Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done a game review. Could be because It’s been a while since I’ve played a game through to completion. Sadly I am finding it hard to make time to dedicate to playing games when things like school and work are in the way. Pesky thing, responsibility.
Having said that, with my school giving me far too much time off over the Christmas break, I managed to get my hands on a shiny new XBox 360. Granted that was a bit of a fiasco, in the end I landed me a couple of games. One of those games (obviously, I think, at this point) was LEGO Indiana Jones.
I recall my brother getting LEGO Star Wars, back when it came out. He was obsessed with it, and at the time I couldn’t really figure out why. Sure it was LEGO, which we were clinically addicted to growing up, but at the time I couldn’t see what the big deal was. Of course once I started playing LEGO Indiana Jones, my opinion has quite simply 180-ed. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that 180-ed is a term I can use.
Anyways.
First off, I’m an Indiana Jones fan. I have the movies, the old computer game, the hat, and for most of my impressionable youth Harrison Ford’s role was everything I wanted to be: Rugged, Ass-kicking, Girl-getting, but still smart. Hell he teaches at a University! The man got it all. Suffice it to say that I’m pretending about half of the 4th movie didn’t happen, and so my childhood hero is still fantastic and untarnished.
I think it’s safe for me to say that I’m going to be pretty critical of any game that is going to try and touch my memories. So how could LEGO Indiana jones possibly stand up to my childhood?
Pretty well, actually.
Now some things have to be taken into account here:
- Each movie is broken down into 6 episodes, and so there is only so much of each movie that they can do. This results in a somewhat “Coles Notes” sort of effect. You get the overall flavour, but nuances are lost due to the constraints.
- There is no dialogue. It’s like the ultimate mime performance. Each character has one of their signature sounds sort of dumbed down, distilled, and used as their only vocal response. Indy has a arrogant sounding grunt, girls all sound like owls (girly owls), and bad guys all sound menacing. Really straight forward.
- Everything is made of LEGO. so a certain amount of detail has to be taken away. That isn’t to say that the scenery isn’t gorgeous, because it actually is.
- It’s for kids. This means that some of the more blatantly violent scenes were removed (the propeller scene, the whole evil Indy heart thing, etc.) and any that aren’t removed are satirized to make them less horrible.
- You can’t actually die. When you do, you just respawn right where you were and continue on your merry way.
Basically it’s a kids game that has something for everyone. Most of the puzzles are straightforward (with a few exceptions that had me swinging randomly at things hoping for increased clarity) which makes playing through the game a pretty linear experience. You are given some well-done cinematics at the start, middle, and end of most episodes, and it’s just difficult enough to keep you engaged. Each level takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 80 minutes to play through, depending on your skill level and attention to thoroughness. So you get a good amount of play time and enjoyment with a simple playthrough, but then there are the unlockables.
Oh the unlockables. I owe way too many headaches and my now impressive gaming arm to those damned unlockables.
Basically the unlockable extras require you to replay a level at least once to find things using characters that you couldn’t do in Story Mode. I say at least once because If you mess up, or are missing a required character during Free Play Mode, you’ll be going back again. Tack on the fact that after you get the unlockables, you still have to purchase them. This requires you to mine studs (money in the LEGO universe) until you hate yourself. On top of all that, you end up unlocking three more levels that you have to play through, all in an attempt to nail that 100% game completion.
Then you have all of the XBox Achievements, which require you to grind through such wonderful tasks as “swing across platforms with your whip 250 times” or “break 50 characters or objects using the scream and super scream ability” which is bugged. My personal favorite is “Oh it breaks the heart” which, as it turns out, you earn for breaking 20 glasses over LEGO peoples heads. Just cause I could I made sure to bust all of them over Indy’s head with Marion.
Authenticity has its places.
The other thing that irked me with the game were some of the useless mechanics that were included / weren’t tested properly. I can say with total confidence that there was not a single time when I needed to shimmy against a wall. Not once. So why give my that ability? All it does is force me to jump away from the wall, which could cause me to fall to my death.
Another issue I had was part of the learning curve that you aren’t really taught. The whole “lining up shots to hit people” thing is usually a make-or-break situation for games. And with LEGO Indy, it seems like they dropped the ball until I realized that they took all the hard stuff out of it. As long as you’re facing the right direction and close enough to bad guys, your little LEGO
hero will aim for you. Wish I had known about that at the start of the game.
And one more paragraph that I am reserving for the games A.I.. Enemies were annoyingly accurate with rockets, but other than that they were perfect. Just hard enough to challenge you, but not impossible to combat. I wish I could say the same for your companions. They never land a killing blow on anyone (forcing you to stop fighting whomever you were fighting to finish them), they seem to get caught on random objects or make insane leaps to try and catch up to you, and they get in the way since they are stupid and solid.
Having said that, the scripted portions (two person puzzle solving, etc.) was very well done and I have to give credit where it’s due. I’m also impressed with how the A.I. is smart enough in Free Play mode to switch to whatever character is required to keep up with you (Shorties come to mind).
Before I finish up I must also give credit to the sounds of the game. Though the sound of exploding LEGO people/objects/everything can get a little boring after a while, I have to give a round of applause to the music loops. They loop seamlessly, sound like the music from the movies, and really help make areas of the game feel way more engaging. The action music that kicks in during fights could have been a bit more varied, but still very well done.
So over all, I’m a fan of the game. My 100% status and having all of the achievements can attest to that. The music is solid, the “writing” as it were was very well done, and it kept me smiling the whole way through. The A.I. irritated me and somewhat clunky controls made me very angry at points (SPIRAL STAIRCASES WHY GOD WHY), but overall I enjoyed it.
7/10
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