LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

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Off the back of two massively successful Lego Star Wars games, LucasArts have cranked out the Indiana Jones version; and with a Lego Batman in the works you can probably see where the never ending torrent of possibilities is going. It seems that the kids can't get enough of Lego franchise games with their quirky humour, explosive scenery, reliable gameplay, and simple puzzles. The great appeal, of course, is that exploding Lego-blocks and Lego-men is the perfect way of creating an action packed game which is suitable for children of all ages regardless of what physically happens in the Lego world.

The game covers all three of the original films. Taking the form of episodes, they are unlocked after the first introductory mission of the game, and from then onwards all three are playable at any time. The episodes fairly accurately follow the plotlines of the original Hollywood hits. For example, The Lost Crusade begins by searching for the catacombs hidden beneath the library in Venice - of course Lego Indiana Jones keeps this as simple as possible.

In-between the actual game levels are re-enacted popular cut-scenes from the films showered with childish humour - but rather than talking normally the characters make slightly disturbing Mr. Bean-like grunting noises, and apparently kids find this endearing. The three episodes are fairly faithful to their inspiration, apart from a few probably unnecessary changes. For example LucasArts decided to remove all Nazi paraphernalia from The Last Crusade, it's unclear why given that the original family film made 20 years ago didn't feel the need to do this.

Indiana Jones is, of course, the main character, and the game features the same easy drop-in/drop-out two-player co-op system that the Star Wars series had. Indiana's sidekicks might be rather less well known, being a rather generic bunch of characters ranging from girly heroines to easily forgotten mechanics, but each still have their own unique features and quirks. For example, female characters can jump higher because they are more "nimble", I'm not certain what message this sends to young minds but I'm sure it's all good. More importantly, it allows them to reach platforms out of reach for Indiana and then, for example, activate a lift which allows Indiana to join them.

For some reason there's no online play, but the two-player one-screen play is fairly top-notch, and for once in a modern game there are no major camera problems. Not enough games these days have this kind of option, and you're reminded just how fun it was back in the old days by all the games that do. Going from a single player game to a two player game of Lego Indiana is as simple as a button press, and gameplay throughout incorporates the aforementioned cooperative coordination of both characters utilising their unique skills - team-work is encouraged and often players will come across unique puzzles that only one character from the two is able to solve.

Gameplay largely consists of bouncing around colourful Lego-crafted environments smashing things, building things, and carrying things. It's uncertain whether this Gameplay is harmful to a child's personal development, American senators are yet to claim that children everywhere will soon be hurtling around house-holds smashing all the furniture in search of the numerous multi-coloured coins contained within. But all the indicators point to the possibility.

Puzzles usually involve finding something by smashing other things. Once said item pops out of the Lego debris a handy arrow will point the important item out to the player - typically it'll be a key, or a spanner. Then another arrow will show up somewhere else in the playing area indicating where the item should be taken - something like a broken lift or the mechanism for opening a door, for example. Another major element of the puzzles is the players' ability to build set objects from specific piles of Lego rubble. This is accomplished by standing over a suspicious stack of seemingly randomly placed Lego and holding the "B" button, the Lego characters will then charge to work constructing various items from platforms, to bridges, to ladders, and so on.

Combat is your typical beat-em-up style stuff, basically you button bash and head for the general direction of the bad-guys. If you're lucky enough you can pick up a weapon or two, including a handy rocket-launcher, and really do some Lego damage. Don't get any ideas about the combat, or any of the gameplay even, being challenging in any way, because it's not. In fact it's so simple even a three year old could handle it, and that's probably the idea. At the end of each gaming section is a genre-typical boss fight. Bosses are typically a little more evasive than the standard grunts, will often use projectile attacks, and will need several hits to take down.

There are a truckload of collectables and un-lockables built into the game. Each level can be played and replayed as different characters in an attempt to find all the hidden treasure chests and so on. Strangely enough these hidden collectable items can also be "bought" for money which can be gathered from pretty much any smashable object in the game; which kind of defeats the purpose of collectables.

Lego Indiana Jones is very accessible and very well produced. Although for some endlessly smashing Lego scenery and finding keys to fit winches again and again and again in a desperate attempt to reach the next mildly humorous Mr. Bean-injected version of a scene from the classic films may get slightly tedious after hours and hours of it, and this is just about all Lego Indiana Jones' gameplay really amounts to. But it's not all about challenging gameplay, especially for kids. The colourful scenery, cheeky comedy, pristine production and cute Lego crafted world is just the thing to vacuum up a child's attention for hours and hours and hours on end; and that's exactly what this game will do. It'll do it better than any other game on the market, and hopefully it'll do it for long enough so that "Daddy" can finish his Ninja Gaiden II scythe-only play through undisturbed.

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By Richard Nolan