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LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
November 29, 2008 | Marcus Albers | |
Just as the LEGO Star Wars games had Dexter's Diner and the Mos Eisley Cantina as their central hubs of operation, Indiana Jones has Barnett College, where Doctor Jones currently teaches when he is not off rescuing ancient artifacts from the ancient and savage regions of the Earth. Here you will find quite a bit of adventuring to be done, as well, with puzzles to solve in many of the rooms, a number of destructible objects to collect more LEGO studs, and a museum displaying the spoils of Indy's adventures. The library is where you will purchase unlocked characters to use in the game. The mail room allows you to purchase hints and cheats for the game as they become available. A lecture hall allows you to view the cinematics that play out before and after completed levels. Another room gives you access to the character creation device, which, like the second LEGO Star Wars game, allows you to create custom characters for play by combining the different LEGO minifig parts. Doctor Jones' office holds a puzzle that will require the skills of many characters to solve. The college holds a secret or two, as well, that will take some skill to discover. You will also be able to access the different adventures from the three movies from the college.As in the previous LEGO Star Wars games, once you complete a level, you will unlock the Free Play mode. This mode allows you to play the level again, but with any character that you choose. Once you choose an available character to play the level with, your team will be filled with other available characters with varying abilities. These range from the ability to read ancient writings to jumping high to being small enough to fit into areas other characters cannot. By playing the levels again in Free Play mode, you will be able to find other secrets in the levels, and hopefully be able to collect all of the treasure chests in each level. As in previous games, you cannot fully complete a level without revisiting it later in Free Play mode with other characters. Again, it is possible to simply complete the game's levels and call it good, but then you are probably not for whom this game is intended. True Adventurers will find hours of gameplay here by going back to the levels in Free Play mode. Traveller's Tales have added a new wrinkle to the gameplay, and while it is far from revolutionary, it does show that the developers were actually trying to add something new to the game and not just pasting the Indiana Jones franchise into LEGO Star Wars. Characters now exhibit phobias in certain situations. Find a area teaming with snakes, and Indy will cower in fear, refusing to go any further. Marian will react the same way when encountering spiders. It is up to the second character of the team to then clear the area of the offending phobia. While it may seem to some that LEGO Indiana Jones is simply a re-skinned LEGO Star Wars, players will find a game full of adventure, familiar scenes, and beloved (and hated) characters from the classic series of movies. With the recent release of LEGO Batman for Windows PCs and consoles, it remains to be seen if this will be the last LEGO adventure released by Feral Interactive for the Macintosh. But this one is shaping up to be an excellent romp, never-the-less. Stay with Inside Mac Games for a full review of the game soon.
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