captaind's Full Review: Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures for Wi...
It’s very rare that I look forward to a game release so much that I pre-order it, but with the LEGO Star Wars games having been so enjoyable, I just had to get LEGO Indiana Jones as soon as it was released (6th June 2008). Styling itself “The Original Adventures” [suggesting that maybe there will be a tie-in with The Crystal Skull at some point], LEGO Indy takes the same basic game design that had been applied to the Star Wars films and tweaked it a little to give it a unique look and feel.
Available only on DVD-ROM, LEGO Indiana Jones is a highly enjoyable romp from beginning to end. You have two game modes – Story Mode and Free Play. The difference is that in Story Mode you only play the characters it gives you (tying in with the characters from that scene of the film), whereas in Free Play (only available once you have completed the Story Mode) you get to swap between different characters – however these characters must be unlocked before you can use them, either by completing scenes in the Story Mode or buying them from the Librarian. The central hub of the game is Barnett College, where Indy works, and you are free to wonder round and gain more LEGO studs (currency in the game), randomly destroy furniture (there is a point to this – you gain more studs this way!), and admire the artefacts you’ve managed to collect along the way, view movie clips from scenes you’ve completed, and try to find some of the secrets held in the university – rumours abound of secret goodies and even secret levels, but they won’t present themselves to you without considerable effort...
The main game is divided into six parts for each of the three films, making eighteen levels in all (plus any secret ones you manage to find – unfortunately I haven’t managed to find any yet despite having completed all levels in Story Mode, but I haven’t given up!). In Free Play you have the same levels, but with more characters to play with (there are different abilities – for instance, women can jump higher, children can access areas via small vents, archaeologists can decode symbols, etc- though only Indy himself can use a bullwhip!), this means that all 18 levels are significantly larger when you play it in Free Play mode. The levels range from about 30-90 minutes each to complete (in either mode – second time round will be easier, but there is more to explore so the length is about the same). The main game exploring the landscape, collecting studs, evading / combating enemies, solving puzzles by various means, and at times defeating opponents by using particular methods (because ordinary methods do not work on them). Most of the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but some are downright devious. There are also some tricky sections where you die a lot – not to worry as you come back after a second or two, but you lose studs every time you die.
You will need the studs later on, back at the university, to buy extra characters and parcels giving you special abilities. There are six parcels already available for you to buy, which are cheap and don’t give you anything actually useful, just amusing (for example, the ability to make all the game’s characters wear nose glasses!). There is one in each level (as far as we can make out, only gettable in Free Play mode), which are more expensive and, naturally, more useful (such as x2 score [studs collected] multiplier – which costs a cool million studs). These are not at all easy to find, but if you do manage to get one, there will be a post box nearby – mail it and you will have access to buy it next time you’re back at the university. You won’t know what any of them do until you’ve managed to get them.
That’s not all – on each level there are ten artefact pieces to be collected. (This is comparable to the “Superkit” pieces in the LEGO Star Wars games, but they perhaps seem a little harder to find in Indy.) Some can be got in Story Mode, some only in Free Play. (Some can be seen but not actually obtained in Story Mode.) Once you have all ten pieces, you will be able to see the full assembled artefact in the showroom at the university. I have a feeling that there’s a secret level (or possibly three) in that room if you have all the artefacts assembled, but at the time of writing we’ve only managed to get one fully assembled... so we will have to see if I’m right!
For each level you also have a bar at the top of the screen which tells you how close you are to getting “True Adventurer” status. Once you get this, you’ll get a whole load of extra studs at the end of the level. You should have a few by this time, because your True Adventurer status depends solely on the number of studs you manage to collect and retain! In some levels this is quite easy, but in others it looks like you’ll need invincibility (I’m sure there’s a parcel somewhere with that in, just haven’t found it yet) to manage.
In the main game, to help you solve puzzles you can do things like turn levers, find keys to turn the levels, activate pressure pads (depending on the pad, it might be one, two or three people needed to activate it – in one level, you need an elephant!), assemble structures from loose building blocks, repair faulty machinery (you need a spanner for this), swing across gaps using your trusty bullwhip, and a lot of other things. You can also pick up hats dropped by enemies and thus impersonate them, pick up weapons they’ve dropped, ride various animals and vehicles... There has been a lot of thought put into giving this game more variety, which helps to distinguish it from the previous LEGO Star Wars games. There are a number of nice new features, and it all fits together perfectly thanks to some exceptionally good level design.
Graphically the game is awesome... well, it would be awesome if I had a better graphics card. My GeForce 7500LE (basically an underpowered 7600) struggles with anything more than the minimum settings, and the game still looks great. I’d love to see it on a higher spec machine though, so I’m currently in the market for a new graphics card... The textures used for the surroundings are surprisingly realistic, while the simpler LEGO structures and graphics look wonderful. The animation is also great, very fluid, and as always there are some surprising little moments that exemplify just how much attention to detail there is – one good example is the way Saleh struggles when climbing. There is obviously some cross-over with the graphics used in the Star Wars games, but the whole thing looks very different and is in many ways superior.
