Review Detail

[Review originally by Doopus]

I'm currently eagerly waiting the release of Lego Batman for the Wii, and as I'm waiting I find myself going back to Lego Indiana Jones.

The game itself is brilliant in its sheer simplicity. At its core its a platform game, but then you have all the little twists added to give it the uniqueness that will have you wanting to play it more and more.

The main aim of the game is to play through each of the first 3 Indiana Jones films, each level will see you using a pair of different characters, normally Indy will be one of them, but at times you'll also control some of the other main characters including Short Round, Dr Jones Senior and Willie.

Each different character also have their own special abilities, Dr Jones Senior can translate hieroglyphics, Short round can get into small spaces and can repair things, all the female characters can scream to break glass objects and can jump higher than male ones, and with Indy you get the whip.

Each of these abilities means that for the different puzzles you come across you have to use a combination of the characters to get to certain objectives.

Throw into this that some characters then have their own fears, taken from the films, so Indy is scared of snakes, Willie doesn't like bugs and Dr Jones isn't too fond of rats. If your running along with one your characters and you come across one of their fears they will just stop and cower and you have to swap to your other character.

The main game itself takes you through the film storylines stage by stage, linking up the levels with quite funny cut scenes from the films redone in Lego.

Once you've completed a film you can then watch back all the clips together to see a cut down version of the film itself, and some of these clips are superbly done with a good twist of humour added (afterall it is in Lego).

With this game I found myself actually not looking forward to completing it as I wanted to keep playing, and thats where the beauty of the game comes in. The re-playability of this game is immense. A key part of the main game is collecting Lego Studs, with these studs you can then buy bonus items that can be used in the game such as treasure detectors or x2 modifiers to the amount of studs you collect. With each level completed you then also open up all the characters from that level, including the baddy characters and with your studs you can then buy these characters and play with them when you go back into a level. Each level then also can be played in a free play mode where you can choose which characters you want to take in, which by combining abilities from different characters which you didn't have first time round, can open up hidden areas and new levels. On top of this, each level also has 10 artifact pieces hidden throughout it and a power brick which you have to find, so although you may complete the storyline mode, the game itself will have you coming back time and again to complete fresh challenges.

The format of the Nintendo Wii doesn't make too much of a difference. The game is the same on the XBox 360 as well, the main difference being on the Wii you can 'crack' the Wii-Mote to use Indy's whip which at first is quite fun, but you soon realise its just a gimmick and get back to actually getting through the levels.

Overall I loved this game. If you like platformers its a certifed winner. If your an Indy fan you'll love it too, if just for the Lego cut-scenes. Even if your not a big fan of platformers you'll probably still end up coming back to it, its just that type of game, so i'm giving it a resounding 10 out of 10.

Now lets just hope the Lego Dark Knight is just as good...