Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii) Review
Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is a three-dimensional action/adventure game that is sadly more Kingdom of the Crystal Skull than Raiders of the Lost Ark. The linear gameplay and unresponsive controls cause plenty of frustration and the poorly paced storytelling leaves the game without a compelling narrative. The audio/visual presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some nice environments and character models and the famous film score is faithfully recreated, but some of the animation is stiff and the music just plays along in the background without any reflection of what is happening on-screen. Overall the game is a competent attempt to bring Indiana Jones to the Wii, but because of its many faults, it never manages to be any more than an average experience that will be forgotten just as quickly as the franchise’s last film installment.
Set in 1939, Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings sees the eponymous hero traverse the globe in search of an ancient treasure. Part mystery story, part grand adventure, the game attempts to recreate the feeling of swashbuckling fun that works so well in the film series. The problem is that while the films always managed to get the pacing right, with just enough mystery bookended by exciting action sequences and fight scenes, the game fails to maintain anywhere near that level of excitement or pacing. The wooden cut-scenes fail to grab the player’s interest and are in no way compelling, and the action sequences are few and far between. In the films it is understood that Indiana Jones must spend a lot of time walking though jungles and ruins to get to where he is going. The viewers are aware of this and are happy when the director skips over that boring part and just goes straight to the interesting part of the story. When it comes to the game, the developers must have missed the cues on this oldest of film-making techniques. Why it is important for the player to watch Indiana Jones walking through empty jungles or featureless corridors? Why must we watch him shimmy across another ledge to get to another corridor, just to walk down another path which leads to another ledge? By the time the player gets through all these unnecessary obstacles, it is often difficult for them to remember what is happening with the continuing storyline. As a result, any chance of the storyline making a big impact is lost even before it has had an opportunity to draw the player in.
The gameplay is similarly uninspiring with the linear nature of the stages making it quite a laborious task to play through the entire game. The game leads players by the hand by using visual icons to represent the various hotspots for players to interact with the environment. There are rarely, if ever, alternative paths or solutions to puzzles, which makes it much too easy to progress through the level and removes any sort of exploration or skill from the game. It is simply a case of walking around until a hotspot shows up and then making the appropriate Wii-remote gesture to progress. The combat too is limited in its execution, with the same two or three enemies recycled over and over. The fight patterns are exactly the same and nothing varies throughout the game.
The controls are a frustrating mix of button presses and motion controls, with the developers committing the cardinal sin of using Wii-remote and nunchuck gestures to simulate a range of different punches. If Nintendo couldn’t make it work correctly in Wii Sports, why would any other developer think it is a good idea? Using the whip works marginally better than the punching and is even thrilling for the first few moments, but it is again very unresponsive and leads to more frustration than anything. The one bright spot for the controls is the shooting aspect, which uses the pointer functionality brilliantly. Point and shoot using the on-screen reticle and gun battles are fun, fast and easy to enjoy.
The audio/visual design is inconsistent and reveals plenty of missed opportunities. The overall presentation is great and stays really true to the films. Technically the game is quite well done too, with a brisk frame rate and well modelled characters and environments making everything quite good looking. Some of the graphical effects like the lighting are very nice to look at and help make the game world a more believable setting. On the other hand, the animation is sometimes a little stiff and some of the enemies and non-playable characters look rough around the edges and well below the standard set by the model of Indiana Jones himself. The music is immediately recognisable and players will find themselves humming along in no time. The sound effects too are authentic and true to the movies. The problem is that there seems to have been little thought put into how the music synchronises with the action on the screen. There are plenty of moments where there are awkward silences or the wrong tempo tracks playing. It really is unforgivable because the music is such an important part of the overall Indiana Jones experience.
The game offers quite a short adventure mode, but there are a bunch of multiplayer mini games that help extend the value. The same issues that cause problems with the single player game are also present in the multiplayer though. One addition which is very welcome is the inclusion of the classic graphic adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. The game is lots of fun and well worth experiencing. Overall, while the game is not exactly bursting at the seams with content, but there is plenty to keep most gamers occupied for a fair amount of time.
Personal thoughts
Let me get straight to the point here. Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is not a high quality game. It only barely qualifies as an average game.
The big problem for me is that there are so many missed opportunities here. The combat is simple and repetitive, with the same enemies re-skinned and recycled, and there is little to no exploration in the gameplay (which is surprising considering that you are playing the role of an archaeologist). I can see the potential for an excellent game, but whether it is because it was rushed or because the developers didn’t have the desire or vision to fully explore the gameplay possibilities, the final product leaves me wishing for much, much more.
The game’s main fault is the over-reliance on motion controls. I don’t know how many times I have said this, but substituting motion controls for button presses is not helping to immerse me in the gameplay. This is especially true when those motion controls are so unresponsive and unreliable that I hardly ever get the desired result out of flicking my wrist this way and that. Motion controls should make controlling the game simpler, not more complicated. The gun controls are a perfect example of this. Pointing at the screen and pulling the trigger is much more intuitive and responsive than moving a reticle with an analogue stick. Great use of motion controls. Flicking a Wii-remote in exactly the right way at precisely the right time when an enemy is trying to brain me with a stick. Not a good use of motion controls. Developers, please stop trying to do this kind of thing, it doesn’t work.
The game’s other big fault is something that afflicts almost all video games from the AAA titles to the poor rush jobs. The pacing of the story is so off that it ruins any chance of the narrative leaving any sort of mark on the player. Revealing the story via cutscenes is not an efficient way of making sure I keep up with the important plot points (even though there are only a few) and it makes it very hard to remember what has happened if I need to take an extended interval between play sessions. Also, by the time I have completed the stage, any momentum that the story had managed to build with the last cutscene is ruined by the previous 30 minutes of running around fighting random enemies and jumping from ledge to ledge, again and again. The story in any video game should be integral to the action, not separate. By removing the story from the action and confining it to cutscenes, the player faces a huge disconnect from what is going on. If we as an industry want to progress and create interactive entertainment, we need to start thinking of the action and the story as one whole rather than two parts.
But, while the game does have a large list of problems and faults, there is something about Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings that makes it just that little bit more compelling than your average action game. It could be the juvenile thrill of living out my own Indiana Jones fantasy, or it could be the general lack of similar action games on the Wii, but I often found myself wanting to like the game in spite of its obvious faults. No matter how glaring the problems are and how poor the execution, I still found myself somewhat enjoying the overall experience. Why that is, I do not know, and cannot explain any further than to say that sometimes fantasy is better than reality and a good licence can make even the most jaded player ignore a million faults.
Graphics 7.0
Some nice environments and lighting, but slightly let down by some stiff animation and average character models.
Gameplay 4.0
Linear adventuring, frustrating controls and very little challenge ruin what could have been a fun game.
Sound 6.0
All of the music and sound effects are authentic, but the way it is used could have been far more effective.
Tilt 6.0
Plenty to do, but the controls and gameplay dont really inspire you to make the most of it. Including the classic adventure game is a master stroke though.
Value 7.0
So many problems, but still I felt some sort of compulsion to play it and try to enjoy it. Definitely a try before you buy title.
