LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game [PS2]

It would make a perfect Internet animated meme: the three Star Wars prequels, re-enacted in brief, funny form by little Lego men (and women). As a game, it would be easy to write off as mere kid's stuff. And Lego Star Wars is definitely targeted for kids, but it's entertaining and endearing enough that every Star Wars fan should give it a run.

Each of the three films gets the lighthearted Lego treatment. Brief cutscenes laugh off most of the serious stuff, and the leaden dialogue is replaced by a few grunts, yelps, and bleeps. Even the upcoming Episode III is included, so beware a few spoilers. There's also a bonus level, which features a few old-school faces and settings.

Players begin as Qui Gon Jinn, accompanied by young Obi Wan, and soon progress through the story, unlocking many additional characters. Two are onscreen at all times, and control can pass from one to the other at the touch of a button. The cast, astoundingly, numbers in the dozens, and at a few points there will be as many as six controllable characters onscreen at once.

All have their own unique abilites, and Lego Star Wars uses them to power plenty of low-impact puzzles. Jedi can double-jump and push things around with the force, while "blaster" characters (like Wookies and clone troopers) can grapple up to high areas. Other types have their own powers. None of the puzzles will tax an adult for more than a second or two, but the difficulty should be just right for kids.

Lego Star Wars is very short, at least as far as the main story mode goes. Older players will breeze through it in a couple of hours. But there's plenty of hidden stuff, and completed levels can be revisited in "free play" mode, which lets players explore with any unlocked characters, which can reveal previously unreachable goodies. And hey, it's fun to jump around with Darth Maul and one of General Grievous' goofy bodyguards.

The goals are generally simple: stay alive and collect little Lego studs to unlock more stuff. Each level also has ten hidden canisters which, when collected, build a bonus vehicle of varying types. Of the 17 primary levels, most are pure platforming, and fun for anyone who doesn't mind lots of jumping and fighting. A handful of racing levels (such as the Episode I pod race) can be trying, but they're brief.

What Lego doesn't do very well is combat. You'll see a few smooth lightsaber moves, but the controls aren't terribly fluid when it comes to whacking battle droids. It's easy to take a lot of damage when overwhelmed; the saving grace is that Lego Star Wars doesn't believe in punishing players for expiring. You'll lose some of those Lego studs, but not much more.

It's still fun to engage in a little lightsaber play, though, because every character has dramatically different animations. The young Obi-Wan fights differently than the older version. Yoda bounces around like an acrobat. In fact, the game does a fantastic job of replicating the moves from each film, and fans will be shocked at the fidelity.

And as a kid's game, the violence is very much downplayed. Everything breaks apart into colored Lego blocks. When a character dies, they simply break down into component parts. Since any kid playing the game has probably disassembled their own Lego people, there's not much trauma risk.

The greatest feature of the game, however, is that every level features co-op play. It's terrifically flexible, since players can jump in and drop out at any point, simply by plugging in a controller. So that second on-screen character can be handled by a friend, which makes the puzzles and combat easier, but more fun. When playing alone, the AI is surprisingly adept at taking care of itself and the player.

That co-op feature makes this among the best kids games out there, because parents and kids can directly play together. Each level features enough knowing winks and gags (like the riff on the old disco Star Wars theme) that adults will be entertained as their children are enthralled. Who'd have expected a bunch of little colored blocks to re-energize the old George Lucas entertainment machine, just as it seemed to be winding down?