Lego Indiana Jones

A decent game, but not up to the standards of its predecessors. Which is a shame, because there's no inherent reason that it shouldn't be. While many of the mechanics are different, to reflect the different setting (whips, shovels, guns, etc.), the amount and complexity of those mechanics is comparable to those of Lego Star Wars. This one just has less content and polish then they did. I suspect it was rushed out to coincide with the new movie, and suffered for it. I hope the upcoming Lego Batman doesn't suffer a similar fate.

I played for significantly less than a full weekend, completed the basic story, and got about 70% completion. Certainly one more weekend will finish it off entirely. In contrast, I played Lego Star Wars every weekend for months, and never quite got to 100%, stopping only due to being distracted by newer games.

Difficulty is wildly variable: many sections are cakewalks, but there are also lots of places where you can't help but die multiple times due to to one-shot-kill game mechanics. Some enemy types are armed with insta-gib-bazookas, which is bad by itself. But at one point, they bring out *multiple* bazooka guys, along with several environmental hazards *simultaneously*. It was effectively a boss fight, but it was not so much 'climactic' as 'infuriating'.

The economy is also out of whack. The unlockable characters are so cheap that I quickly ended up with a vast cash surplus and nothing to spend it on. Hypothetically, I could have also bought gameplay extras unlocked by finding hidden items in the missions, but these were *so* hidden that I never found them (another polish issue).

Finding hidden stuff is also the only reason to do the missions in Free Play mode. In former games, there was a stud-collection goal, but not this one. Strangely, this makes me much less motivated to do Free Play. The stud goals, while simple, did provide motivation. Possibly *because* they were simple. Yes, ideally you would also find all the hidden stuff as well; but if you missed some of them, it wasn't a total failure, because at least you finished the stud goal.

On the plus side, the Lego version of Temple of Doom is much more fun than the film. The Kid Sidekick and The Annoying Blonde each have useful powers that no earlier character had. And Thugees are approximately equivalent to Bounty Hunters, in that there are special Thugee-only doors, so ToD is good for that. And the mine-car chase was fun.

Despite my ragging on it, I did (mostly) enjoy myself, and will probably play at least some more of it. It just fails to approach the high bar set by its predecessors. Mildly recommended.

Lego Indiana Jones

A decent game, but not up to the standards of its predecessors. Which is a shame, because there's no inherent reason that it shouldn't be. While many of the mechanics are different, to reflect the different setting (whips, shovels, guns, etc.), the amount and complexity of those mechanics is comparable to those of Lego Star Wars. This one just has less content and polish then they did. I suspect it was rushed out to coincide with the new movie, and suffered for it. I hope the upcoming Lego Batman doesn't suffer a similar fate.

I played for significantly less than a full weekend, completed the basic story, and got about 70% completion. Certainly one more weekend will finish it off entirely. In contrast, I played Lego Star Wars every weekend for months, and never quite got to 100%, stopping only due to being distracted by newer games.

Difficulty is wildly variable: many sections are cakewalks, but there are also lots of places where you can't help but die multiple times due to to one-shot-kill game mechanics. Some enemy types are armed with insta-gib-bazookas, which is bad by itself. But at one point, they bring out *multiple* bazooka guys, along with several environmental hazards *simultaneously*. It was effectively a boss fight, but it was not so much 'climactic' as 'infuriating'.

The economy is also out of whack. The unlockable characters are so cheap that I quickly ended up with a vast cash surplus and nothing to spend it on. Hypothetically, I could have also bought gameplay extras unlocked by finding hidden items in the missions, but these were *so* hidden that I never found them (another polish issue).

Finding hidden stuff is also the only reason to do the missions in Free Play mode. In former games, there was a stud-collection goal, but not this one. Strangely, this makes me much less motivated to do Free Play. The stud goals, while simple, did provide motivation. Possibly *because* they were simple. Yes, ideally you would also find all the hidden stuff as well; but if you missed some of them, it wasn't a total failure, because at least you finished the stud goal.

On the plus side, the Lego version of Temple of Doom is much more fun than the film. The Kid Sidekick and The Annoying Blonde each have useful powers that no earlier character had. And Thugees are approximately equivalent to Bounty Hunters, in that there are special Thugee-only doors, so ToD is good for that. And the mine-car chase was fun.

Despite my ragging on it, I did (mostly) enjoy myself, and will probably play at least some more of it. It just fails to approach the high bar set by its predecessors. Mildly recommended.