Indiana Jones and the Temple of "Meh."

[Sniderman]

Someone on AA was asking about the new Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings game that came out on Tuesday. Well, I picked it up on release day as I was really looking forward to it. Here is what I posted over at AA:


Indiana Jones and the Emporer's Tomb is one of my favorite PS2 games. I've played the Hell out of it. It's a great mix of platforming, combat, exploration, inventory management, etc. Plus, it has Indy and all of the nifty music, scenes, and situations you'd expect. Indy in a Tomb Raider style game!So I've been anxiously awaiting the release of IJ and the Staff of Kings, since I'd like more of the same.

And it's a solid "meh."

Graphically, it's better than IJ/Tomb (of course). Indy's much more expressive; the colors are more vibrant; everything you'd expect from a next gen game. But where does it fall flat? Well, it really plays like a series of interactive games rather than one long Tomb-Raider-esque exploration game. Ever play Incredible Crisis or Rebal Assault? It's like that. You see a cutscene of Indy entering a Nazi camp. Game switches to your control and you fight the Nazis. Upon defeating them, game shows a cutscene of Indy finding a map (you don't get to "look for it") and approaching a cave (you don't get to "discover the cave"). You get control and you run in. Cutscene. You manuever through the cave's obstacle. Cutscene. You fly a plane. Cut scene. You swim. Cutscene. So there's really no seamless exploration from one scene to the next. The game just loads up whatever "subgame" is next. There's no inventory management. You have whatever you need at any situation, so you don't need to look for ammo, health packs, tools, new weapons, etc. During the gunfight scenes, keep firing as there's no chance of running out of ammo. At the begining of every new scene, your health is automatically topped off again. Die, and you start the scene again. There is no inventory, so there's no "find the medkit and keep yourself alive" stuff going on. There are a lot of "smash the circle button" reaction stuff too when Indy is in danger. So rather than having the player try to avoid the pit or fire or whatever, they insert a "hit the buttons in this order quickly" reaction subgame to escape the peril. What is this, "Parappa?" Ick.

I swear it's just one step above a FMV game.

That's not to say it's bad, per se. Indy's still Indy. The storyline is kind of cool. It's pretty to look at. But the gameplay is woefully underwhelming. Load times between scenes is horrid too. It's a rental at best.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Well this is disappointing. I own both The Infernal Machine (N64), and Emperor's Tomb on the XBOX, which are both fairly decent Tomb Raider style adventure games. Sounds like it has all the depth of a Rayman Wii game- awesome. Doesn't even sound like a bargain bin purchase to me.

[Sniderman]

Sounds like it has all the depth of a Rayman Wii game- awesome.

That's it in a nutshell. Beautiful to look at. No depth of gameplay. Reviews say you can finish the game in 7 hours, so it's crazy short too.

[rsiddall]

Is it worth the $25.00 that Wal-Mart is selling the PS2 version for? I loved Emperor's Tomb, too - I guess about the only Indy game I really didn't like was Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (PC version). Willing to try this since it's fairly cheap...

[j_factor]

Probably still worth it for Fate of Atlantis, if nothing else.

[BHvrd]

Probably still worth it for Fate of Atlantis, if nothing else.

Yeah but that's only the Wii version isn't it?

That would definetely make it more worth while as that game is such a classic and playing on a console would just be well, unthinkable.

I remember the days I wanted to play the old Leisure Suit Larry's on a console, how cool would it be if Sierra/Lucasarts did a console collection of all these old classic adventures? Quest for Glory anyone?

[Bojay1997]

Yeah but that's only the Wii version isn't it?

That would definetely make it more worth while as that game is such a classic and playing on a console would just be well, unthinkable.

I remember the days I wanted to play the old Leisure Suit Larry's on a console, how cool would it be if Sierra/Lucasarts did a console collection of all these old classic adventures? Quest for Glory anyone?

Yes, only on the Wii version unfortunately. There has been talk for a long time about Lucasarts releasing their back catalogue of point and click games on the DS and Wii, but the last I heard, they felt they couldn't pack enough on a single cartridge to make it a commercially viable product. I find that hard to believe considering how small the individual games are on other platforms, but in any event there has at least been some discussion of the idea.

