A long time ago, in a humble village far, far away, a man by the name of Ole Kirk Kristiansen had a dream, that colourful blocks could join together in peace and harmony and make pirate ships and huge castles. Thus LEGO was born, its legacy spanning over 40 years of family-owned and operated, block-building goodness. A household name and responsible for many childhood choking's and sore feet, LEGO has embraced the new millennium with Danish gusto, and one of its most popular new lines is the range of Star Wars LEGO. As if these two worlds colliding weren't strange enough, now we have the joys of LEGO Star Wars: The Videogame.

LEGO Star Wars is pretty much what you'd expect a game to be: LEGO figures running around interacting with other LEGO, but it's also a rock solid platformer. This shouldn't come as a surprise though, as Traveler's Tales have a history of producing great things within the genre. At any rate, LEGO Star Wars follows the story told in the new trilogy of films, those being The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and the newest movie, Revenge of the Sith.

Your home base in the game is Dexter's Diner, and it is from here that you can tackle a mission, buy some unlockable goodies, admire your collections or just tool about experimenting with the plethora of semi-poseable characters. Once you unlock the first mission of Episode 1, you are free to tackle the next two episodes, so if you want to play out of sequence or just avoid Jar Jar Binks for as long as possible, you are free to do so.

There's just shy of 20 missions all up, which revisit all of the key moments of the new trilogy of films. Battle your way through Naboo, free Obi Wan from Geonosis, pod-race with irritating young Anakin on Mos Espa, and get a sneak peek at all the upcoming highlights from Episode 3! On that note, it must be said there are some *MAJOR* spoilers in the game, so if you don't want to have it ruined for you (hint: Darth Vader is Luke's father :-) then you may want to save the final third of the game for a month.

The missions are quite linear in their design, but most have several hidden or inaccessible areas that will require exploration or revisiting later on. Along the way you'll be collecting LEGO studs, but these aren't particularly buff LEGO men, rather the little connector pieces for the building blocks. Connect enough and you'll unlock a super-kit piece, of which there are 17, which unlock a secret mission. Not only that, but they serve as the game's currency, and will be used to unlock extra characters, special abilities, cheat codes and hints as you progress through LEGO Star Wars.

All told, there's almost 50 characters to unlock, ranging from the key characters like Anakin, Obi Wan and Count Dooku to a host of minor characters like clone troopers, Geonosians, and a young Boba Fett. Each character has a unique ability, such as Lightsaber use, double jumping, or getting into restricted areas, and using these abilities is the key to success in LEGO Star Wars. On your first attempt, the game selects two characters for you that fit the movie, so escaping from the Trade Federation ship at the start of Episode 1 is obviously going to see you playing Obi Wan and Qui-gon.

However once you beat the mission, you can choose from any unlocked character and revisit the level, and the game will provide a pool of half a dozen other characters for you to transform into at the drop of a hat. This is the only way to get most of the hidden items or unlockables, including the ten mini-kit pieces contained in each mission that build a Star Wars vehicle. These don't really serve any purpose, besides the joys of seeing all the cool spaceships and vehicles from the films like pod racers and Jedi starfighters.

Visually, LEGO Star Wars looks pretty good, especially given the limits placed on the game by the use of LEGO blocks and models. There's only so much you can do with that, and it had the potential to come of disastrously bad, but Traveler's Tales have worked wonders with what they had. The characters look fluid and move well without compromising their LEGO heritage, and watching a tiny Darth Maul lay the smack down with his double-bladed Lightsaber is hilariously cute. Still, the character models are simple with only basic textures as befitting their LEGO legacy, so don't come into this expecting a Knights of the Old Republic (XBW: 95%) or Republic Commando (XBW: 84%).

Contrary to some initial reports that suggested the entire game would be made of LEGO, much of the environment is pre-rendered normally with certain objects and architecture constructed from those famous blocks. Most can be destroyed or manipulated with the Force, and the way it all works is just magic. The game does suffer from some noticeable slowdown and takes serious framerate hits during pitched battles or when things explode, which is surprising given the power of the Xbox, but it does little to diminish the charm LEGO Star Wars possesses.

Speaking of charm, LEGO Star Wars is exactly what you would expect in the audio department. It gets a little repetitive to keep writing this, but as with every Star Wars game, the sound and music is of an impeccably high standard, and use all the requisite Lightsaber thrums, blaster screeches and the trademark sounds of Ion Engines. The music, as always, is brilliant, and sounds like every other Star Wars game under the sun.

Of course this makes it instantly recognisable to anyone- the opening tune is probably better recognised than the national anthem- but there's absolutely nothing new here. LEGO people don't actually talk as you'd probably imagine, so there's no dialogue to speak of. This makes for some hilarious cutscenes that tell the story solely by LEGO facial expressions, but actually dubbing them with the voices from the films would've been even more amusing! Ultimately, there's nothing to get excited about aurally here, but it doesn't miss a beat and nothing is done wrong either.

In fact, the only real failing LEGO Star Wars has is the brevity of the experience. For seasoned players, 5-6 hours will see the game trumped, most likely with the majority of the unlockables acquired too. There's plenty of implied replayability, but given that most of the reasons to go back add nothing to the overall experience besides completing a collection, its doubtful anyone but a hardcore fan will bother. The A.I. is incredibly simplistic, and even boss battles can be overcome with little effort. Additionally, the fact that you can never die or see a Game Over screen makes for an extremely simple experience that serious gamers will probably find a little unfulfilling.

The real longevity comes from the two-player cooperative mode, which is really aimed at a family experience or a younger age group, but is still perfect for showing your casual gamer friends or reluctant partners. Given that many of the puzzles actually require teamwork, it's a lot of fun without being frustrating, as the answer is pretty obvious most of the time. It's a fun distraction, but some of the missions that would be most fun, like the pod racing sequence, are singleplayer only, which is a bit of a downer.

Parental Perspective: LEGO Star Wars is the kind of game parent's dream of seeing for their children: it's fun and engaging without being overly violent or mature, and will provide enough of a challenge to keep them going without being frustrating. It's also the ideal game for you to sit down and play with your kids via the outstanding co-operative mode.

Unlike most games, this will actually require you to put your heads together to work as a team, making it an extremely rewarding experience for all involved. It's not the longest game in the world, but if your little ones love Star Wars, LEGO or just playing a bit of xbox with their parents, pick this up!