LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

UK, March 10, 2008 - Katie Price and
Peter Andre, the internet and porn, rice and peas: some things were
just meant to be. So it was with LEGO and Star Wars, combining first to
introduce a line of must-have toys, then going on to produce some of
the most broadly accessible and utterly charming games of recent times.
Despite primarily gunning for the younger gamer, LEGO Star Wars had the
power to transport even the most world-weary back to the first time
they sat slack-jawed in front of George Lucas's opus. Now, with the
LEGO series exploring Indiana Jones territory, we accepted an invite to
series developer Traveller's Tales for a look at the new game, producer
Nick Ricks acting as our guide.

Nestling in a leafy corner of Cheshire, Traveller's Tales's studio
should provoke a fierce outbreak of green skin among LEGO fans.
Cabinets brimming with some of the most desirable LEGO models of the
past few years line the walls - in one corner sits a sizable LEGO Star
Destroyer, while another hosts a collection of Indiana Jones dioramas.


It's no surprise that Traveller's Tales has trained its eyes on Lucas's
much-loved matinee world of dusty leather jackets and archeological
hijinks. Indiana Jones and LEGO make a pairing perhaps even more
fitting than the developer's previous space-bound union, the more
playful humour of Indy's whip-cracking yarns squeezing snugly into the
template established through preceding LEGO Star Wars games.

With such a strong formula already in place, it's easy to assume that
producing the LEGO Indiana Jones game would be a breeze. Surely it's
simply a matter of dumping a couple of temples into the Tatooinie
desert, giving Luke Skywalker a whip and - while you're at it - why not
just throw in the Dr. Jones model that made a cameo in The Complete
Saga? However tempting it might have been to throw together this new
game from the bricks of the last, Ricks assures us there's a little
more going on in LEGO Indiana Jones: "It's a natural assumption that
both Star Wars and Indiana Jones are action properties so it would be
an easy fix to port one across – and that's what we started to do, but
before you knew it, it felt like LEGO Star Wars set in 1945 and you
were just running around blasting everything, flicking levers."

As a result, LEGO Indiana Jones is box-fresh, built from the ground up
and introducing a host of new features to the franchise. Naturally,
while there's some cross-over between the two series, it's more than
locations that set them apart – Indy's as resourceful as Han Solo is
cunning, and it's this aspect of the character that's been brought to
the fore. "What we had to do was strip it all back and look at what
makes Indy films different to Star Wars films and use that guideline to
apply to the games," Ricks explains. "A lot of it's about exploration,
solving puzzles and riddles and things like that. We took that as our
mantra and applied it to how you use LEGO in the game. In LEGO Star
Wars you obviously had the Force, and that involved building. We wanted
to take it on."

There's much more emphasis on discovery and creation in LEGO Indy, with
appropriate puzzles now taking the place of some of the character-based
challenges of the Star Wars games. "We've given players the ability to
pick up and move LEGO, and combine it in different areas to build
something new", says Ricks. "A good example being that to fix the plane
at the end of Hovitos, the engine's broken and you have to find all the
different bits and put them back in the plane, all while being
blow-darted to death. That, we felt, was the next step for LEGO and it
was equally fitting for the Indiana Jones feel."



This more physical approach is something that also extends to the
combat system. Indy's environs can now be used against his foes, as we
see in the Nepalese bar brawl lifted from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Indy's first and foremost a pugilist and, surrounded by a rag-tag
bundle of Toht's henchmen, his LEGO counterpart lets fly his little
yellow claws. Close quarters combat is a single button affair, but it
just wouldn't be a bar brawl without at least one chair cracking the
back of a head, and here furniture flies with abandon. Indy's whip can
be used to latch onto to anything that looks like it might dent a LEGO
skull, a simple button press bringing the object near and another press
throwing it in the desired direction. This simplicity of control is
indicative of the all-inclusive nature of the game, but the added
interactivity brings the action to life like none of its forebears.

Of course, Indy's usually too chivalrous a chap to rely on a shooter,
but they're also at hand on occasion. In the bar brawl, he takes a
fallen gun and suddenly the game more closely resembles the blasting
action of LEGO Star Wars, the air thickening with lead. At the moment,
it's undecided whether ammo will be limited – while Traveller's Tales
doesn't want players to become too attached to their pistols, it
doesn't want to impose any unwelcome restrictions on its otherwise
forgiving world.



