.FLYINGHEAD WE GOT GAME!
.TITLE Indiana Jones 2 on the PSP is no treasure
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY The LEGO video games put you in famous movie and comic universes, yet keep the mood light and fun. LucasArts and Traveller’s Tales has released a second LEGO Indiana Jones title, including a campaign set in the latest film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What’s the word on this new game? Is it worth a whip-crack? Editor-at-Large James Booth gives you his thoughts on the latest LEGO offering to hit the PSP.
.OTHER
I love the LEGO games; Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, and other franchises soon to join the family. They put you in some of the most famous universes in film and comic history, yet keep the mood light and fun. Players get to become some of their favorite heroes or villains, living out the storyline of various films.
When I learned LucasArts and Traveller’s Tales were releasing a second LEGO Indiana Jones title, to include the latest movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I was quite elated. I have been enthusiastically awaiting its release since the announcement, and eagerly dove into LEGO Indiana Jones 2 The Adventure Continues in Figure A with some amount of zeal.
.FIGPAIR A Indy returns to the PSP in LEGO Indiana Jones 2 The Adventure Continues.
.BREAK_EMAIL To learn more about the further adventures of Indy on the PSP, crack your whip here.
.H1 What’s new?
In addition to adding a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull storyline, LEGO Indiana Jones 2 adds multiplayer, the first time it has appeared in the PSP LEGO franchise. Also new is the Build Your Own Adventure level creator, the first time any of the LEGO games have included the ability to create your own play.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull campaign takes you through twelve locations from the film, beginning with Warehouse 51 in Nevada shown in Figure B, and ending with the Temple Pyramid in Peru.
.FIGPAIR B The elusive Area 51.
In between, you tear through the campus of Barnett College on Mutt’s custom Harley-Davidson, rifle through a graveyard, and my favorite part, the jungle truck chase you see in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Leap from truck to duck in the jungle chase.
Like the other LEGO games, players collect LEGO studs and bricks while completing the storyline to unlock cheats, artifacts, and extra content. Completion of each chapter unlocks it for Freeplay, wherein you can go back with more characters to pick up the inaccessible items you missed the first time through. There are also Challenge games, where the object is to "live" a certain amount of time or collect a certain number of items in a specified time.
The new multiplier component allows you to bring friends and relatives along, actively taking over the role of Indy’s companion for the adventure. This feature is a new and welcome addition to the portable LEGO franchise.
Finally… Build Your Own Adventure. For the first time, players are able to create their own adventures to play through by stringing together up to ten scenario segments.
.H1 How’s it play?
Overall, the gameplay structure in LEGO Indiana Jones 2 is pretty much on par with the other LEGO games on the PSP. You run around the environment collecting studs and bricks, completing the prescribed objectives, and basically destroying everything in sight to achieve those ends. However, the entire affair seems like an afterthought on the part of Traveller’s Tales; something that was a half-thought omission from the first LEGO Indiana Jones.
The premise of this edition is that Indy and Marion’s plane, which oddly enough is also carrying every other LEGO Indy character (bad guys included) has crash landed on the deserted tropical island in Figure D, and Indy has lost the pages of his journal.
.FIGPAIR D Washed ashore on some uncharted island. Where’s Gilligan?
By traversing the island and finding those journal pages the player unlocks the Challenge content. Playing through the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull storyline unlocks the extra characters needed to complete the island adventure.
How does it look? The graphics are just terrible; quite crude by PSP standards. Previous offerings in the LEGO franchise had graphics on par with the PS2, but this time around they are lackluster and simplistic.
The mechanics have changed as well. In the previous LEGO Indy game, players could pick up and use weapons and tools dropped by enemies and other players; not so this time around. Certain characters have certain functions that cannot be accomplished by any other character. For example, the Mac character and warehouse worker provide the digging functions, and the repair function has been dropped entirely.
Some characters bring new features, such as Mutt’s rock/wall climbing ability in Figure E, which I particularly enjoyed as a new addition; while others have been dropped.
.FIGPAIR E Mutt can rock climb to inaccessible areas.
In addition to losing the repair feature, female characters are no longer high-jumpers. In fact, there are no high-jumpers at all this time around. Another character addition is that of a hard-puncher, perhaps as a replacement for the repairman loss.
The biggest change to the game mechanics is in how certain acts are completed. Previously, action-specific tasks were denoted by a slightly glowing ring in the environment. These have been replaced by large, color-coded pads that stand out in the environment. The specific functions in this new Indy game are a partner hoist, where a male character can flip a female or small character to a higher level of the terrain, whip-specific actions, such as swinging or climbing to a higher level like in Figure F, and monkey-specific actions, wherein the character is replaced by a pet monkey who can climb vines to higher levels.
.FIGPAIR F Action-specific pads, such as for whipping, have replaced previous markers.
The Crystal Skull campaign has nowhere near the story depth of the earlier game. At about four to five hours for the entire game it’s way too short. The Crystal Skull chapters did absolutely nothing to keep me interested or desirous of moving on to the next level just to see what would come next. In truth, it was a chore just to complete the game for this article.
All of the LEGO games I’ve played, regardless of platform, have made me feel as though I were part of the story. Despite being rendered in LEGO form, I felt like a Jedi, or Batman, or Indiana Jones; I felt a connection to the characters, but not with LEGO Indiana Jones 2.
The Raiders, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade campaigns promised in the game’s announcement were nonexistent. Perhaps it was never intended for them to be on the PSP version, but they are available on the larger console versions of the game. In any case, I was disappointed to find them missing. However, the earlier films are represented in the Challenges shown in Figure G.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.FIGPAIR G Challenges are the only way to experience the earlier movies.
As these Challenges are merely live-out-the-timer, beat-the-clock, collect a certain number of items, or a combination of these elements in a setting from one of those films, like the Rumble Bridge in Figure H, they’re kind of a bust as far as entertainment value.
.FIGPAIR H The Rumble Bridge from Temple of Doom.
The Build Your Own Adventure was a colossal letdown as well. In the PSP version, it consists of the ability to string together up to ten of these very same Challenges to create an "adventure" of your own making. Yet another disappointment in what turned into a series of disappointments in Indy 2.
What about the multiplayer? Sure, it works; but with a game this lousy who cares? All you’re doing is ruining the Indy experience for two people instead of just one.
By no stretch of the imagination is this game worth the $30 retail cost. My daughter tells me it looks and feels like a glossed-over, redressed version of the first game on the Nintendo DS, which may be the truth. Those action-oriented pads and reduced graphic quality came straight from the DS.
This game is nothing less than an insulting slap in the face to all the loyal PSP LEGO fans. The Challenges and Build Your Own Adventure are just so much fluff designed as filler in order to justify a full, separate product release. And the alterations in game mechanics are definitely not an improvement over the previous game.
At best, the Crystal Skull storyline is worth a $10 download as add-on content to the original game, but with the decline in graphics quality, altered play mechanics, flat, lackluster plot and characters, LEGO Indiana Jones 2 The Adventure Continues is without question a huge miss on the part of Lucasarts and Traveller’s Tales. Earning only one out of five, I highly recommend you take a pass on this title.
.RATING 1
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn more about [[http://www.lucasarts.com/games/legoindianajones2/|LEGO Indiana Jones 2 The Adventure Continues]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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