LEGO and developer Traveller’s Tales have had a good relationship, partnering with LucasArts for brick-and-stud renditions of the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” film franchises, with Warner Bros. on a “Batman” game and most recently a version of Rock Band with MTV, Harmonix and Warner Bros. The various releases are all entertaining on various levels—it’s funny seeing popular movie characters made up of little LEGO pieces, but they also feature cute animations and often hilarious cutscenes that are reminiscent of the original films, and there’s entertaining gameplay revolving around breaking up myriad LEGO structures, then often building them back up into other creations.
It’s a tried-and-true formula that has charmed gamers of all ages over the past five years. The games have been so successful that they’ve inspired yet another “Indiana Jones” adventure, entitled LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. Does this new one hold up?
LEGO Indy 2 mostly sticks to what has been done in the past with some notable changes…or perhaps omissions. There’s still the same comical cutscenes that play off the original movies—here, you get small modular versions of the first three films and a three-part treatment of the latest movie, 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” You start with Part 1 of the “Crystal Skull” flick, then gradually unlock the other pieces as you go. Once a new segment is unlocked, you can move back and forth between them (represented as crates in a warehouse) as you choose.
The gameplay involves breaking up lots of LEGO objects and items, which generally reveal a number of LEGO studs, the smallest building block in the toy’s family. These represent the game’s currency, and your stud account can be used to purchase various things that become available through gameplay, including vehicles and access to different characters. Most characters come with particular skills, such as girl characters being able to jump very high or soldier characters carrying particular weapons.
As you go through each module, you access individual challenges, most of which have you fighting LEGO enemies, solving puzzles, racing vehicles though a course before time runs out and more. You earn rewards for your efforts, with ten levels giving you a gold LEGO trunk as the key prize. There are also colored bricks you can gather, and if you get all ten of them in the module, you’ll earn an “extra” that varies with its color. For instance, the red extras are all monetary multipliers that increase the value of the studs you pick up.
Perhaps the best part is that you can play solo or in co-op with another player on the same console. This is especially great for parents to play with their child, as the games are relatively harmless with cartoony violence (undertaken against LEGO characters that generally reappear right after with little penalty).
The assorted components that make up LEGO Indy 2 are mostly well done. For example, the terrain and water are quite realistic looking, but it’s easy to see the LEGO objects among the “real” world. The levels are filled with such creatures as rideable horses, along with spiders and snakes (which are “Indiana Jones” staples for adding tension). The backing orchestral music is also reminiscent of the movies and high quality, though it’s all somewhat repetitious when taken across the whole game.
And the “whole game” is big. None of the puzzles are particular difficult, though there’s a lot to keep you busy as you work through each module’s many parts. When you near the end of a particular module, you’ll likely have some things left to do, and a good chunk of your time will be spent trying to find that remaining colored block to pull down or the remaining puzzle you need to solve for 100% completion on the module.
To add to the gameplay time, LEGO Indy 2 also includes an editor that can be used to create new levels. These mini-adventures are made up of the same items you’ll find in the main game that Traveller’s Tales put together, and you can save them to disc to play at other times. Another editor segment enables you to create a custom character to switching and swapping the body parts from all of those you unlocked through gameplay.
There’s definitely a lot to do, with a good quantity of entertainment on display as you go through the game, but it’s not without some serious flaws that can suck out some of your enjoyment. On the low end of the scale, there are times when you don’t have enough to time to pick up a large collection of spilled studs before they start blinking (the indication that you’re running out of time) and then disappear into the ether. Though later in the game, you’ll have more studs than you know what to do with, in the early and middle stages, you’ll be scraping to save enough to buy the helpful items and other characters that are offered to you. It’s during this time that you’ll really bemoan the loss of any potential studs.
There is a bunch of small foibles, though they can add up into bigger frustrations. Most levels include two characters for you to pilot, and the one controlled by AI is usually pretty dumb. There is a lot of cases where your “partner” is falls off a platform into lava or quicksand or just getting hung up trying to make some jumps to catch up to where you are. Switching characters will often enable you to extract the desired character from the undesirable situation—only to have the “new” AI-driven character start dying here and there in the same manner.
It’s also frustrating using vehicles in the game. Vehicle piloting isn’t really smooth (on the Left and Right Sticks for acceleration and braking), and you’ll run into plenty of items that’ll be in your way. In some cases, the vehicle will hang up and you won’t be able to extricate it (which is particularly bad if you’re against the timer in a race). In others, the vehicle will flip over and sit there for a few seconds, like a turtle on its back that’s unable to get anywhere—though the game does right any overturned craft after a few seconds of inactivity.
By far, the biggest problem is the lack of guidance. When you’re in the “warehouse” looking at each of the modules, it’s easy to see at a glance what individual locations need attention—though there’s no way to go right to one if you haven’t already accessed it already. It just shows up as a question mark on the chart. It’s worse if you’re in the particular module running around, because there doesn’t seem to be any indicator at the entrance to each challenge whether you need to do the challenge or if you’ve already done it. There’s an awfully large amount of trial-and-error as you wander around, trying to find the one or two challenges you have left to complete.
I don’t think the LEGO video-game formula has been tapped out, because, as noted, there’s a lot of fun in LEGO Indy 2. However, for whatever reason, the gameplay doesn’t seem to have been tested enough to weed out these fairly routine design flaws, because there are some serious usability issues that stand in the way of a what could have been a much better adventure. Hopefully, Traveller’s Tales will crack the whip before taking on another “Indiana Jones” trek.
Source: teamxbox.com