LEGO Indiana Jones - Family Fun

Following up on the previously successful Lego Star Wars game, Travellers Tales has come up with another eclectic combination in Lego Indiana Jones. For many of the older generation gaming with one their old time heroes will be enough in itself but for the younger more discerning generation this game offers an improvement on the Star Wars games without destroying the imaginative silliness that made them so appealing in the first place.

At first glance Lego Indiana Jones has the same feel, looks and game play as Lego Star Wars. This allows anyone familiar with the LEGO Star Wars genre to immediately get into the game and start playing. Designing of characters is the same and you still operate out of a central base in LEGO Indiana Jones this is LEGO's interpretation of Indy's workplace LEGO Barnet College. You unlock special bonus options, characters and cheats with the same currency of silver, gold and blue studs - your rank of Special Adventurer is dependent on your ability to collect enough of these in each level. You still need to collect secret LEGO kit to build your artefacts - LEGO Star Wars built vehicles.

However this is Travellars Tales has taken this game further and it looks like they may have been listening to their customers. Gone is the somewhat annoying practice of having to find the right character for the right job - now LEGO Indiana Jones offers the ability to pick up pieces of kit! The myriad of opportunity this represents is great, you can collect weapons from fallen foes and then discard them again when you run out of ammo or get bored and want something else. You can grab a shovel and dig for treasure yourself without looking for an alternative LEGO character that will do your digging for you. This means that swopping of characters is much less than before however characters do still have their own unique characteristics, quirks and quiddities. For example our LEGO Indiana Jones still has a fear of snakes which causes him to become a quivering wreck and means other characters must get involved and help him out.

Action on LEGO Indiana Jones is much more interactive than in LEGO Star Wars. Our hero can fight with the best of them, drop kicks, what looks like a hip throw and wrestling moves make his character more agile and complex than characters of LEGO Star Wars. That is not the only thing that works for our LEGO hero.

Take Indy's whip for instance - no-one can use that bullwhip like Indy. LEGO has kept to the Indiana Jones theme by allowing players the ability to use the whip to dispose of enemies and solve puzzles alike. Use it to swing across uncrossable sections or reach levers and inaccesible items. A word of caution here though - your other characters are as vulnerable to friendly fire and if you do not want to hurt them make sure that they are not in the way of the LEGO lash of the whip!

All in all LEGO Indiana Jones is a fun way of spending time with the family. Achievements apeal to all and the puzzles provide ample thinking and problem resolution to keep everyone happy. I cannot wait to see LEGO Batman.