Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga = the game from hell

So I've been focusing on finishing up Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga because I'm so close to the end.  I've even put Dark Souls on hold until I can finish Lego SW.  After this last week I was beginning to think that would never happen.

For some reason I had a lot of problem collecting all the blue barrels in Jabba's Palace.  Not all of my failed attempts were due to my stupidity.  Three times my game glitched on me and I got stuck in a room with no way out except a Jawa door that wouldn't let me through.  It was really frustrating to spend four and half minutes just trying to get through a door when I only have 10 minutes to play the level and my game is going "uh oh, not for you".  It's frustrating.  Almost enough to quit the game no matter how close I was to finishing.

But that level has nothing on Into the Deathstar.  That level is a BITCH FROM HELL level!!!!!  I think I tried that level more than 20 times before I even started to get close to finishing it.  The first couple of times I spent 8 out of my 10 minutes just clearing the first area of the 4 Star Destroyers.  It's kind of hard to find and pick up 8 more blue barrels in only 2 minutes.  Impossible is more like it. 

I even got desperate enough to send a message to all my friends that I thought might have the game and be willing to help me out.  I told them I was desperate.  I was hoping that they would come to the aid of a damsel in distress.  While I was waiting for them to respond I opened up my game to strangers.  Big mistake!  I had a someone jump in and he spent the whole time just switching ships.  He never fired his gun.  He never collected a blue barrel.  He did absolutely nothing.  Well . . . not exactly nothing.  He did change his ship every second or two and then tried to fly in whatever opposite direction I was trying to fly in.  Since you share the screen (even over Xbox Live) you can image how well that got along.  I think I had to kick him out of the game 4 or 5 times before I finished the level.  Well, actually I ran out of time to be honest.

After that disastrous experience I changed my settings to set my game to invite only and thought I would give it one more try before giving up on the game entirely.  It turns out I'm glad I gave it another shot.  I was able to finish the level and ended up with just over 2 minutes to spare before time ran out.  I was completely shocked, stunned and utterly bewildered, befuddled and confused.  But also extremely ecstatic and thrilled.  I couldn't believe how close I was to giving up and crying myself to sleep and never playing this game again when the very next play through I beat it with time to spare.  I haven't listened to the audio for that level yet so I hope I don't sound like a complete idiot.  It's just that I've been working on trying to finish that level for almost 2 weeks and I finally did it.  It will be awhile before that video is posted, just don't judge me to badly for my reaction.

Now that my blue barrels were all collected I could focus on the remaining 4 gold bricks I needed in order to get all 160 gold bricks.  I had to do the original Gunship Calvary level, the alternate New Hope level and the Lego City and New Town levels.  I've tried Lego City and New Town before but could never get all 1,000,000 studs before giving up.  It took a couple of attempts for Lego City and I had to pause my own recording of New Town to watch a video online to find out what I was forgetting to do before I could finish New Town.  But all of those are now done.  Unfortunately I'm not done with the game like I thought I would be.

When I got the last gold brick I waited patiently for the achievement to pop up.  It didn't.  I couldn't figure out what I needed to do to get it to pop.  I even went outside the Cantina and built that gold fountain with all the gold bricks.  Nothing.  After the Deathstar blue barrel fiasco I was so furious that my anger went immediately to a cold blue fire.  Bypass the yellow, red and white hot stuff.  I was glowing blue.  If it wasn't so late at night I probably would have gone nuclear too.

I was able to calm down enough to go online and see if anyone else had problems with getting the gold brick achievement to pop.  Turns out lots of people got all gold bricks but didn't have the achievement pop.  Even back to 2011.  I read several posts that said you need to go in to a level and play it with all your 'super Jedi powers' and then the achievement will unlock.  Eh?  The achievement isn't for playing a level (all or which you've already completed in order to get the 160 gold bricks) after you've got all the bricks.  It's for getting all the gold bricks.  Period.  End of achievement.  If you want someone to play with all those 'super Jedi powers' make that a separate achievement, or put it in the description of the achievement that we're required to do.  It's bullshit and it makes no sense.

I haven't gone back in to a level and played it to unlock it because I realized that I'm not actually done with the game like I thought I would be after I got those last 4 gold bricks.  It turns out I forgot about the "Super Story" levels in each movie.  That means I have to play all those levels all over again and finish each move in less than an hour and I think I have to get 100,000 studs as well.  Yeah me!  My completion percentage is somewhere at 97.6% or something and I still have to play through all levels, all movies, all over again.  Someone shot me now.

I don't remember the game being this torturous on the Playstation 2.  My brother and I played and completed both Lego Star Wars games to 100% but I don't remember it being anything like this.  Since we completed this game on PS2 and I had almost completed this game before my stuff got robbed, once I do complete the game it will be for the third time.  And I will never play it again.  If any of my friends want help picking up achievements or collectibles they are going to have to pay up big to get me help them.  Sorry guys.  That's just the way it has to be for me. 

Right now I've got 6 more levels to play and film and then I'm done.  So at least 6 more hours in hell.  Let's hope that it only takes one run through for each of the super stories.  With my luck this hell will keep me sucked in for an additional 6 hours on top of that.  How many levels are there in Dante's Inferno (the book, not the game).  I'm sure Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has got to be one of them.