Lego Indiana Jones Ii

Entry posted by xccj November 10, 2011

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I might have mentioned this, but I recently acquired a new Lego game. Indy II. Now, I had the original game, and enjoyed it. (it's probably my favorite out of all the games I've played from Lego and TT) I thought the sequel had the original levels and added a few extra for the forth movie; then I realized this was a misconception on my part, so I decided to buy the game and try it out. (I found it for $4 online, which shoulda sent off warning bells, I guess)

Now, I haven't finished the game yet; I've gone through most the story levels, but haven't hit all the extras and haven't been able to play Crusade. But I have a feeling my opinion won't change too much, so here goes. On, and beware of spoilers.

First of all, this game made me realize that my laptop is not a gaming computer. It's handled some of the other Lego games okay, although Batman and HP 1-4 had plenty of glitches in them, and I had to run them at low quality. But Indy II... man, this game just requires a lot of power. The main world hubs are big, and I was literally getting frame by frame animation for a while because it was running so slow. This could be because the game is a resource hog, or that my computer is too slow, or a little of both. It eventually got to where I couldn't progress in the game with the lag, so I have since switched to my parents desktop. (This just means I can't play it all night long.) So I am currently restarting the game there, and it runs much smoother, but I've still have it freeze on me a couple of times already. Meh.

As far as game play goes, it's different. The movies all take place in a single game hub world thingy, so the various locations from the movie are all smashed together in a single world. (AKA, Raiders has islands for Nepal, Egypt, South America, and whatever little island they took the arc too.) It drives a geographer insane, but it's kinda fun to run between different areas with ease. There's also many more vehicles to play around with this time, including extensive vehicle levels for each movie. (Well, Crystal Skulls is split into three sections, so there are a total of 6 worlds.) Thus the Hong Kong chase scene is much more satisfying than the original game. On the other hand, the vehicles are somewhat tricky to run. (They work better on the desktop than they did on my laptop). Plus, for every story level, there's a bonus level that lets you run around the same area doing different stuff. (My favorite example is the temple of doom; after the story mode, the British solders are taking the place over, so you get to do your treasure exploration while the British are chasing around the baddies. XD ) There are also bonus levels, which are less visually appealing but are more puzzly.

As far as the story, there are pluses and minuses. One thing I liked about the original game was that it followed the story fairly well. This game hardly follows the movies, and basically just uses a few hit scenes. However, there is a story, but it's more humorous and out-there. (Some favorite bits; Raiders starts off with Indy handing the idol off to Brody, who admires it for a while before the boulder suddenly comes rolling in after him. Also, the Sivalinga stones are first stolen by monkeys, and not the Thugee baddies.) While the storyline doesn't follow the movie as accurately, it does allow you to visit areas the first game skipped; like the light room in Raiders where you actually get to use the Staff of Ra, and the little Indian village in Temple of Doom. Furthermore, a large portion of the game is based on Crystal Skull. While it can be agreed on that it is the worst movie, I do enjoy the Lego version of it. In fact, they never should've filmed the actors and instead just release the Lego version. It was especially fun to play through the testing village scene, where you're running between mannequins trying to get to the fridge. (And in the treasure mode, the mannequins come to life as zombies! It's hilarious and awesome.)

So overall the game play is a little different, which is refreshing if you've played a lot of the other TT games. You get to use new characters, new weapons, new vehicles, and play through new stories. But also be warned; the game has its share of glitches, and it freezes. I was unable to play Crusade because the loading scene would freeze and cause the game to crash. (I hope it doesn't do this on the Desktop, but I haven't unlocked it there yet, so I don't know if the glitch carried over.) And having done further research online, I guess other people have had similar problems across the other platforms too.

So, yeah, there you have it. Was that a long enough block of text for ya?