August 28, 2008
Story and Photos by Alex Bedard (Rabid Ewok)

GAME PLAY

Lego Indiana Jones is an adventure puzzle game that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It continues the tradition of previous Lego titles by having simplistic combat, many puzzles to solve and a huge amount of unlockable characters. 

The game begins with the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark; Indy is intently reading a map while he and his guide traverse the dense jungle in search of an ancient treasure. After the short cut scene you gain control of Indy and are free to start exploring. The first thing you'll notice is that the environment is highly destructible; pretty much anything that's made out of Lego can be broken, including your teammates. Using his whip, Indy can grab distant items as well as latch onto branches to swing across ravines, while his guide has a shovel which can be used as a weapon, or more importantly, to dig up objects which will usually spit out Lego studs for you to collect. The player is free to switch between characters at will and use their respective abilities to beat down enemies or solve puzzles. 

As you navigate through the various levels, you will encounter several different types of puzzles which must be solved to either gain access to more studs, or bypass an obstacle blocking your way. Some of the puzzles include using Lego bricks to build machinery or vehicles which can be used to smash through barriers; another type is a panel covered in hieroglyphics where you have to repeat the order that the symbols light up in. The majority of the game can get a bit tedious as it only has you solving puzzles, collecting studs and beating up bad guys as you follow the plot of the movies. By far, the most enjoyable parts of the game are figuring out how to damage the many bosses and watching the cut scenes of key moments of the films.

DIFFICULTY
Since it's a game that was primarily made for younger people, Lego Indiana Jones has a very short and gentle difficulty curve. Nothing is very complex, there's one attack button, enemies are mindless drones that don't pose much of a threat unless they gang up on you and once you figure out a puzzle you'll have no problem solving others of the same type later in the game. In addition to all of this, you also have infinite lives. No matter how many times you die you just respawn and can try again. I can understand making everything simple so young players can experience the game as well, but having infinite lives just removes all the risk and all the challenges that are associated with platforming games.

AUDIO
There isn't much auditory diversity in Lego Indiana Jones. Throughout most of the game all you’ll be hearing is the Indiana Jones theme music on a loop, characters grunting in place of dialogue and the sound of your characters punching and blowing up Lego objects. The characters grunting out dialogue may sound like it would be annoying, but it only happens during cut scenes and it fits in well with the game's cartoonish style and humorous representation of the film trilogy.

GRAPHICS
Surprisingly, Lego Indiana Jones has excellent graphics. The Lego characters and objects all look very smooth and have very vibrant colors. Although they're usually mundane things like walls, rocks, dirt or sand, the non-Lego environment also looks great and compliments the Lego objects very well.

FINAL THOUGHTS
It's great from a design standpoint, but it can be really boring to play alone, so get a buddy to join you in co-op.

SCREENSHOTS
Click on the thumbnail images below to see a larger version of them.