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Sashamorning
459,211
TA Score for this game: 1,308
Posted on 24 August 10 at 04:45 |
This review has 37 positive votes and 8 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
After 20 years, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and George Lucas finally released the long-awaited fourth film in the wildly popular Indiana Jones series, one that each had claimed to want to make for a long time. With LEGO's long-standing relationship with Lucas's Star Wars franchise, from the ubiquitous Danish building blocks to the thoroughly enjoyable game series, it only seemed natural that Traveller's Tales would continue their LEGO game franchise with the first Indiana Jones game. However, leaving out the newest film, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, left plenty of room for the inevitable sequel.
However, this is not to say that LEGO Indiana Jones 2 is the same as tacking the last film onto the previous three. The overarching hub of the first game is split broadly into eight separate hubs, and the change is marked. Each of the original 3 films has a separate hub, while the fourth movie is split into three hubs of its own. In addition, there is a separate hub for the bonus levels (akin to the million-stud rallies of LEGO City from earlier games), as well as the new LEGO Creator hub. As a result, the structure of LEGO Indiana Jones 2 is vastly different from the earlier games. And, with so much packed into the game, there's a lot to discuss.
In many ways, the new gameplay improves upon the older Star Wars/Batman models. Instead of the past games where each story level (60, in the case of Star Wars: The Complete Saga) has its own set of 10 minikits, Indiana Jones 2 has no minikits in the story levels. Rather, each hub has a set of 10 treasure chests, which are earned through a set of 5 replay levels (each of which requires certain characters to be unlocked in order to play) and 5 special bonus levels, in which the player must solve more of a puzzle in order to find the treasure chest.
Each of these levels are relatively short, but no less interesting or exciting as the previous games. In fact, LEGO Indiana Jones 2 completely retools the story levels from the earlier games, focusing on different aspects of each film than the originals.
As a result, instead of having 36 levels, as in Star Wars: TCS, which much each be replayed at least once in order to complete the game, Indiana Jones 2 has 90 shorter levels, which actually seem quite a bit less of a task to complete. (Full disclosure: each of the 15 story levels must be played through once more in Quick Play to 100% the game, but this is much less than replaying 36 longer levels twice.)
This isn't to say that collectibles have disappeared. Each of the 6 main hubs have 3 sets of 10 hidden bricks. Rather than having to replay a certain level over again in order to find a single missing minikit, all 30 hidden bricks can be found at any time by browsing the hubs. This results in less frustration in having to replay those levels, while still retaining the scavenger hunt aspect of the minikits. As a result, I think this change is a much-needed improvement to the grinding that has pervaded through much of the older games.
Co-op multiplayer is a welcome return, as LEGO games provide some of the best cooperative multiplayer experiences in gaming. However, rather than both players needing to stay on the screen together (sometimes pulling one off a cliff or getting them stuck in a corner), the new game automatically splits to allow both players to go their separate ways, and the transition is practically seamless. It's a fantastic model for other top-down co-op games to reproduce.
The LEGO Builder is the last hub. An interesting addition, the Creator allows players to take an existing background, add doors, switches, enemies, and puzzles to the level, and even create hills, valleys and cliffs. While this addition may not be for most players, it's a fun way for some to experiment with their own ideas and puzzles.
The achievements are mostly straightforward, dealing with level and hub completion. Like all LEGO games, there is a bit of grinding, but personally I felt that with the variety of levels and the reduction in repetition that the grinding wasn't as much of an issue.
In short (for a long review), LEGO Indiana Jones 2 is a bit a fresh air for the franchise. With its more wide-open hub structure and decrease in repetition, the game packs a lot to do and a lot of variety in a small space, and I found it to be quite an improvement in the series. While the grinding can get a bit tedious, it doesn't detract from the game experience.
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Tachikoma Shell
339,180
TA Score for this game: 1,308
Posted on 03 December 09 at 12:30, Edited on 01 June 12 at 00:03 |
This review has 24 positive votes and 3 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
To begin, I'm a big fan of the Lego series of games. Having spent days and weeks on some of them, they always are fun to replay with a friend or just by yourself. However, Lego Indiana Jones 2 is very different from previous Lego installments especially the first Lego Indiana Jones.
To start with, there is no longer one large area to explore where you choose what levels you would like to play. For example, on the first Lego Indiana Jones, the main setting is the college Indiana works at. Now though, each story has it's own setting. Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in a big area called a hub, with locations from the film and also you have to explore this area to unlock new characters, levels, secrets and vehicles. Since each story has a different setting, every hub is like a brand new adventure and something to look forward to after finishing one. These don't get repetitive because you do different things in each one.
The missions though are very different from the first Lego Indiana Jones. Some levels are remade such as the 'Into the Mountains' level and others are new which didn't make it to the previous game. Since 'The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' wasn't in the previous game, all the levels are new. The only problem is, each level is VERY short. You could probably do a few in two minutes and most are set in just one area. What gets really repetitive are the vehicle levels where you must do exactly the same thing on every other vehicle level, which is to eliminate enemy after enemy until the level is completed. This is a big shame since there is quite a few vehicle levels. Also, there are no longer hidden objects in story levels, the only reason you would need to replay a level would be to collect a certain amount of studs or to get an achievement.
A brilliant new feature is split-screen. While playing Co-Op with a friend, instead of both players arguing which direction to go, they can now go where ever they want since the screen automatically switches to split-screen when players wander away from each other. This works well with no problems. Once both players get near each other again, the screen returns to normal.
A new added bonus is the Creator mode. In Creator, you can build your own levels from scratch choosing what locations to use and objects. This can add to hours of gameplay and is very addictive. Also Character Creator returns where you customize a character to look like whatever you want it to. Another mode in Creator is 'Build Your Own Adventure' where you choose an adventure to do, starting with what quest item you would like to recover like the Crystal Skull, then you can choose which two characters you would like to go on the quest, you then get the choice of which story level you would like it to be based on and then you begin. Free play mode also returns but is now called 'Quick Play' but you can only play as the two characters you first chose, you cannot tap LT or RT to switch, like on previous Lego games.
The achievements aren't hard to get, some puzzles will take a while to work out and things you need to interact with will take some time but it's simple in the end. You' re looking at about 15-30 hours for 1000G if your going to play steady.
Overall, this game feels rushed, like each level was done very quickly in order to move on to the next one. If the levels weren't repetitive and so short, I might have actually enjoyed this game more. Instead, I was let down by it. I would recommend this to anyone who liked the previous Lego games. If you haven't played any previous ones, I recommend you try one of those first.
Rating: 3/5
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