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IGN Review of LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
When we first heard about the original LEGO Star Wars game, we were taken aback by the very unique idea and wondered if it would actually wind up being a fun experience. It turns out that it was indeed great fun, and subsequent releases only improved on the formula by offering more content, more unlockables and simply an overall bigger experience. Now, after the release of three Star Wars takes, a Batman title and one Indiana Jones game, things have started to get a little stale, and LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues doesn't help. It does offer some tweaks to the formula, but unfortunately, none of them are for the better.
At its very core, the gameplay remains nearly identical to past LEGO titles. You wander into a stage, smash everything in sight and collect studs as your reward. Really, the only notable change to the gameplay mechanics is the ability to use Indy's whip to a greater extent. In the previous game, you had to be near a certain spot to use it to latch onto something or someone. Now, you can hold the attack button for a second and an aiming reticle will pop up, allowing you to choose what you want to lasso. You can still only use it on characters or specific hooks in a level, but being able to do so from any reasonable spot rather than a specific, highlighted area is nice.
Having said that, Traveller's Tales did make some missteps in terms of level design with this title. Some sections will have you fight wave after wave of enemies, and as combat isn't the game's strongest suit in my opinion, these segments just act as clock tickers to make the experience last longer. Likewise, some vehicle-based sections have you hop into a ride and take out wave after wave of enemy vehicles. This happens once for every major film segment in the game, and it quickly gets annoying.
Now, though the core gameplay hasn't really changed much, a lot of the presentation has and pretty much all for the worse. Firstly, while LEGO Indy 2 focuses on the fourth film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it does include the first three movies as well. The problem is that these first three films are really rushed here and only take about an hour each to complete. They all skip major segments of the films, including the classic opening to Raiders where Indy snatches the golden idol, runs from the giant boulder and flees from the natives. What's left is a mish-mash of random parts from the films, and if you haven't seen them before, you'd have no idea what was going on.
But that's not all. One of the best parts about all of the previous LEGO games was buying new characters and vehicles and then going back into previous levels to find and unlock new secrets. That doesn't really happen here the same way that it used to. The main story levels don't actually contain any secrets of any sort, so playing them again in the original manner is only good for collecting more studs. Instead, you'll find a number of bonus stages in each hub (which I'll come back to in a second), and playing through these net you the golden treasures. By and large, these bonus stages are uninteresting and boring, and a number of them are very simplistic in terms of visuals.
The single, overarching hub world of LEGO games past is gone, instead replaced by one hub area for each major film chapter (one each for the original three films, and one for each of the three major chapters in the latest film). Each hub contains all of the hidden bricks that you used to collect in levels and stashed inside of plants, fire hydrants or something else of this sort. Once you collect 10 of the same-colored bricks, a bonus will be flown in that you can purchase. Characters are no longer purchased from a store, where you now have to fight off a number of each enemy first and then buy them right in the stage. For the characters, this isn't bad, but not being able to run through levels multiple times, utilize newly purchased characters to find new bricks and build up your inventory is something that I missed here.
Another problem with the hubs is that all of the organization of past games is out the window. I can see the benefit of having to explore to find new vehicles to purchase, but this also comes at the cost of not being able to simply pick the next chapter to play. Instead, you have to find it in the world, and as there's no map to use or directional arrow to point your way. You can get really lost just trying to continue the story. More than once I had to wander around for 10+ minutes to find the next thing to do and, obviously, that can be rather frustrating.
Nope, there is no easy way to share your levels. In the day and age of the likes of LittleBigPlanet where sharing and downloading user-created content is as simple as a couple button taps, this is a huge oversight. Granted, depending upon the platform, users may figure out how or what files you'd need to copy to share the content, if possible, but these backdoor approaches won't apply to 99 percent of the people who purchase the game. To put it another way, most everyone who buys LEGO Indy 2 will never play content created by another user, despite it including a built-in level creator, and that's a major problem.
©2009-11-19, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
At its very core, the gameplay remains nearly identical to past LEGO titles. You wander into a stage, smash everything in sight and collect studs as your reward. Really, the only notable change to the gameplay mechanics is the ability to use Indy's whip to a greater extent. In the previous game, you had to be near a certain spot to use it to latch onto something or someone. Now, you can hold the attack button for a second and an aiming reticle will pop up, allowing you to choose what you want to lasso. You can still only use it on characters or specific hooks in a level, but being able to do so from any reasonable spot rather than a specific, highlighted area is nice.
Having said that, Traveller's Tales did make some missteps in terms of level design with this title. Some sections will have you fight wave after wave of enemies, and as combat isn't the game's strongest suit in my opinion, these segments just act as clock tickers to make the experience last longer. Likewise, some vehicle-based sections have you hop into a ride and take out wave after wave of enemy vehicles. This happens once for every major film segment in the game, and it quickly gets annoying.
Now, though the core gameplay hasn't really changed much, a lot of the presentation has and pretty much all for the worse. Firstly, while LEGO Indy 2 focuses on the fourth film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it does include the first three movies as well. The problem is that these first three films are really rushed here and only take about an hour each to complete. They all skip major segments of the films, including the classic opening to Raiders where Indy snatches the golden idol, runs from the giant boulder and flees from the natives. What's left is a mish-mash of random parts from the films, and if you haven't seen them before, you'd have no idea what was going on.
But that's not all. One of the best parts about all of the previous LEGO games was buying new characters and vehicles and then going back into previous levels to find and unlock new secrets. That doesn't really happen here the same way that it used to. The main story levels don't actually contain any secrets of any sort, so playing them again in the original manner is only good for collecting more studs. Instead, you'll find a number of bonus stages in each hub (which I'll come back to in a second), and playing through these net you the golden treasures. By and large, these bonus stages are uninteresting and boring, and a number of them are very simplistic in terms of visuals.
The single, overarching hub world of LEGO games past is gone, instead replaced by one hub area for each major film chapter (one each for the original three films, and one for each of the three major chapters in the latest film). Each hub contains all of the hidden bricks that you used to collect in levels and stashed inside of plants, fire hydrants or something else of this sort. Once you collect 10 of the same-colored bricks, a bonus will be flown in that you can purchase. Characters are no longer purchased from a store, where you now have to fight off a number of each enemy first and then buy them right in the stage. For the characters, this isn't bad, but not being able to run through levels multiple times, utilize newly purchased characters to find new bricks and build up your inventory is something that I missed here.
Another problem with the hubs is that all of the organization of past games is out the window. I can see the benefit of having to explore to find new vehicles to purchase, but this also comes at the cost of not being able to simply pick the next chapter to play. Instead, you have to find it in the world, and as there's no map to use or directional arrow to point your way. You can get really lost just trying to continue the story. More than once I had to wander around for 10+ minutes to find the next thing to do and, obviously, that can be rather frustrating.
Nope, there is no easy way to share your levels. In the day and age of the likes of LittleBigPlanet where sharing and downloading user-created content is as simple as a couple button taps, this is a huge oversight. Granted, depending upon the platform, users may figure out how or what files you'd need to copy to share the content, if possible, but these backdoor approaches won't apply to 99 percent of the people who purchase the game. To put it another way, most everyone who buys LEGO Indy 2 will never play content created by another user, despite it including a built-in level creator, and that's a major problem.
©2009-11-19, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved