What would you get if you mixed multicoloured toy building blocks with an adventurous fictional archaeologist originally set in the 1930's? Well, you would get LEGO Indiana Jones of course. A slightly contrasted take on the original series which makes fun and light humor of the many main situations featured within the films. This isn't new though, some of you may have heard of LEGO Star Wars, a game which did the same and did it really well. But why did it do so good? Well, many of us had grown up with LEGO, and most of us loved the idea of it. Playing with these creative little bricks and watching shows on TV gave us inspiration, inspiration to reenact our favourite scenes with these LEGO pieces. Now, a game has been made of it which follows some of our favourite classics, and you could say we're in touch with our "inner child" . And that's why I feel that these games don't just interest the younger generation, but the younger adults too due to a lovely thing called nostalgia. LEGO Indiana Jones is made by a relatively large British company called Tt games; previously well known titles made by this company are LEGO Star Wars, Transformers the game and Crash Bandicoot : The Wrath of Cortex.

Gameplay:

The modes in the game feature singleplayer and co-op modes. Something I'll point out first, this game was designed specifically for offline co-op, mainly because the game doesn't support Xbox LIVE at all, and because it's very awkward to play without a human controlled partner. When I say designed for co-op mode, I would only play this game if you have a friend to play it with, obviously I mean a friend to play with often. I made the mistake of playing with a friend first, getting used to working cooperatively, and then made an even bigger mistake by relying on a mindless, irritating burden of a bot. And unfortunately, no LIVE support means no co-op online either. This game is a linear, story told as a 3D platformer. Think back to those old classic such as Gecko or Crash Bandicoot, and then add LEGO to the equation, sounds cheap, but it does work really well. And this is something we aren't seeing enough of nowadays, although, older titles are starting to reemerge such as Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, and I think this is because of the LEGO series, just to give you an idea of how popular and much admired the LEGO series has gotten. LEGO Indiana Jones is similar to some of your original classic platformers, and gets you progressing through many paths and small areas traversing through traps and mini puzzles, but what it doesn't do, unlike some of the other platformers you know, is get stale. It keeps offering you with new challenges, new settings and new characters. Off course, it has to follow the plot of the film, but Tt games have thrown some of their own stuff in there just to make it more pleasing. This game, unlike the previous LEGO titles, concentrates more upon the mini puzzle aspects. LEGO Star Wars had mini obstacles, but it had a lot more in the terms of action and "demolition" . It seems quite ideal that Indiana Jones offers a new and refreshing way of going about the LEGO games; this isn't to say you'll like the direction they've taken, but it's most likely if you enjoy watching the Indiana Jones films, you'll also enjoy the game itself. The controls are relatively simple in concept, as it is a platformer. The actions and movements rely completely on the surface of the Xbox 360 controller, so, the analogue and the four face buttons are the complete controls. However some of the button placements can be a little confusing. B is your special ability for that character, although it also acts as an item equip. X is the attack button, Y is the switch character option, but it's also for entering and exiting objects and vehicles, and A is the jump button. It just seems like some of the buttons which were used twice could have been quite easily used as one of the shoulder buttons. There were times when I wanted to get in a vehicle, but instead I switched to another character and ran into a trap. Something you'll have to get used to the hard way. Like I have briefly mentioned, there are other characters and you'll get to control them. Some of these characters have different minor characteristics, for example women characters can jump higher, smaller characters can fit through gaps, some can interact with certain objects and Indiana Jones has his whip. These aren't major changes in the way each character operates, but it does change how you play the game and forces you to work together, hence the emphasis on the co-op ability. This also makes you come back to some of the levels, which I'll talk about later. The destructibility in the game is quite impressive, all LEGO objects can be destroyed and within the objects lay small LEGO pieces which act as points, points which unlock things in the college manor. At the end of each mission all these points will get added up and you can use these to buy other characters, or unlock other modes. But like rings in Sonic, or wumpa fruit in Crash Bandicoot, you can lose these LEGO bricks; every time you die you'll lose about a thousand. You can't actually die and lose the mission. Singleplayer takes some practicing and you will have to get used to switching to the other character constantly, this is a game to play with a friend. Playing alone definitely makes it more challenging, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many of the tasks you'll be doing together involve you in a lot of different puzzles, all of which are very simple to complete. The only aggravating thing about the puzzles is estimating jumps. At certain angles, due to the inability of the camera, you won't be able to see where you're going. Also respawning can be a little irritating. Even more so in co-op when you're ally is on the other side of the screen; you may respawn upon where you had died, on a sliding ledge so you would continue dying until your ally had moved into a position which allowed you more space to move. Not one of its major problems, just an overall irritating feature about that perspective. The more serious issues though come from some silly design decisions. The lack of a skip option within the cut scenes being the most irritable. None of these are terribly long, however, when you want to replay the game, and this is likely with the extra characters, they can be rather tedious to watch. Another serious problem is the mission requirements, when you don't have a certain item you can't continue the mission. For example, there's a point where you have to repair a few engines to operate some machinery to get to a higher ledge, this can only be done with a character with a spanner, something which I had missed on the way. After about forty minutes of confusion and looking I had to restart the whole mission to get any further. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but it would be nice if they had told you that you needed that item. I'm sure this is something a patch could do. Onto control responsiveness. Character control and animations are quite natural; it's all easy to get used to, albeit being a bit simple, But I suppose it looks and feels like controlling a LEGO character, whatever that may be like. The odd vehicle you control though moves like a hovercraft, they're nice as a little extra for gameplay purposes, but a whole level in one could ruin the experience. However, it's the smaller additions to this game which make it unique, like being able to customise and make your own LEGO character, buying extra characters and re watching the small cutscenes in the college manor. Tt games could have just made it one very long campaign, sequentially moving through the three films but they didn't, and these extras make it that much more entertaining.

