The wonderful world of LEGOs first stepped into the realm of Star Wars, and now they have gone to another extremely popular Lucas/Spielberg series: Indiana Jones. Like LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones immerses players into the scripts of the Indiana Jones movies, but with a fun LEGO twist.
What It's About
Just as the game sounds, you take the roles of Indiana Jones and his various companions (and enemies in free play!) through the first three Indiana Jones movies:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Temple of Doom
- The Last Crusade
Each movie is broken up into chapters, and once you complete a chapter in story mode, you unlock the free play mode for that chapter. In free play mode, you can play as any character you have either unlocked or purchased at Barnett College.
You will need to replay many of the chapters in Free Play mode with different characters to obtain artifact pieces or parcels if you choose to make either one of your priorities to finishing the game. You do not have to find all the artifacts or any of the parcels to complete the game, but completing artifacts unlocks hidden levels in the movies and mailing parcels unlocks other game goodies.
The Good: Perfect for Hardcore and Casual Gamers
The game is mostly in the action genre, but it dabbles in puzzle solving and platforming. You will have to solve puzzles to travel to the different rooms in the levels, find parcels, and find artifact pieces. While there are some fighting elements, most of the boss battles revolve around finding the particular tool to use to fight with, which can include finding the pieces to build your tool (you build a lot to solve puzzles, but it's LEGOs, so of course you're always building something), or finding how to reach the boss in the first place.
The cut-scenes usually make the labor of solving the puzzles worth the effort (aside from the reward of accomplishment). The cut-scenes follow along with the movie sequences, but with hilarious additions. For example, after completing the Lost Temple chapter in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones tries to give Belloq C3PO's head instead of the golden idol. Before Belloq says no dice, he performs a little impression of C3PO.
The game is very flexible for all types of gamers. For the casual gamer, the story mode is simple and straightforward, and you are not required to find every hidden artifact or parcel to complete a chapter. You can beat the story mode in a matter of hours instead of days. For the hardcore gamer, the game has incredible replayability. The Free Play mode allows players to keep coming back to chapters to try to find those artifact pieces, parcels to mail, and achieve "True Adventurer" status from the amount of treasure collected.
Plus, there's additional good news for the casual gamer who own only one system: LEGO Indiana Jones is available on all consoles and handhelds! This is also good for the hardcore owner with multiple systems: you can whipsling on your preferred console.
The Bad: Simple Puzzles and Annoying Camera
While the simplicity of the game is great for casual gamers, hardcore gamers may be disappointed with the somewhat simplicity of the puzzles. These puzzles are nowhere near the complexity of puzzles found in games such as The Legend of Zelda. However, this the LEGO brand of Indiana Jones, so it's supposed to be fun and light.
The camera is a bit of an issue. Sometimes the camera angle makes jumps a little difficult. Not impossible, just a little harder than it would be if you could control the camera angle and view. It's especially annoying to not have control of the camera when you're trying to find where to place an object to solve a puzzle. It would be far easier to look around the room with the camera instead of walking (you can't run with an object in hand) around every inch of the room to find the object's new home.
The Verdict: Fun for All!
LEGO Indiana Jones is good, clean, wacky fun. It's a great game for any type of gamer, especially fans of the Indiana Jones movies. Parents can also be relieved that the violence is kept to LEGO violence. LEGO characters can't die... they just go to pieces.
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