Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Impressions

At the recent event from Activision, we had a chance to sit down for about an hour or so and play Lucas Arts Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. Its being developed by Tell Tale Games, the same geniuses that brought you the Lego Star Wars series of titles. If youve played any of the Star Wars games, then youll feel right at home with Indy. The game is in stores now, so if your’re thinking of picking it up see what we think of the Wii version before taking the plunge. More inside

The formula is basically the same, even the control scheme. There are however quite a few more puzzles to solve and treasures to collect this time around, although smashing things and building Lego pieces are still a big part of the game play.

The game follows the 3 original Indy films (the new one is not covered), and from what we saw it covers them very accurately. Apparently though there will be some new segments added in especially for the game. Much like Lego Star Wars, co-op is a big part of Indy. You will progress through the levels with 2 or sometimes 3 different characters, working together to solve puzzles. The AI will control other characters if you dont have a friend to help out. We were told that over 60 characters would be playable.

Something new in Lego Indy is the use of weapons. Players can pick up swords, shovels and other objects to swing and toss at enemies. Most of these will break after a few uses though. There is also a prominent use of items to solve puzzles. One puzzle had us obtaining a book to translate hieroglyphs thereby opening a secret passageway. Another had us grabbing a shovel to dig up a treasure buried into the ground. Things like these definitely mix up the puzzles and ads a lot more variety to the game play. From what we saw it worked quite well.

The same humour prevalent in the Lego Star Wars games is again all through Lego Indy. It is quite entertaining to see the Lego communicate to one another by holding up pictures or making actions, as Lego cannot talk.

The game makes use of the Wii motion controls thoroughly – you can swing your whip by whipping the Wii remote; dig holes with a shovel by motioning the digging, or punch enemies by shaking the controllers, among other uses. All the actions are assigned to buttons as well if you get tired of waggling, but we were not told if there would be classic controller support.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is out for every platform under the sun today. If you loved Lego Star Wars, then wed definitely recommend giving this one a try.

Thanks to Activsion and Lucasarts for letting us preview the game.