Type: Game
Genre: Uh... action/platform/puzzle/sandbox?
Rating: E(10+)
Console: XBOX 360
I was a great fan of Lego Star Wars 2, which took the established universe and did wonderful, funny things with it. The gameplay mechanics clicked (no pun intended) perfectly, the levels flowed seamlessly, transitions between levels made sense, the levels chosen made sense, the interface was a joy to work with... it was a very pleasant experience, and I sunk far more time into that game than anybody really should. So when I realized I was probably never going to pick up my copy of Star Ocean for the 360 again, I was left wondering what to replace it with. Something that I'd play, but didn't already have. I was tapped out on first-person shooters, having just finished all three Halo games in one go, so Halo Reach, much as I want it, was a no-go. Quite unfortunately for me, FPS's make up a grand majority of the American Xbox library, and so I was left with quite the conundrum- until realizing that another Lego game would be the way to go. So I went and picked up Lego Indiana Jones 2. Although I had no plans of tolerating the Crystal Skull levels, I figured that the level creator would be a pretty good trade-off for that.
The experience has its ups and downs, to be honest, but that may be because Lego Star Wars spoiled me with its near-flawlessness. So here's the rundown: Lego Indy 2 is a mostly-positive experience, but nowhere near as slick as its predecessor. You get to control Indiana Jones + 1 (or sometimes two) AI partner(s), running, whipping, shooting, slicing, brawling, swinging across gaps, and climbing into fridges moments before nuclear bombs hit. Thankfully, it's also a parody, and relentlessly makes fun of such moments. It's got plenty of great humor, usually controls well (Why are "enter vehicle" and "change to partner" on the same button?), and while I wasn't initially keen on "hub worlds" replacing the hubs connected to one central area where various characters roam about, I grew to see its value. And here's where the problems start.
The game features tools, which are the replacement for Lego Star Wars' specializations, like Blaster characters and Force characters- Indy has his trademark whip that can tie up enemies and swing him across gaps, Short Round and Mutt use a wrench to fix broken machinery, native tribesmen (like the guys at the beginning of Raiders) can throw spears to make poles you can hang off of to cross gaps or reach higher places, etc. The problem I have with that is that those tools can be, and are, scattered throughout various levels and the hub world, picked up, and used by any given character, meaning that Indy can throw spears or Marion can grab a wrench to fix something, and that completely defeats the purpose of having specializations in the first place. Why did they bother putting the tools into the levels, when they could have just given me an extra character? Heck, in level 2 of Temple, I had Short Round and Indy's love interest following me at the same time, so obviously the game can support more than two characters in the party at once, yet often forces the player to go out and find the tool needed to progress. And don't give me the excuse that it's following the story, because the designers had a janitor following me through the first two or so levels of Crystal Skull, just so that Indy would have a partner character.
Additionally, instead of lots of connected rooms (like in LSW, or any other game, for that matter), levels are made up of one single room, and each world is divided into
-5 Story levels
-5 Treasure levels
-5 Bonus levels
and the Super Bonus Level, which is its own thing that the Lego Games do, only accessible by collecting enough studs in each and every single level to reach True Adventurer status and then building a huge machine to transport the player to said super level. Now theoretically, this is to accommodate the Build Your Own Adventure mode, which lets you string together levels in no particular order, but in reality, it can be annoying sometimes because it removes any depth from the game and breaks immersion like flimsy, ages old glass. Not to mention that the game shows you traveling by map in between levels during Build Your Own Adventure, so you can't even pretend your room choices are all part of the same temple/palace/dungeon/what have you.
Each set of levels is capped off with one larger-than-life boss, which the player has to figure out how to bring down. I didn't mind it so much, but there's just something about fighting a giant energy being that clashes with my memories of the ending of Raiders. Sure, it's a prime opportunity for a boss fight, but it's surprising and feels thrown in to replace the melting faces. You know what would have worked equally as well? If the ghosts in the Ark hadn't possessed the one nazi dude, turning him into a giant energy being, and instead had been the boss fight themselves. The cutscene that precedes it is pretty amusing, though.
