LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 26th August 2008

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Indiana Jones gets the Lego treatment in this action platformer.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Videogame Details:

Goto LEGO Indiana Jones: The Videogame Game Page

	Action
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii
	Traveller's Tales
	LucasArts

Out Now

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With the success of the Lego Star Wars games it’s no wonder LucasArts have given their other big franchise the building block treatment, especially since there’s just been a new Indiana Jones film.

Lego Indiana Jones is based on the original three Indiana Jones films, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. As with the Lego Star Wars games the Indiana Jones story has been recreated using the same Lego wit and humour.

The game is played from a central hub, which in Barnaby College where Indy teaches when he’s not on one of his many adventures. From here you can access any of the three episodes without the need to play through each episode in order. For each of the three episodes you can play story mode which obviously loosely follows the story of each film and sees you playing as Indy and various other characters that appear in the movies. The game also allows you to Free Play each level you have completed in each episodes story mode with the different characters you have unlocked whilst playing through the game.

Barnaby College also stores various artefacts and treasures that you find on your adventures as well as allowing you to view the various cut-scenes from levels you complete. The college also allows you to unlock new characters, items and abilities that will come in useful when playing through the games story mode by spending Lego studs which you collect in the games levels.

Levels in Lego Indiana Jones are fairly large and offer a mix of platform based action and puzzle solving. Puzzles in the game aren’t overly complex, but do often require you to build levers or platforms and at times require you to use both characters in conjunction with each other in order to solve it, which is a nice touch if playing the game with another player.

As mentioned earlier the game allows you to play as several different characters apart from the games main hero, this is more then just a gimmick as in some games, as each character usually has a unique skill which needs to be utilised at some point during the level they feature in. For instance female characters are more agile then male characters and so can jump higher allowing them to reach high ledges and switches, small characters also have the ability to reach areas our main hero can’t by shuffling their way through small, hatches and so on.

As you play through the levels in story mode you will notice several areas that aren’t accessible to the various default characters for that level, this has been done to encourage replay in the “free play” mode, using characters you have unlocked you are able to access these areas and discover what lies behind them. This gives the “free play” mode a little more meaning and makes it more worthwhile to replay already completed levels.

The game offers a pretty enjoyable playing experience for the most part, however the games camera angle can spoil the fun as it makes it difficult to judge certain jumps and positions on ramps and ledges. Also as you move deeper in to the games environment the camera remains static, this can result in you moving blindly and just to add to the confusion the games movement controls flip as you move deeper in different directions whilst the camera stays in its fixed side scrolling position. Vehicles can also be a little tricky to control as the directional controls seems also to flip depending on what direction they are moving in. Also on a negative note is that inability to save the game midway through a level, and as some are fairly long you have to lose any progress you’ve made up to that point.

Visually the game looks pretty good, environment and characters are bright and feature a nice amount of detail and fans of the movies will easily be able to recognise some of the Lego recreations of various locations from the films. Sound in the game is a little limited but what there is all fits in very well with the game and it’s all very much what you would expect to find in any Lego game.

On the whole Lego Indiana Jones will appeal to those who enjoyed playing the Lego Star Wars games whilst fans of Indiana Jones may find some appeal in the title. The game is highly recommended to younger gamers, but should still appeal to fans of platform action games and whilst it does have a few problems it’s not really enough to spoil an enjoyable playing experience.