Whips, hats and building blocks (Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Wii))

Member Name: purplezebra42

Product:	Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Wii)
Date:	16/08/08 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun to play. Good for kids. True to the films

Disadvantages: Possibly a bit easy for serious game players.

This game is based on the first three Indiana Jones films but played out with Lego characters. The various scenes of the films are very much recognisable as are the characters even though they are built from Lego blocks. Redoing the films in Lego automatically makes it more suitable for small children, I would not allow my four year old to watch the original films as they do get quite gory but the game manages to cover the same story but in a more light and at times humorous way and that is a good thing when looking for games to play with small children.

For those who have played the Lego Starwars games this is very similar as it runs on the same engine and indeed Indiana even turns up as a 'special guest star' in the combined version we have for the Wii, similarly in this one R2d2 appears at one point.. However just as they did between the first and second Starwars games they have continued to add to and improve what can be done in this game.

As with the previous games you play through the stories in story mode and then can go back in free mode to do more things like collect the parts of artefacts and parcels to gain extra stuff. There are a whole bunch of characters to unlock, including lots of versions of Indi, plus most of the film characters both good and bad and you need specific ones at times, for instance female characters jump higher.

There are various items you need to collect and use and in this game you can pick up things like weapons, spades and so on. You can also throw things and there are times you have to get the right item to do something.. for instance at one point someone is poisoned and you have to throw gems to the bad guys to get them to throw the antidote away, so they can catch the gems. Picking up hats from fallen bad guys can be used as disguises to get through checkpoints and so on.

While you can play the game in single player mode it can also be played two player and this is great for playing with kids. My little one is nearly five and enjoys playing such games but needs someone helping at times to get certain sections done. This game was enjoyed by both the small one and adult members of the family though we felt the Starwars one was slightly better, however that may be because it is twice as big (originally it was brought out as two games each covering 3 films but we have the combined 6 film version) and in some ways there is more variety in the Starwars universe for the designers to play with.

Summary: A light hearted but fun game based on the first three Indi films.