Score
Gameplay:	7
Graphics:	7
Sound:	6
FunFactor:	7
PlasmaFactor:	7
Overall:	6.8

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Review
June 6, 2008 by Peter Skerritt

 

With the success of two—well, technically three—LEGO Star Wars games behind them, Travellers’ Tales and Lucasarts attempt to tackle another popular franchise with LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. Although the characters and stories may be different here, the gameplay is not. Puzzles and occasional vehicle-driven sequences are interspersed with plenty of action, for one or two players. $60USD is a high price tag for what could be the same game in a different coat of paint… but is the content worth the price of admission?

Whip it… whip it good!

As with the LEGO Star Wars games, LEGO Indiana Jones reconstructs its source material—which is the original trilogy of films minus the recent Legend of the Crystal Skull—and puts the player in the roles of both major and minor characters as highlights from the storylines are played out. You’ll visit the Well of Souls from Raiders of the Lost Ark, careen through mines in carts like in Temple of Doom, and relive the motorcycle chase from The Last Crusade. There seems to be a bit more in the way of interpretation and addition to the original storylines here, with a focus on humor and multiple nods to the Star Wars saga. It’s a take it or leave kind of thing; I wasn’t overly amused with some of the license that Travellers’ Tales took with the cinema sequences, but your mileage may vary.

When it comes down to gameplay, LEGO Indiana Jones is as easy to pick up and play as the LEGO Star Wars games were. As you whip, shoot, dig, and scream your way through each stage, you pick up studs. These studs are basically like money and are used to purchase things at Barnett College, which serves as the home base for Indy and the rest of the characters. If your on-screen character is killed in action, some studs are lost, but there are unlimited lives. Prepare for lots of these deaths; there are times when you will be overwhelmed by enemies, and other times, you’ll fall to your doom when missing a jump or coming too close to the edge of a cliff. It rarely gets overly frustrating, although losing a ton of studs can be annoying. The game also has a nasty habit of respawning you in the same place you died, which can lead to successive deaths in the same spot.

Scattered throughout each stage are also Build-Its, which are basically LEGO structures that must be constructed in order to create an object or structure which allows access to the next part of the stage. Some Build-Its are pieces to puzzles, which can lead to hidden items. Going into a Build-It sequence also leaves your character open to attack, so getting killed is a possibility.

While puzzle solving works to break up the action sequences, there are times in LEGO Indiana Jones when there’s not even the slightest direction as to how to solve it. It’s never impossible to solve these puzzles, but it’s possible to spend upwards of 15 minutes at some spots and wonder what to do next; when the solution does dawn on you, though, you’ll be left wondering why it took you so long to figure it out. Especially when you consider the target demographic for this game, it’s certainly valid to question these puzzles; younger players may need some guidance here.

Once you complete the Story Mode for all three films in LEGO Indiana Jones, the game’s true replay value comes to light. Each stage has hidden things that only repeat playthroughs to uncover, such as remaining pieces of artifacts and parcels. There are 10 pieces to each stage’s artifact, and collecting all of the artifacts unlocks some pretty neat content. Parcels unlock cheats for the game, which can be purchased from the Mail Room at Barnett College. To find these hidden items, you’ll need to purchase characters from the Library and ensure that you have characters that can perform a variety of tasks. Some characters have explosives that can shatter chrome LEGOs. Others are scholars that can solve tile puzzles. The Thuggees can interact with statues to gain access to certain areas or items. Unlike in the Story Mode, where you’re stuck with two set characters in each stage, Free Play allows you to swap between any of your accumulated characters on the fly.

While LEGO Indiana Jones is a decent single-player experience, the ability to have a friend join in at any time certainly adds to the game. Playing through the game with a friend is more fun and gives you an extra set of eyes to work out certain puzzles or pick up on obscured objects. Playing alone also subjects you to the questionable AI for your on-screen companion; it’s fine for much of the time, but there are times when the computer-controlled character will do some stupid stuff… like jump into your character while he (or she) jumps, colliding in mid-air and sending both figures plummeting to their plastic deaths. A big omission here is the lack of online co-op play that we’d seen in LEGO Star Wars. There’s no acceptable explanation for this.

The play controls in LEGO Indiana Jones are generally tight and responsive, except for when controlling a vehicle. Vehicle controls just don’t feel intuitive and it’s too easy to drive off a cliff or to overshoot a pad that you’re supposed to stop on. The vehicle controls feel more like an afterthought, although this isn’t completely damning for the game since vehicles only play a minor role. The vibration functionality of the Dual Shock Sixaxis controller is active here, but isn’t really necessary and doesn’t really add to the experience.

Looks aren’t everything…

Visually, LEGO Indiana Jones isn’t bad, but there are problems. There are occasional bouts of slowdown which don’t really affect gameplay, but they are noticeable. There are also issues with the screen refresh rate which create a tearing effect as the scenery scrolls by. There is a V-Sync option that tries to correct this, but the effect of the fix is minimal. On the plus side, the backgrounds are rather impressive and the game is quite colorful. It feels like the movies have been recreated in LEGO form, and that’s been the formula that’s worked for the LEGO Star Wars games.

The sound of music… and not much else…

The sound here focuses more on the music, which is directly lifted from John Williams’ original movie scores for each film. Most people will be familiar with the Indiana Jones theme, but other incidental music will be lesser known. The music also has a tendency to loop a bit; it’s not as obvious as in a game like Shadows of the Empire for the Nintendo 64, but you’ll hear a lot of the same music selection over and over. There are sound effects carried over from the films as well, but, sadly, there are no voiceovers or sound bites from any of the movies. Instead, there are a lot of grunts and groans. This is the way that the LEGO games have been to this point, and although Travellers’ Tales has been successful with these games without voiceovers or sound bites to this point, it doesn’t mean that the games wouldn’t be better if they were there.

PlasmaFactor of Doom

There’s certainly as lot to like in LEGO Indiana Jones that adds to the game’s PlasmaFactor rating. It’s easy to get into, has plenty of potential replay value once the initial Story Mode is completed, and has a ton of secrets to find. Plus, if you’re a fan of the films, it’s almost a no-brainer that you’ll want to add this game to your collection.

Unfortunately, two things bring the PlasmaFactor rating down from where it arguably could be. First, we’ve seen this before… a lot. Despite the change of scenery (and story), this is still largely the same game that we’ve seen for the past few years now. There really weren’t too many chances taken here, and it’s hard to justify spending $60 for what is basically a game that many of you have played already. The other issue, as mentioned above, is the unexplainable lack of online multiplayer here. Aside from maybe some add-on content down the road, the online component of this game is nearly non-existent. This is a step backwards from last year’s release of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. If Travellers’ Tales could pull it off then, why not now?

See you later, Indiana Jones…

The bottom line here is that LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures follows the “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” rule. If there are things about the LEGO Star Wars games that you really liked, you’ll see them here, too. If there were things about those games that you didn’t like, you’re probably going to see no change. This is a decent family game and is worth a rental—especially if you have a friend to play along with. After playing through the storylines, though, it either may or may not be worth it to go back and keep trying to find items that were missed. The lack of online co-op play hurts, plus annoying puzzles and occasionally glitchy graphics make it hard to recommend this game for a full-price purchase.