No stone remains unturned in Traveller's Tales recreation of the Indy
universe – transitional maps between levels paint the familiar red line
traversing the globe, with LEGO footsteps dotting the loading screen.
Some of the darker elements of the Indiana Jones series – of which
there are many – provide an interesting hurdle for the development
team, but its solution is constantly a delight. For instance, come the
climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark and there's is no face melting.
Instead, we see the ink washing off the faces of those exposed to the
Ark's holy light.

Likewise, LEGO Nazis might have raised some eyebrows but TT didn't have
to go too far for a solution. Ricks admits LEGO had already done the
legwork, noting, "That was already solved because there's a LEGO
Indiana Jones toy series, so they'd had those conversations internally.
We did have talks about whether we could have a Weimarch Cross, or
whether we could have an eagle. We can have eagles on lapels but
there's no LEGO Hitler."



Returning to the LEGO fold is drop-in co-op play, a fundamental factor
to the Star Wars games' success. With a familiar cast of some 70
characters to choose from, it seems as though anyone with screen time
in the original Indy trilogy has been put through the LEGO machine –
from 'Nazi' henchmen to more offbeat additions like the bald,
moustached fighter from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's as inclusive and
exhaustive a roster as fans could hope for. However, it's another
element of the established LEGO formula that's had an overhaul too. "An
aspect we wanted to look at was sidekicks," explains Ricks. "In LEGO
Star Wars you've obviously got a breadth of characters which fit very
well with our party structure, but in LEGO Indiana Jones, whilst it has
sidekicks and sidekicks are very important, he's the titular character,
and we didn't want to be just a case of 'Here's Indy... and some other
people'".

Indeed, character selection could sometimes prove a little arbitrary in
the LEGO Star Wars games, something Ricks acknowledges. "One of the
criticisms people found with LEGO Star Wars characters was that they
were a little one dimensional," he admits, "So, for instance, you have
to have C-3P0 along to open a C-3P0 door but that's it. We've opened
that up so that all the characters have real value. Any character can
adopt different abilities so, while they still have their own unique
character traits, they can also swap based on what they find and
collect during levels."


Perhaps unsurprisingly, death is never a part of the LEGO Indy
experience. Like the Star Wars games, this is a family friendly
experience, tendering in mild peril without ever dealing in fatalities.
Even the peril in LEGO Indiana Jones has its own charm though – outside
the Well of Souls, several mean-faced statues spit poisoned darts at
Indy. A quick lash of the whip, however, will spin the statues to
reveal a grinning face that happily deposits LEGO studs.

Perhaps the biggest overhaul seen in LEGO Indiana Jones is the new fear
system, another addition that looks to add nuance to the reinvigorated
character selection. Each member of the cast harbours its own phobias
and will be debilitated by them at certain points in the game. From
Indy's infamous fear of snakes to his father's fear of rats, when a
player is paralyzed with terror, another character will have to step up
to the task. For example, if there's a switch draped in pythons, don't
expect Indy to be flipping it anytime soon. Ricks highlights the
system's usefulness to the game, stating, "It was a really useful tool
to make sure that the secondary characters don't feel like a whole
bunch of other guys that happily follow Indy, they're really important
and they need to use all their abilities to get through the game."



Visually the game is exceedingly lush – the 360 code we saw was culled
from very early on in the development cycle and, despite some expected
glitches here and there, it exuded charm. The lovingly-realised
characters fit perfectly within the verdant backdrops that wear their
LEGO heritage with a little more subtlety than titles past. Look
closely at the cliff-faces and you'll see the trademark studs
protruding, with temples and statues also bearing aspects of the famous
building blocks. What's more, it's the first title to feature iris
animation on the lead models. While you'd be forgiven for shrugging
with indifference, given the series' economy of design, it's a big
boost to the small palette and affords even more wit than usual.

With the astronimical expectations of a generation of Indy lovers
bearing down, it's reassuring to see that Traveller's Tales has done so
much more than drop Indiana Jones skins into the LEGO Star Wars engine.
Instead, the game consolidates the Indiana Jones experience while
lending a sympathetic ear to those with gripes over previous titles. In
other words, LEGO Indiana Jones is shaping up to be a deserved treasure
amid the typically barren summer months and we can't wait to dig in.