The sound is good too – the music seems to have been mostly incidental music from the films or composed around the themes from the movie music – and of course there’s the famous title music when you first load the game. It works very nicely, and there is some good variety between levels. I never tended to find the music becoming too repetitive even on long levels (something that was a problem in LEGO Star Wars II on certain levels). The sound effects are well up to scratch, sounding suitably realistic or cartoony depending on the situation. Overall I have absolutely no complaints about this game’s aesthetics – apart from perhaps some odd effects on the very first level with the lighting level changing at random moments, which I think was due to the game engine getting confused about whether you were inside or outside a particular cave. Definitely a niggle rather than a problem.
The cut-scenes are perhaps not riotously funny, but are very good parodies of the equivalent scene in the films. They are funny, just not hilarious – not often, anyway. There are some good digs at LEGO Star Wars too in the game, in the game itself and the cut-scenes, which you’re sure to enjoy if you’ve played those.
In fact, bug-wise, LEGO Indy seems to have been released in a much better state than the previous games. After many hours of playing we have not experienced any stalls or crashes, and not found any sections where doing things in a particular order will render the level impossible to complete. There is one puzzle that can only be beaten if you do things in a particular order, but I’m certain this was by design and we worked it out without too much hassle anyway (well okay... sussed it on the third attempt!). Considering LucasArts have something of a reputation for rushing things out before they’ve been properly tested and fixed, it’s nice to see Indiana Jones in such good shape by the time it gets to our PCs.
The game can be played either single player or dual co-operative play. In single player you do the same things, but often have to set something up with one character and then swap to control the other to finish the task. The computer AI for the other player isn’t too bad for this mode. However I would strongly recommend that you get hold of someone to play the game with you, as this adds a while new level of fun to the proceedings. (Probably best not to get someone too prone to anger though, maybe...) The LEGO film tie-ins have all proved to be extremely entertaining two-player games. You can drop out of the game if you need to do something else and rejoin later if you want – just be aware that the two characters need to be close together for the rejoin button to work consistently, otherwise you might have to wait a while.
The final question, I guess is... Is LEGO Indiana Jones even better than LEGO Star Wars II (I think I can safely say that everyone agreed it was better than the first game)? Thanks partly to the lack of bugs and the extra variety added to the game, I think the answer to that has to be yes. The only niggles I really have with the game at all are that some of the levels seemed a little too short, I would have liked there to be a biplane section in “Last Crusade”, and the wait between different screens can seem a bit too long. All of those are minor niggles though, when it comes to a game that looks and sounds great, is quite challenging and a lot of fun. Wholeheartedly recommended!
The game features a preview for LEGO Batman too... can’t wait for that one!
Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP or Vista (ran on Vista, no problems) CPU: P3 1GHz (ran on Core Duo E4300 (both cores clocked at 1.8GHz) RAM: 256Mg on XP, 512Mb on Vista (ran on 1Gb) HDD Space: 4Gb Video card: 128Mbwith Shader Model 2.0 compatibility
I would not really recommend running this game if you are only near the minimum specs though... my PC is quite a bit about the minimum in all categories and still could only manage the minimum graphics detail level.
This game was tested on a Packard Bell imedia J2489 Desktop PC with WPI scores of: Processor (calculations per second) - 4.8 for Processing Power, 4.1 for Memory Operations, 3.3 for Graphics, 2.6 for Gaming Graphics, and 5.7 for the Primary Hard Disk.
**UPDATE**
I have now played this game on the Packard Bell X9820 desktop PC - an altogether more powerful beast than my old computer which scores 5.9 for all the above WPI features - and it looks and plays like a dream. Enough of a difference to make us play through it all again, despite having completed it not all that long ago and having a whole batch of new games waiting to be played!
About the bonus levels... apart from the first one, very disappointing really. Overall the main levels were a tiny bit more enjoyable than LEGO Star Wars II, but the bonus levels in that were better - so I'd put them about even I guess.
LEGO Star Wars - a great game (particularly in 2-player mode) based on the first 3 Star Wars films (episodically speaking) LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - based on the first 3 Star Wars films (chronologically released speaking) - more options, more gameplay, and even better than the first game!
If you own a Nintendo WII, you can get all the goodness of both the above games and a few extra goodies thrown in, plus the awesomeness of your Wiimote making lightsaber buzzing noises in LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Nintendo WII. Sadly this was never released for the PC.
Legoland - a Theme Park type game but with LEGO… not much good for adults but much more accessible to younger ones than most games in this genre. Lego Racers 2 - a decent racing game, slightly sluggish controls let it down but it’s still playable and quite challenging after the first few races.
Whip into Action! Attack and disarm enemies, swing over perilous pits and interact with LEGO objects and puzzles Universal PC Puzzle GamesMore at MacMall
Imagine being able to play with Legos without having to get all the pieces. Now you can with Lego Indiana Jones. It takes the fun and creative constru...More at J&R Music and Computer World
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