To further the indignation, what hurts the most about Lego Indiana Jones isn't the bastardization of my childhood- that, I don't mind so much. It's Lego. It's parody. It's been repackaged to become kid-friendly, taking out the melting faces and Nazi references, the child labor and the exploding bodies. That's fine! I like kid-friendly, it's happy and bouncy and makes me feel like the world isn't quite as ugly a place as I make it out to be. No, what bothers me is the squandered potential. There were many levels that claimed to be based off of certain parts of the movies that resembled nothing of those certain parts. I was looking forward to getting to run through the enslavement mine in Temple, fighting off mind-controlled taskmasters and riding around in a mine-cart to make my grand escape, and what I got instead was a time trial where I had to run along a path to hit a switch to keep a boulder from falling into lava... twice. That's seriously both halves of the level. Why do I need to keep the boulder from falling in? Heck if I know, but not immediately realizing I was on a time limit made me fail the level- which to be honest, is nothing but a slap on the wrist. You don't get booted back to the hub world, you don't lose any studs (that I could tell)... all it does is flash "Level Failed" in red on the screen and send you back to the start. "Try again!" it seems to say, "You'll get it this time!"
Now I realize it's a Lego title, but that's embarrassingly coddling. Even when the player dies in silly stupid preventable ways, it takes studs away, which hurts their chances of getting True Adventurer. Which, in turn, means that somehow, the penalty for failing a seemingly-arbitrary, vaguely defined mission is less terrible than the penalty for dying.
...What the heck?
So we have pointless specializations, perfectly wasted potential levels, slaps on the wrist, and that all irks me. But what really grates is that while I had assumed that the levels given would stay the same between Lego Indy 1 and Lego Indy 2, merely adding more levels (as had been done between LSW 2 and Lego Star Wars: The Compete Saga), I later discovered that they changed the levels in the games to add insult to injury.
So in conclusion, screw Crystal Skull. Not only did it get three freaking zones dedicated to it as opposed to Raiders', Temple's, and Crusade's one, if they had to take stuff out to fit it in, then it really wasn't worth it. I'm probably going back for The Original Adventures, as I should have, level creator or not. This game is probably the first Traveler's Tales title that disappointed me, as their games are always a very solid, fun experience. Don't get me wrong- I enjoyed what I played of it (before my Xbox froze mid-save, completely borking my file of over 70% completion). I even enjoyed some of the Crystal Skull levels. But the simple fact of it is, the game could have been handled so much better. They tried to make concessions to fit more content on the disc, and it ended up hurting poor Indy in the long run. If you're going to play one, go play the first.
Score: 6/10
Pass/Fail: Fail.
Genre: Uh... action/platform/puzzle/sandbox?
Rating: E(10+)
Console: XBOX 360
I was a great fan of Lego Star Wars 2, which took the established universe and did wonderful, funny things with it. The gameplay mechanics clicked (no pun intended) perfectly, the levels flowed seamlessly, transitions between levels made sense, the levels chosen made sense, the interface was a joy to work with... it was a very pleasant experience, and I sunk far more time into that game than anybody really should. So when I realized I was probably never going to pick up my copy of Star Ocean for the 360 again, I was left wondering what to replace it with. Something that I'd play, but didn't already have. I was tapped out on first-person shooters, having just finished all three Halo games in one go, so Halo Reach, much as I want it, was a no-go. Quite unfortunately for me, FPS's make up a grand majority of the American Xbox library, and so I was left with quite the conundrum- until realizing that another Lego game would be the way to go. So I went and picked up Lego Indiana Jones 2. Although I had no plans of tolerating the Crystal Skull levels, I figured that the level creator would be a pretty good trade-off for that.
