Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
by LucasArts Entertainment
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Video Game Reviews of Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
Customer Review: BUYER BEWARE! Game only supports 19-input controllers!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
Dads, if you already own LEGO Star Wars I or II, and you are considering getting LEGO Indiana Jones for your kids, you need to know that the minimum requirements have changed, and you may need to decide whether this game is worth $80-$110 (explanation forthcoming)...
The game states on the outside of the box that it "Supports Xbox 360 Controller for Windows". (Little did I know that that meant that it ONLY supports controllers with similar capabilities.)
LEGO Star Wars always worked fine with my two Logitech Attack3 joysticks. But with LEGO Indiana Jones, they have added a number of relatively trivial controls to views that increase the required number of controller inputs to 19.
At configuration time, the game correctly detects my Logitech joysticks and prompts me with flashing line-items to manually configure the 19 control mappings. However, once I have exhausted my options (up-down-left-right-z high-z low-11 buttons), that only maps to 17 of the 19.
Those last two inputs will continue flashing and prevent you from saving your controller configuration, forcing you to exit and use the simpler keyboard interface instead. (If you don't mind paying $30 for a keyboard-controlled video game, more power to you.)
Unfortunately, I am not an expert on joysticks, but just doing basic math, it does not appear that even the high-end Logitech controllers have the 3-dimensions + 13 buttons required to map all 19 controls:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/gaming/pc_gaming/&cl=us,en
So I can only conclude that in order to recover my $30 investment in this game, I am going to have to buy two XBOX 360 controllers (~$25 used, $40 new from Amazon):
http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Controller-for-Windows/dp/B000BT4CF4/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I26VKZVF9O5DA5&colid=NW3NBGNMTM9
So my $30 purchase for one game is looking more like $80-$110. Is this unmarked "prerequisite" a ploy designed to boost sales of XBOX 360 controllers? Decide for yourself...
If you are a consumer who lacks the prerequsite controllers, and are not willing to spend $30 to play with a keyboard interface, I advise you to monitor the LucasArts forums to see if a patch is developed to allow the additional controls to go either unmapped or mapped to the keyboard before purchasing this product:
http://forums.lucasarts.com/forum.jspa?forumID=110
The last thing that I would add is that these kinds of tactics appear to be par for the course for LucasArts, who as of this writing has an "unsatisfactory" rating with the Better Business Bureau:
http://goldengate.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=99&bbb=1116&firm=56045
Customer Review: Rush it Out, Patch it Later!
Summary: 1 Stars
Unfortunately, this game just wasn't ready to be released. Since the new movie is out, Lucas Arts had to capitlize on the momentum, and they released a partially functional game.
Out of the box, run the installer. Everything looks good until it refuses to run because I have an "emulator" running. Copy protection paranoia. I go to the support site, and there is information about a combination of Dell and Roxio which trips this block. I download the patch (even though I have an HP and Roxio) and the error message goes away. Fortunately, I know what I am doing, but I feel for the average parent who just wants to get a game for the kids.
OK, patch installed, nothing but a black screen for over fifteen minutes. The only way to get the game to start with the patch is to run the task manager and switch to the Lego Indiana Jones app. Again, I pity the uninformed.
Once the game finally runs, there is no sound, only music. The game plays, but the graphics are jerky and I have to turn the settings down (I have many games and a pretty advanced system, and this is the ONLY game I have EVER had to turn down anything on!).
At first, it insists that player one be the keyboard, while only player two may use the game pad. Nothing would let me change that. Today, I discover that whatever you touch when the game starts determines which control will be player 1. Seriously! Completely idiotic. Nevertheless, make sure if you can run this game that you DO NOT TOUCH THE KEYBOARD WHEN THE GAME STARTS!
The gameplay, graphics, and music are nearly equal to the Star Wars ones, but the lack of sound effects is irritating.
If you really must buy this game, wait until we are done beta testing it and the patches are all available.
The experience with this game has made me re-think my pre-order for Lego Batman. My son really wants that one, but he is frustrated with this experience too!
Customer Review: Another FANTASTIC Lego Game!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, this is another amazingly well done Lego game! Although I have the Star Wars games for the Gamecube and have played them on the Wii, I decided to try the new Indy Lego game on the PC, and I am REALLY glad I did. It installed with no problem and plays perfectly on my Vista SP1 Quad 2.4Ghz PC with nVidia 8800GTS and 4GB RAM. Connected to my 60" Sony HDTV, it looks and plays great, and the HD gaming at 1920 x 1080P just blows away the low-res 480P Wii. At about half the cost of the Wii game, this is quite the deal!
