wars games is becoming something of a sticking-point for me, because on the one hand the John William's soundtrack is an absolute masterpiece that can never sound b>bad per se, but on the other, we've heard it so many times in so many Star Wars games that it's hard not to be a little jaded. This is especially true for LEGO Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy, which reuses the title theme every time you start a new level, and it gets old fast. Ditto the sound effects, which have clearly been lifted from whatever stock archive LucasArts stores in George's bear. There's no spoken dialogue either, instead a series of nonsense noises and grunts which are pretty funny in their own way and add to the game's charm.

On a more positive note, the excellent cooperative play returns for LEGO Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy, and the drop-in, drop-out nature means your mate can jump in to help you with a puzzle or just to kill a couple of minutes while you wait for pizza. It's especially great for parents and their kids to play a game together that is light-hearted and fun, and that both people can enjoy. A couple of dedicated co-op missions with specific two-player puzzles would have been a nice touch, but there's enough of the main game to play to keep you busy for a long time...in a galaxy far, far away. Sorry, couldn't resist.