 | |
| I can't begin to tell you how many Halloweens I dressed up as Indy. Naturally, my expectations for this were high. |
The game features tools, which are the replacement for Lego Star Wars' specializations, like Blaster characters and Force characters- Indy has his trademark whip that can tie up enemies and swing him across gaps, Short Round and Mutt use a wrench to fix broken machinery, native tribesmen (like the guys at the beginning of Raiders) can throw spears to make poles you can hang off of to cross gaps or reach higher places, etc. The problem I have with that is that those tools can be, and are, scattered throughout various levels and the hub world, picked up, and used by any given character, meaning that Indy can throw spears or Marion can grab a wrench to fix something, and that completely defeats the purpose of having specializations in the first place. Why did they bother putting the tools into the levels, when they could have just given me an extra character? Heck, in level 2 of Temple, I had Short Round and Indy's love interest following me at the same time, so obviously the game can support more than two characters in the party at once, yet often forces the player to go out and find the tool needed to progress. And don't give me the excuse that it's following the story, because the designers had a janitor following me through the first two or so levels of Crystal Skull, just so that Indy would have a partner character.
Additionally, instead of lots of connected rooms (like in LSW, or any other game, for that matter), levels are made up of one single room, and each world is divided into
-5 Story levels
-5 Treasure levels
-5 Bonus levels
and the Super Bonus Level, which is its own thing that the Lego Games do, only accessible by collecting enough studs in each and every single level to reach True Adventurer status and then building a huge machine to transport the player to said super level. Now theoretically, this is to accommodate the Build Your Own Adventure mode, which lets you string together levels in no particular order, but in reality, it can be annoying sometimes because it removes any depth from the game and breaks immersion like flimsy, ages old glass. Not to mention that the game shows you traveling by map in between levels during Build Your Own Adventure, so you can't even pretend your room choices are all part of the same temple/palace/dungeon/what have you.
Each set of levels is capped off with one larger-than-life boss, which the player has to figure out how to bring down. I didn't mind it so much, but there's just something about fighting a giant energy being that clashes with my memories of the ending of Raiders. Sure, it's a prime opportunity for a boss fight, but it's surprising and feels thrown in to replace the melting faces. You know what would have worked equally as well? If the ghosts in the Ark hadn't possessed the one nazi dude, turning him into a giant energy being, and instead had been the boss fight themselves. The cutscene that precedes it is pretty amusing, though.
To further the indignation, what hurts the most about Lego Indiana Jones isn't the bastardization of my childhood- that, I don't mind so much. It's Lego. It's parody. It's been repackaged to become kid-friendly, taking out the melting faces and Nazi references, the child labor and the exploding bodies. That's fine! I like kid-friendly, it's happy and bouncy and makes me feel like the world isn't quite as ugly a place as I make it out to be. No, what bothers me is the squandered potential. There were many levels that claimed to be based off of certain parts of the movies that resembled nothing of those certain parts. I was looking forward to getting to run through the enslavement mine in Temple, fighting off mind-controlled taskmasters and riding around in a mine-cart to make my grand escape, and what I got instead was a time trial where I had to run along a path to hit a switch to keep a boulder from falling into lava... twice. That's seriously both halves of the level. Why do I need to keep the boulder from falling in? Heck if I know, but not immediately realizing I was on a time limit made me fail the level- which to be honest, is nothing but a slap on the wrist. You don't get booted back to the hub world, you don't lose any studs (that I could tell)... all it does is flash "Level Failed" in red on the screen and send you back to the start. "Try again!" it seems to say, "You'll get it this time!"
Now I realize it's a Lego title, but that's embarrassingly coddling. Even when the player dies in silly stupid preventable ways, it takes studs away, which hurts their chances of getting True Adventurer. Which, in turn, means that somehow, the penalty for failing a seemingly-arbitrary, vaguely defined mission is less terrible than the penalty for dying.
...What the heck?
So we have pointless specializations, perfectly wasted potential levels, slaps on the wrist, and that all irks me. But what really grates is that while I had assumed that the levels given would stay the same between Lego Indy 1 and Lego Indy 2, merely adding more levels (as had been done between LSW 2 and Lego Star Wars: The Compete Saga), I later discovered that they changed the levels in the games to add insult to injury.
 |
| "Wha- But- Huh-? But- I got 100% completion on Raiders and never once saw- AW, COME ON!" |
Score: 6/10
Pass/Fail: Fail.
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