Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
Indiana Jones 2 continues the kid friendly fun with Lego’s and the adventure of Indiana Jones including all new levels from the first three movies and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls adventures.
Ratings:
Graphics & Audio: 21/25,
Gameplay: 18/25,
Creativity 18/25,
Fun 18/25
Total: 75/100
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, well, further continues the Lego adventures of Indian Jones in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. You also get more adventures from previous Indian Jones movies with levels from all three previous films that you unlock during your Lego fun.
Lego Indiana Jones 2 is a platforming adventure game that further continues the Lego adventures with Indiana Jones and many other characters you control. The game plays through level after level of platforming adventures you unlock one at a time where you can play solo or with another player.
The game starts with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls adventure and you unlock other levels by getting further on in the adventure. Once you complete certain sections you unlock more of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls adventure and some levels of the other films as well.
The levels from the other films add to your adventure and fun but do not make for full stories in the main film sequence, but actually there really is no story here in fact. While the action does follow along with the movie there really does not need to be any story, mainly you just figure out what each area needs to have accomplished in order to move along in your level unlocking.
Collecting studs will allow you to buy new characters and vehicles so more levels and getting further along in the current one is possible which is the main objective of the game. You also find cheats during gameplay like being able to multiply your stud collections, a magnet to make collecting studs easier or a disguise so enemies will ignore you.
These cheats are not easy to find, except online, and make the game more fun to have more things to find further along in your adventuring. The game is pretty much the same as other Lego games I have played with each area or level a large platforming adventure with a few puzzles and challenges in your way to continue on in each level.
The only part of the game I found to be almost impossible to deal with is the vehicle control which ends up being a chore to have to use. Some of the levels require vehicle use and driving vehicles means using the odd direction control that LucasArts has implemented for all their Lego adventures.
To control a vehicle you do not point the vehicle in the direction you want to go and simply press forward, you use your AWSD keys and press the key corresponding to the direction you want to go. This may sound funny and simple in theory but in actual use this really sucks, the car turns when you change which key you’re pressing and it does make things very difficult.
You’re not trying to drive the vehicle in a forward direction but trying to steer the vehicle at all times because very few times during gameplay is the direction you want to go directly up, down, left or right as the keys make the car move. This means to turn in a direction other than in one of those four directions means using two keys which makes the vehicle veer in that direction.
Getting the vehicle to move in any of the four directions between up, down, left and right is simple as long as it’s the middle of these four using the two buttons that would be the way you want to go. Otherwise you need to use a little of one direction or the other from time to time and continue to correct the steering as you move along.
For long straight paths this would be great but you need to bash into other vehicles constantly while driving which means quick turns all the time which is near impossible. I found this to be the most frustrating part of the game and I am very surprised LucasArts did not change this from previous games when it was such a problem in previous Lego Games.
Vehicle driving is frustratingly difficult but the rest of the gameplay and Lego fun is fantastic so it balances out as an above average game but not into the fabulous or fantastic level overall. The graphics and audio is your usual Lego great standard with colors being vibrant and most of the destructible Lego pieces easily identifiable with only a few here and there being hard to pick out because of shadows.
Lego pieces are the bright and colorful standard colors but with several more in the off colors like shades of brown and green due to the nature of the Indiana Jones adventures being outdoors. Audio is well done with the usual Indiana Jones theme music but you will quickly tire of this as you continue on your adventures and will soon switch it off or just turn on some other music.
The games overall presentation is great with little or no problems anywhere from glitches or bugs and the game would have been much better had it not been for those annoying vehicle control issues. Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues is a great game and well worth owning for the PC version as it does contain plenty of gameplay even if you have to resort to desk pounding vehicle controls at times.
The game does have a lot of content and will not be your usual 10 or 12 hour adventure plus you can play with two people and run through things even faster if you have a friend along for the adventure. Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues is a great game and well worth the addition to the Lego line of adventure games.