Tuesday September 12 9:15am

Wet hair, barely dressed, the padawan & I stumble into the car & drive ourselves to Target to purchase LEGO Star Wars II. He is beside himself, chattering away in the car: "Do you think we'll get to ride bike speeders? Do you think we'll have to fight Darth Vader? Do you think we'll get to be an AT-AT?" Non-stop, the whole 10 minutes to get there. Finally, game in hand we return home to put the game into our PS2 & get started. His eyes are as big as melons as we find our way through the cantina to Ep. IV levels.

The game starts. The crowd is silent.

Game time.


Instantly, I notice that the graphics are not really any better or that noticeably different, just tighter. I'm not sure if that even makes sense, but that's the feeling I get this time around. Two player mode is just as annoying, with one person running off in one direction and the other going the other way, fighting for control of the view. Inevitably, someone's character blinks out as the other one wins the tug-o-war over the screen.

We played for a few hours - split up at different intervals during the day - only making it through the first 4 levels of Ep. IV. Remember, this is my "almost 5 year old" so he likes to just run around paying no attention to the mission of each level!

My initial complaint about the game was the levels are way too long. There's no excuse for playing a game (even with a little kid) for 3 hours only to get through 4 levels. If I hadn't been with him, there's no way he would have even made it through Chapter 1 on his own. That thing with the crane was beyond his reckoning.

Later that afternoon, upon arriving home from Karate class, I told the padawan to change out of his robes while I made dinner. A world class tantrum ensued because of course he didn't want to change out of his robes, he wanted to immediately play LEGO SW again! Nope. I'm surprised the cops weren't called, the volume of his voice was awesome, I have never heard such a thing before in my life! LEGO SW was taken away, placed in the highest cupboard in the kitchen, and the padawan told he could get his game back, behavior permitting, on Thursday. He now had to wait 2 days to play his game again. Yeah, the Karate clothes were still on at this point.

Of course, *I'm* not the one being grounded from PS2, so after he went to bed Tuesday night I cracked out the game once again and got straight to work. Hubby-Wan & I started our own game, working a bit harder to get all the studs in Story-Mode. What did we discover? That, yeah, the boards are WAY too long! Even with 2 adults playing, we were definitely pushing the limits of our attention spans.

During the "Through The Jundland Wastes" level, I got stranded on a sand "island" while Hubby-Wan was back at Obi-Wan's hut. I figured that like LEGO I player 2 could just drop out and somehow the CPU would find his way back to the place where player 1 was? Um.... nope. Not happening here. My little Luke was still bobbing around on the island, running in circles. So Hubby jumped in the sand speeder and as he did so I hit "start" and reentered the game.

Bad decision.

Hubby was booted from the game completely and I was stuck on the island alone. No sand speeder. Nothing. Game over man. That's it. So after spending all that time to get to the end of the board, we had to start over again. Yup. Hubby never returned to the game, I replayed the level alone and quickly just to get through it.

So after 3 days with the game, I have finally made it through all the levels. Took me long enough. The little counter in the Cantina read last night 11:37:42 when I quit. I guess that's not bad. Too bad I have a job & a kid & a life or else I could have just finished it on Tuesday. Holed up in my house in front of the t.v., eyes bleeding, hands cramped, stomach empty.

Overall, I like the game. It's got enough items for me to collect (once I get around to it), enough characters to keep me busy, the fun character builder (though my character is not fun at all, she's dead serious). I do feel a bit overwhelmed with all the gold bricks, red bricks, power bricks, having to "earn" my upgrades. What gives? I like to just buy stuff.

Speaking of buying stuff, apparently this game cost almost $40. I didn't pay any attention to that at Target when I bought it. I just blindly handed over my credit card & bought the thing. Fangirl tool? Yup! And PROUD OF IT!!!