The official story of how C-3PO gets the red arm seen in last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already been told (it appeared in April's Star Wars: C-3PO comic book from Marvel), but fans will get to experience it for themselves in the newly announced Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens DLC Level Pack, The Phantom Limb. Available as an exclusive free download for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 platforms, The Phantom Limb continues the story from the game's Trouble Over Taul level and follows C-3PO as he crash-lands on the planet of Taul and has to find his way off the planet and back to the Resistance. In addition to C-3PO, the new level features the other droids trapped on the planet, including O-MR1, 2MED2 and PZ-99 — and, yes, there are some droid-eating alien spiders to be found, as well. The Phantom Limb is the latest addition to the Lego Star Wars franchise following the May release of Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a game that included both director J.J. Abrams and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy as unlockable characters.
The game also includes vocal performances from the key cast of the Force Awakens movie. 50 Greatest Superhero Movie Performances of All Time 'Logan': Making Sense of Wolverine's Confusing History Why 'Nightwing' Might Signal a Change in Direction for DC's Cinematic UniverseLEGO® Star Wars™ Boba Fett™ Minifigure Clockproduct_label_list_price_accessibility 77 Reviews123451FIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISStar Wars™Wake up in a Mandalorian minute with Boba Fett in giant minifigure size! LEGO® Star Wars ⢠Boba Fett⢠Minifigure Clock Reviews - page 2Star Wars Episode VII’s main story is great and all, but have you heard about how dashing Resistance pilot Poe Dameron and C3PO saved rescued Admiral Ackbar from a First Order Star Destroyer? Let me tell you all about it. The prequel-based Lego Star Wars made three so-so to horrible films endearing. Lego Star Wars II gave fans a chance to revisit the original trilogy in an entertaining new way. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ core game transports us back to half a year ago, when we saw a movie we mostly liked and then spent months having fun with it.
So when the Lego version pads the events of the movie and adds its trademark slapstick humor, it feels a little done.But Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t just about exploring the story of the movie. It’s about side stories the movie didn’t get to tell, like how C3PO got his red arm, or how Max von Sydow’s Lor San Tekka got the map that started this whole mess in the first place. If the game merely tacked these expanded story adventures on as bonus content, one might be tempted to play through those alone. Fortunately for the people who spent a whole lot of time putting the game together, there are mechanics in place to keep players from reading ahead. For example, I didn’t gain access to the story mission showing Han Solo and Chewbacca hunting for Rathar beasts until after the pair run into Rey and Finn in the core game. Even then, playing the mission requires the player to collect 30 of the 250 gold bricks hidden throughout the game first. Having just started playing, I’m not quite there yet, but I did collect the 10 gold bricks required to play through Poe’s heroic seafood rescue.
Watch the whole mission below. No time to watch? Here are some highlights. Poe’s clever plan to infiltrate the Star Destroyer is to hijack a First Order transport and utilize a maneuver Lego Movie fans might find familiar. Tasked with opening Admiral Ackbar’s cell door, C3PO and BB-8 open every other cell door, which ends up being a brilliant plan. Fleeing the First Order guards, our heroes dive into the place all Star Wars heroes dive into when they find themselves in such situations. Admiral Ackbar thinks it smells delicious down there. Escaping the compactor, Poe and Ackbar find themselves in a firefight with First Order forces, showing off the game’s new cover shooting mechanic. See the trapped Wampa in the background? He doesn’t stay trapped. On the way to their escape ship, the heroes interrupt one of the First Order’s exercise sessions. The music here is lovely. Poe and friends make it into space, but they aren’t out of the woods yet.
What’s a Star Wars spaceship chase without a couple asteroids? The space battle moves through the asteroid field, into one of the larger rocks and out onto its surface, where an arena battle against Tie Fighters breaks out. Ultimately Poe must torpedo a trio of mounds on the surface, freeing the Mynocks nesting within the asteroid and escaping in the ensuing chaos. Mission accomplished, Poe, Ackbar, C3PO and BB-8 set a course for the Resistance base, where many better documented missions await. I’m about halfway through Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens as I write this, tooling about on Takodana between story missions. I know how the main story ends, so it can wait. I need those gold bricks if I’m going to find out how Han Solo and Chewie lost an entire starship crew on a hunting trip.FROM an increase in weapons, violent situations, to angry expressions; researchers have found Lego land is becoming increasingly brutal. The study, since published in the journal PLOS ONE, believes Lego sets have become more violent in a bid to keep childrens’ attention in the digital age.
The researchers concluded that Lego “showed significant exponential increases of violence over time”.“The Lego company’s products are not as innocent as they used to be,” lead researcher Christoph Bartneck said.“The violence in Lego products seems to have gone beyond just enriching game play.”While Denmark-based Lego has been making plastic building blocks since 1949, the study found its first weapons were issued in 1978 when a castle kit included swords, axes and lances.An analysis found that weapons had steadily become more commonplace and were now included in 30 per cent of Lego kits.Bartneck said the percentage was probably higher as the data included only small, single-brick weapons, not items such the best-selling Star Wars’ Death Star, which in itself is a giant planet-destroying ray blaster.In addition, the research examined Lego catalogues from 1973 to 2015 and found the scenarios depicted in the company’s kits had become more violent. “Currently, around 40 per cent of all pages contain some type of violence;
in particular, scenarios involving shooting and threatening behaviour have increased over the years,” it found.“The atmosphere of the violent acts is predominantly perceived as exciting.” it added.The study said Lego was simply reflecting a broader trend in children’s entertainment.“To catch the attention of their customers, toy manufacturers are similarly locked in a metaphorical arms race for exciting new products,” it said.Bartneck also conducted separate research, released in 2013, which found the number of angry expressions on Lego figures was rising as the number of happy faces declined.The advent of electronic games has threatened Lego’s future. The brand was forced to reinvent itself after it almost went bankrupt during 2003/04.The privately-held company embarked on a bold strategy to embrace popular culture while shedding “non-core” activities such as clothing lines and the Legoland theme parks.Instead it began selling themed kits linked to popular movie franchises such as Star Wars, Batman and Harry Potter.It also created lighthearted computer games and animation along the same lines, paying off when “The Lego Movie” was a surprise hit in 2014.The result has been 11 straight years of growth, with the company announcing earlier this year that net profit in 2015 soared 31 per cent to $1.95 billion.