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Rating: 
-
I'll keep this simple; I'm 26, a hardcore gamer and this is the first game in a long time to really put a smile on my face when I play it. The game is very deep and while it does have some very minor issues with the camera, it's all forgotten once you imerse your self in its 'lego land' of puzzles and cartoon humor. An absolute must play for any gamer, any age. One thing of note is that the game contains evry musical score from every Indiana movie - simply fantastic.
Rating: -
Personally I thought this was a great game and don't think it deserved all of the 2 and 3 stars it was getting. The reason I gave this game such a good rating is because 1) Being an Indiana Jones fan, I thought the twist of humor to the story made it enjoyable. 2) My wife, who has never played a video game in her life, could play this with about 5 minutes of help and enjoyed herself. Other times that i've tried to get her to play games that were easy to me, she became frustrated because there were too many buttons/actions going on. 3) Being a game that is simple enough for someone who has never really played a video game, I enjoyed this game thoroughly and I'm a very active/skilled gamer. Yes, I did find some of the camera angles frustrating at times, but they were never so bad that made me want to stop playing the game. This is a great game for all types of gamer skill levels and ages.
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Trying to top Lego Star Wars (LSW) is a tall order - and Lego Indiana Jones (LIJ) falls short. That's not to say LIJ is a bad game, it's just... not as good. And though this review is going to focus heavily on the negatives, please note the 5-star rating and realize I'm comparing and contrasting it to what I consider the best video game ever.
The first problem with LIJ is that they tried to make the characters do too much. Yes, the carrying bits around added another dimension to the game, but it also made parts of the gameplay more difficult. Since the 'B' button is used for special ability and carrying, it's up to the computer to determine which you mean - and it's not always good at that. You may be trying to attack someone with your sword in the middle of a fight, and suddenly you're getting pummeled while picking up a hat. That sort of thing. The hot spots were also occasionally tricky.
And speaking of tricky! Too much jumping at very odd angles. I'm not even talking about the times when the camera swings about half-way through, some of the plain jumps are frustrating. And there are parts where the area you're jumping onto is not visible when you start the jump, making it as much luck as practice to get it right. LIJ would very much benefit from a character that can fly. I know, it's not in the storyline, but boy did I miss Boba Fett and even R2-D2. Bottom line: unless you're really, really good, expect to die a lot.
One final annoyance: that 'sneaking against the wall move'. That has to go. Seriously. Any time your character gets near a wall they start this irritating slow slide along it, and the only way to stop it is to jump away. Which can often get you killed. So spend forever inching along a ledge or possibly jump to your death. Two not-so-great options.
Even as frustrating as the game was (and it is) I still look back at the time I spent playing and grin. It has a lot of fun little elements, from the cameos by Star Wars characters to the adorable little march the German soldiers do in 'mid-speed' mode. It lacks a lot of the extras of LSW, like the blue canister 'challenge' mode, and it is only half as long, but it was still worth it. If you like LSW, you'll enjoy this game as long as you aren't expecting too much. The story modes were very solvable, and though some of the treasure chests were near impossible to find (until you got the detector!) I thought it was far more playable without cheating than most games.
The down side? Only took 7 days to reach 100%. And I can't get that theme music out of my head.
Now it's only how many months to Lego Batman? And will they ever put out a Lego Harry Potter or Lego Pirates?
Rating: 
-
While there are a number of positives about Lego Indiana Jones, those get bogged down by the negatives. A clever puzzle whipped by poor camera angles, an otherwise fun platform-jumping sequence debilitated by poor physics and controls, and so on. Poor control layout plagued this game, where no fewer than three or four actions are all mapped to one button. This in light of the design idea to either have other buttons on the controller go totally unused at times, or making two buttons perform the same function, such as switching characters in Free Play with the triggers AND shoulder buttons. Poor physics had characters overshooting jump points regularly, sliding way past the target with only one press of the button. Lousy camera angles added further insult by pulling too far back or getting in much too close, shifting to a worse perspective. Limited control over the camera added to the frustration.
The game is as buggy as a Louisiana lake bed in July. Characters disappeared when needed, never to return to do their job and press the button, make their required jump, etc. Targeting was terrible and skittish, and portions of needed jumping/landing platforms clipped into oblivion/disappeared with regularity.
Worse still, these EXACT SAME ISSUES have plagued the Lego series since the Star Wars games, and Travellers' Tales just didn't seem to care about fixing them. Furthermore, it was as if the "A" developers of Travellers' Tales wrote the Raiders of the Lost Ark levels, and summarily left the other levels to the "D" and "F" teams to cobble and hack together on a few weeks notice. Travellers' Tales has had PLENTY of time to get familiar with the development environments of modern consoles, and yet refused to take advantage of it.
I was considering purchasing and playing Lego Batman. Given the lack of improvements in Lego Indiana Jones, that decision has been rescinded. I've been fooled thrice (Lego Star Wars, Lego Star Wars Original Trilogy, Lego Indiana Jones) by Travellers' Tales, and that's twice as many times as the old adage advises...
*UPDATE 2* After noodling with the pause menu, I found the Save and Exit feature. Still, it's a bit buried in the menu system of this game, whereas it wasn't in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. Apologies for misleading anyone.
*UPDATE 1*: Travellers' Tales outdid themselves, in a bad way, with the Free Play mode. In Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga you could save and quit out of Free Play at any time. A great feature to be sure, as it allowed you to do your thing in a given level, save, and quit out of the level without needing to complete it. Good for shorter "bursts" of gaming, especially for kids hearing the cries of Mom or Dad saying "Find a save point and come do x, y, z". Lego Indiana Jones BROKE that, relegating you to slog through the ENTIRE LEVEL in Free Play before being allowed to save anything. If Darth Vader played this he'd probably say something to Travellers' Tales along the lines of: "Your lack of faith in improving this series is...disturbing".
Rating: 
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I had a ball playing this game, but yes, it is a lil too short. Or maybe I just played the Lego Star Wars so much that it is so easy. Great game, great fun, and it is for the whole family!
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