Lego Indiana Jones 2 the Adventure Continues

I just completed the game and had a blast doing it! The formula has been changed a bit from the earlier Lego games, but there are some welcome new additions, too. The pros: better weapon function with Wii remote targeting (similar to Batman's Batarangs), much better vehicle challenges that are actually fun and allow you to get in and out of the vehicle, improved graphics, lots of large areas to explore, no repeated content from first Lego Indy game. The cons: no treasure chests within the levels (This has been replaced with other hide-and-seek bonus stuff, but I still miss replaying the levels to find treasure.); shorter levels with frustrating 'boss' levels and repetitive bonus levels; no single 'home base' for checking progress (confusing at first). All in all, this is a more sophisticated game, but I wish they had stuck a little more closely to the original format. Still, if you love the Lego games, you'll definitely be hooked!

My son and I enjoyed the original LEGO Indiana Jones immensely and were very excited about the sequel. We preordered it months ago and counted down the last few days until it arrived. Unfortunately, this game lacks any of the charm or fun of the original.

There are a ton of lengthy cut scenes and simplistic levels. Unlike the Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones (original) games, there is not a single base where you can buy stuff, see the artifacts you have collected, and choose to replay any of the levels. Instead, you wander around composite levels for each adventure with huge green arrows showing you where to go to enter one of the levels. Except when they don't show you the big green arrow and you are instead left to wander around until you happen to trigger a new level -- the whole thing makes no sense with no clear progression.

Within a few hours of starting, my son had already run into a bug that prevented him from being able to complete a level. One of the on screen characters magically teleported himself outside of his prison cell, and once there could no longer run to the back of his cell leaving you the opportunity to grab the key from him. After much frustration, I convinced my son that he had to quit the level, abandoning his progress, and return. Sure enough, when we returned to the level the bug was resolved and we were able to grab the key and move on. The Batman game showed similar quality assurance defects -- such as random lockups -- and this game is following the same downward trajectory.

The levels we have seen this far are largely free of puzzles. They generally involve smashing everything and collecting studs. The treasure chests that were so much fun to collect in the earlier game are not present here. Apparently there are some chests that can be collected in the base levels, but those are a tiny fraction of the number of puzzles in the earlier game.

Instead of puzzles, we have seen a number of levels where it is completely unclear what you are supposed to do. Sure, we run around smashing stuff, but collecting studs won't get you out of the level. Instead, you'll see icons for some number of vehicles that you need to destroy, but apparently there is some special way you need to destroy them in order for it to count. We have already seen two such levels where we have destroyed every vehicle we saw but for some reason those didn't count -- you had to be in the right vehicle (presumably mirroring the movie?) when smashing those other vehicles for it to count. For a child who doesn't think like a programmer, this is ridiculously frustrating.

One of the features we most looked forward to was the ability to split the screen so that two players could each explore different areas of a level. Unfortunately the implementation of this is so bad that it is actually a detriment to game play. When the screen splits, the programmers wanted to make sure that it could seamlessly rejoin, so they are always adjusting the perspective of the two halves so that they line up with one another. This means if you are standing still, lining up for a tricky jump and your partner is running around in another area, your half of the screen will rotate to reflect your relation to the other player and you will jump in a direction that you hadn't expected. Worse, the screen always splits with a diagonal line, which looks nice but makes it impossible to see where you are going when you need to drive upwards in one of the vehicle levels. It really feels like they advertised this feature before fully testing it... if they tested it at all.

When we preordered this game, we gave our copy of the Original Adventure to one of my son's friends, figuring that the new game would be a superset and include all the content from the prior game. Not so. Once we unlocked Raiders of the Lost Ark and tried starting that, we were horrified to discover that they had deleted the Temple Escape scene, replacing it instead with a lame cutscene where Indy tosses the idol to Marcus and a giant boulder rolls over him -- in the college.

Finally, a warning to parents. LEGO made the _same_ mistake with this game that they did with Batman. When my son discovered the Batman game, he really wanted some of the Batman sets, but LEGO pulled them all off the store shelves at about the same time and the aftermarket prices are absurd. This new game features the Crystal Skull and a lot of sets from that movie... just when LEGO has discontinued them and is selling off the remaining stock! So if you do buy this for your child, be prepared for the disappointment both in the game, and in the fact that it is a glorified advertisement for products that you won't be able to get your kids.

The worst thing about this game is explaining to my son that the problems are with the game, not with him. When he runs into bugs, levels where the objectives are completely unclear, or insanely hard challenges, he gets extremely frustrated and angry with himself. If you want you child to grow up with positive gaming experiences, skip this one and get a Mario game instead.

I found out about this game the day before its release and I was over-joyed. The Lego series of games have all been excellent and charming (albeit formulaic) and each release has noticeably improved the series. And on paper, it looked like Indiana Jones 2 would continue the trend. Unfortunately, a couple of major game play tweaks make the game a much more shallow experience.

First off, major props to the new hub system. While the lay-out can be a bit confusing, finding your purchasable items is harder than it should be, and you have to constantly back-track to get required characters; it's a wonderful rich environment with lots of mini-games, puzzles, and lots of items to scavenge. This is exactly the sort of development I expected from the Lego series and I expect its flaws will be ironed out with future Lego releases. If only the rest of the game lived up to it.

The biggest problem is the size (or lack thereof) of the levels. Most levels are one big room with only a few levels that allow you to explore (and even those are far smaller than the epic levels of the other games). Virtually all character-based levels can be completed inside of five minutes. The only large levels in the game are the vehicle levels, which involve lots of tedious crashing into other vehicles until you smash enough to continue. Even the Lego Bonus Levels are small with none of the puzzling required in all the other games... just hop into a vehicles, smash and grab coins, occasionally hopping out to grab a couple of coins inaccessible to cars. Collecting the $1,000,000 coins is incredibly easy on all six bonus levels and shouldn't take more than a few minutes. The only good thing about them is the ability to keep your coins (a first in the series), which makes saving up for the bonus multiplier really easy.

Also gone are the canisters within the individual levels, which cuts the replay value of this game dramatically. Even without bonus multipliers, it's easy to get enough coins for True Adventurer status since there's relatively few hazards or enemies on the levels (although there doesn't appear to be any bonus items given for doing so). Treasure Mode (which re-dresses the regular levels) require you to bring in the needed players (no selecting characters from a menu) which adds a level of tedium to the process as you frequently have to trek across the central hub to find a spear thrower or explosive user. Collecting the treasure on these levels (and various hidden bonus levels) will open up the Lego Land Bonus levels, which I mentioned earlier.

Of interest is the level builder, which will allow you to duplicate the regular Bonus Levels, which are puzzles that rely on the skills of certain types of characters to solve. Not having played around with it too much, it looks fairly easy to use; but at the moment there's no way to trade them on-line, so it's of limited interest.

If this had been the very first Lego game, I'm sure I'd be gushing over it; because all the trademark humor and fun is here. The combat systems is still the same, but with a tweak that allows the player to select targets if they hold down the attack button; which is a very welcome addition (no more jumping up and down trying to find the sweet spot to destroy an item with a gun). But the less expansive and involving levels make this the weakest entry in the series. Hopefully Harry Potter will return it to glory.