While the game will feature tons of unlockable characters from the original trilogy, you will have to buy a pack to get the 50 or so prequel characters for the game.

I saw your recent post about LEGO Star Wars II on Kotaku and wanted to clarify the situation with characters. There is indeed a Marketplace fee to purchase all of the 50-plus prequel characters on the 360 version, but it's a nominal one — 200 points, or about $2.50. So that's basically a nickel per character. The characters are not quite available yet, but I'm told it will be soon. I'll keep you posted.

Less than $3 I can handle, good move LA. Brian Crecente

Ps. Yes, yes, I know, I'm on vacation. You sound like my wife.

I must have missed it when the first story hit, but I was browsing through Neo-Gaf and saw someone point to this Games Radar story.

Apparently, Xbxo 360 gamers will "be able to" download Star Wars prequel characters from Xbox Live Marketplace for play in LSW2 for a fee.

I suppose this sort of makes sense, afterall, you can' transfer over characters for a game that doesn't exist on this platform, but it does still annoy me.

LucasArts hasn't yet announced the price, that I could see, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it isn't egregiously high. Oh, and the opening to Episode V is just plain hot. Nothing like roping Lego Walkers. Brian Crecente

Downloads to fill out next-gen version's cast [Games Radar]

My son and I have been playing a lot of Lego Star Wars recently for some reason. He was totally psyched when I told him a new one was coming out. I hate to admit it, but I think I'm even more excited. Check out this gameplay video. It's going to rock! Brian Crecente