Graphics:

This is a LEGO game, and it looks like actual LEGO. I suppose in LEGO world that's really good graphics. However not everything looks like LEGO though. Everything you can destroy looks like LEGO, but the environment looks real. Something I had only noticed when pointed out to me. Two contrasting sceneries and it's a very good way of telling you what you can interact with, it doesn't at all look out of place. It presents you with bright, solid and vibrant colours throughout, sets the mood for the character and humour injected into the game. It's a typical LEGO style, but it looks great. There are noticeable screen tearing issues at higher resolutions, but nowhere near as frequent as some games. When you're using HD capable equipment it all looks even sharper, the screen tearing won't affect the HD experience. To put it simple, it's like a LEGO Toy Story.

Sound:

The music and sound effects are surprisingly very good. It uses a mix of the score from the original Indiana Jones movies and some of its own high quality soundtrack. The music may seem a little too "epic" for a game which is made of LEGO, but it does fit the atmosphere perfectly, very similar to the real and LEGO mixed settings. Ambient and general sound effects of the in game scenes were plentiful and all of good quality. Although, it is hard to judge sound effects of a game which is based on childrens' toys. Some of the sound effects when you're destroying items seem a little over dramatic, but nothing which would ruin the overall experience. Cut scenes consist of no dialogue; all sounds and communication are iterated by character grunts and contextual actions make an interesting way of telling the story, fits the LEGO theme completely. I personally feel it would ruin the game if the LEGO characters talked, LEGO is about the imagination and creativity, here it's about the imagination and interpretation of what's going on.

Longevity:

This game is linear, being a platformer and all, but it has "open playability". What I mean by this is you can come back to these missions and do them again, and start from which ever point from the original movies. After you complete the opening mission to Raiders of the Lost Ark you can choose to travel to the college manor menu and you may start from which ever story you want from the first three films. If you get bored with one of the campaigns you can easily skip to the next one, and going back and replaying the missions allow you to improve your LEGO collect score and attempt some of the side quests. There is no difficulty choice in this game, but what is different from LEGO Star Wars is that there's an adaptive difficulty option. I assume when this is on the missions will become harder the quicker you complete them, I couldn't tell the difference but it is nice to have the option. The game focuses entirely on one campaign split into three parts each of which follows the original films (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom & The Last Crusade), however, the replayability lies with the amount you can unlock (Characters and modes) and collect as secondary objectives. In many of the missions you'll need a special type of character to enter or interact with certain areas, these can be unlocked later on which get you to come back and replay the earlier missions. And of course, some of those achievements will be a challenge also. There's also a nice interactive home manor menu which you can explore. This offers some of its own puzzles, and caters to the unlockables you gain throughout the campaign. It's a good incentive to carry on playing.

Overall:

Indiana Jones the original adventures is a fun and enjoyable game for all audiences, and that is what is important about the LEGO series brought by Tt games, most people who play this game will like it. We have too many games on the market, even more so for the Xbox 360 and PS3, aimed at a particular audience, and that is where I feel the next generation is failing. These LEGO series games have been well noted by designers and that is why I think we're are seeing the announcement of other platformers such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. LEGO Indiana Jones is in no way a perfect title though, there have been noticeable bugs and inconveniences, such as the fixed camera angle & awkward respawns, and it is in no way anything original or groundbreaking in gameplay, but, it is amusing, entertaining and accessible. It started well with Star Wars LEGO, and it hasn't fallen short yet with Indiana Jones. Now, where's my hat?