The Brothers Brick

LEGO Indiana Jones video game almost redeems Crystal Skull movie [Review]

Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

We blog a lot of video game LEGO on The Brothers Brick, but I think this may be our first LEGO video game review — and the reason I haven’t blogged as much the last few days, heh heh!

After playing both the LEGO Star Wars games, I was really looking forward to LEGO Indiana Jones, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The same can’t be said for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I really enjoyed the first time through, but didn’t hold up the second time I saw it. Oh well. Fortunately, George Lucas didn’t write the video game. ;-)

The basic mechanics of LEGO Indiana Jones aren’t that different from LEGO Star Wars: In story mode, you play as one or more characters with specific skills, destroying things in the game environment to earn points (studs) and uncover piles of LEGO bricks, which you can build to progress the plot or find treasure.

However, instead of a lightsaber, you’re armed with Indy’s whip and fists of plastic. Indy can also pick up items, such as weapons and tools, to perform other actions — dig stuff up, fix things, turn clockwork, and so on. While you’re in story mode, you might not have all the necessary skills to find everything hidden throughout the level.

In free play mode, you’re assigned a random collection of characters that give you all of the tools and skills you need, and it’s your skill that determines whether you find all the treasure, including subcomponents of the level model.

I played the game on my Nintendo Wii, so I had the option of swinging my remote to flick Indy’s whip and shaking the remote and nunchuk to build things. Call me old-fashioned (I prefer “old school”), but I chose to use the buttons assigned to these actions instead, and was grateful for that choice.

My favorite thing about the recent LEGO video games from TT Games (formerly Traveller’s tales) is the developers’ humorous take on the Indiana Jones story. I won’t spoil the laugh-out-loud moments for you, but rest assured there are plenty in the game.

In terms of value, there are 18 main levels in the game, and it took me about 30-45 minutes to complete each level in story mode (being fairly thorough along the way; I only failed to get “True Adventurer” status on one). That works out to a fairly short game for someone like me who prefers 100-hour RPGs like Final Fantasy VII, but that’s not counting free play mode, which at least doubles the value. I’ve only started free play, but I’ve already unlocked all but two of the playable characters, and I’m starting to work my way through the extras.

Overall, I’m very pleased with LEGO Indiana Jones, and would recommend it not just to those of you who’ve played LEGO Star Wars. There’s a lot of value in the game, and more importantly, it’s really really fun to play!

LEGO Indiana Jones is available for the following platforms:

Apologies for the lack of visuals in this post. I don’t have a way to take screen shots on my Wii, and I figured a picture of me slumped on the couch in my sweats wasn’t something you’d want to see. ;-)

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