The game works just fine with two Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2 game controllers. Setting up the button assignments in the setup screen is very straightforward and obvious; just copy the buttons shown in the manual for the XBox 360 PC controller. Only drawback is that you seem to have to assign the second controller every time you start the game (e.g. after a PC reboot/powerup), but it's a minor point.
My kids and I have gotten through the first several levels with no major problems, although it can be challenging at times, but not too much so. The play is very similar to the Star Wars Lego games, along with the occasional humor thrown in just for fun.
This game is so good, I may actually get the Lego Batman for PC when it comes out, although I had not really considered it before.
This one's a real winner for all ages!!! :-)
Customer Review: Indiana Jones Lego PC Game Review
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm 9 years old and this is my first review. I have the game for Windows XP on a 3 year old laptop and had no problems installing it. I think Lego Indiana Jones is a great game. You can do more things than in Lego Star Wars. For example, you can pick things up and use them like dynamite, shovels, wrenches, and books. Also you can disarm people with your whip, and take the weapon they have from them. The only bad thing about Lego Indiana Jones is that it takes a while to load the scenes. I would highly recommend for anyone who likes a challenge and that enjoyed Lego Star Wars. But it is different in many ways than Lego Star Wars.
Customer Review: Dispenses with some of the more tedious activities in Lego Star Wars
Summary: 4 Stars
I'll be drawing a lot of comparisons to Lego Star Wars OT in this review. I figure most people that are interested in this title are already familiar with the Star Wars titles.
First and foremost, you are going to want to make sure that your computer can handle the system requirements. This game requires a graphics card with shader model 2.0. Most GPUs in computers these days meet that requirement, but it is best to check beforehand. If you are unsure, a demo of the game is available online. If you can run the demo, you can run the full version of the game.
The game allows the use of the keyboard to control the game, but the controls become somewhat cumbersome during the jumping puzzles. I would also recommend using a gamepad. The game fully supports the X-box 360 controller and many others.
Lego Indy has one commanding plus over Lego Star Wars (L:SW), it is far less tedious. In L:SW, if you wanted to unlock everything the game had to offer you had to revisit each level multiple times. You also had to play all of the levels in story mode all over again one after the next to complete the Super Story mode.
Lego Indy has removed the Super Story mode and the minimum stud collection requirement in Free Play (known as "True Jedi" in L:SW, and "True Adventurer" in Lego Indy). Lego Indy has also lowered the cost of all the unlockables. This makes the game feel much shorter, but also removes some of the more tedious elements found in L:SW. This ends up being a mixed blessing. On one hand I've found that it makes the game very short, on the other hand the game wouldn't be more enjoyable by making stud collection a drawn out process or by making you repeat the same levels over and over again.
As far as puzzles go, Lego Indy uses a combination of digging, repairing, high jumping (the jedi double jump in L:SW), exploding silver barriers, thugee (limited character entry only in L:SW), hieroglyph solving (limited character entry only in L:SW with the added caveat of solving a quick memory game), entering small tunnels (as in L:SW), using the whip to access areas, and guard stations (limited character entry only in L:SW). Power bricks are replaced by finding parcels and a post box to mail them in and there aren't any pure vehicle levels like there were in L:SW.
All the standard cheats that were available in L:SW are also present in Lego Indy. Lego Indy also has many characters that can be unlocked, but this time around they feel more generic, as the Indy universe has less unique characters to work with.
Some of the jumping puzzles are a bit tricky, as the controls are often inconsistent when jumping off ladders and ledges. A few jumping puzzles become frustrating, especially in story mode, as the distance that needs to be jumped is right at the character's jumping distance limit, meaning you'll probably have to try several times before you make that jump. This is especially frustrating in areas where you make several jumps just to miss that last one and have to go through an elaborate sequence to arrive at your next attempt.
There are a few kinks. I found myself in situations where my character would spawn over pits or other obstacles resulting in an endless cycle of dying until you revert control to the other character. Lego Indy also employs a new feature where one character remains stationary, like on a switch or movable block, while the other completes a puzzle or moves the block the other is standing on. The CPU controlled character often has problems staying put and doing what you would expect them to do. In most cases this is just an indication that you are solving puzzles out of sequence, but in some cases it's an obvious bug.
All in all this is a great game, one that shouldn't be missed. Lego Star Wars has the slight edge as far as variety goes, but this game makes up for it in avoiding much of L:SW's tedium.