[Greg2600]

I've read several pages of fan comments on the raider.net and the consensus is the PS2 version is a waste. The Wii version has Fate of Atlantis and better control, plus a Co-Op mode with Sean Connery's character. Unfortunately, the Co-op cannot be played alone with CPU, so for someone like me, it's useless. They've given the Wii version decent marks, but its no big hit. And these are diehard Indy fans.

There is a lot of gameplay video here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ShotMyEyeOut

I don't know if that is what the game actually looks like on a TV? The colors, animation, modeling, and lighting look horrible! Confirming what they looked like in the screen shots.

[Zing]

Ok, I watched several of the Wii gameplay videos. What the hell? It's like... walk around then some icons appear on the screen and tell you what action to do, then you do it and it does some scripted event. It's like freaking Dragon's Lair. This is a "game"?

[Sonicwolf]

Ok, I watched several of the Wii gameplay videos. What the hell? It's like... walk around then some icons appear on the screen and tell you what action to do, then you do it and it does some scripted event. It's like freaking Dragon's Lair. This is a "game"?

Its called crappy game hype. It doesnt matter how sacred the franchise and content is, it still can turn out to be complete shit. I was hoping this game would be good but it sure looks like another bla-bla-bla boring valueless game.

When a new video game has an extra feature which is a popular predecessor from the early 90s (ala Indana Jones graphic adventure) and that becomes its selling point... That means somethings wrong

[kupomogli]

I dunno what everyone hopes to expect, coming off the terrible fourth movie, a lego version of the trilogy and into another game, I'm not surprised they're just cashing in on the franchise for all its worth. They did that for a prerelease of the movie. Indiana Jones hats, whips, clothing, etc. "Hey guys, since the fourth movie is coming out, how about we rerelease the trilogy in different packaging and increase the price to $20+"

I've never seen such a great franchise go all to shit in such a small amount of time. Oh wait, yeah I have. I do play video games(Sonic is the most well known, even though I was never a fan of the series.)

[Sonicwolf]

I've never seen such a great franchise go all to shit in such a small amount of time. Oh wait, yeah I have. I do play video games(Sonic is the most well known, even though I was never a fan of the series.)

I think Crash Bandicoot and Spyro were faster than that. Sonic's degredation has been slow. About 12 years since the sliding began.

[phantomfriar]

This particular game smacks of having been developed to a certain point -- because I remember seeing some footage of it on the 360 with that combat system they were trying to hype -- at which time they just decided "screw it, don't spend any more money, let's just throw it out there on the low-tech platforms" and there you have it. There's no real attempt at a story or much in the way of cut scenes.

I played through the first level, then got stuck on a section where you're supposed to shoot a bad guy. After dying, the game takes you back out and pre-loads the tutorial for this section of the game -- which you have no way of disabling, and have to watch each time. UGGGHHH. Not only that but after I shut the game down and came back to it, it didn't even bring you back to that one spot -- you had to go back through other checkpoints, watch the same tutorials again....just lame.

I ended up selling my copy on Amazon Marketplace soon after.

[Sonicwolf]

I ended up selling my copy on Amazon Marketplace soon after.

Wow, that was pretty fast. Its that bad eh?

[Greg2600]

The hype was for the stunning graphics and highly inventive engine for the PS3/360 version. That version was canceled by Lucas Arts as they have been losing tons of money. The Wii/PS2/PSP/DS version was developed by a different company than the ps3/360, and was probably done on the cheap from the get-go.

[phantomfriar]

Wow, that was pretty fast. Its that bad eh?

Yeah, no question. A real disappointment.


The hype was for the stunning graphics and highly inventive engine for the PS3/360 version. That version was canceled by Lucas Arts as they have been losing tons of money. The Wii/PS2/PSP/DS version was developed by a different company than the ps3/360, and was probably done on the cheap from the get-go.

My apologies, I thought these projects were somehow connected. Game Informer mentioned the 360/ps3 versions of this game were canceled not that long ago.

In any event, maybe worth a rental to play through it, if that. Nothing more. Sadly.

[chrissylas]

Yeah, the game itself is disappointing. I bought it for Fate of Atlantis though so I'm fine with it :)

[Greg2600]

Here's some videos of what could have been a breathtakingly cool game....

http://www.unseen64.net/2009/08/04/indiana-jones-and-the-staff-of-kings-xbox-360-ps3-cancelled/

[GarrettCRW]

I think Crash Bandicoot and Spyro were faster than that. Sonic's degredation has been slow. About 12 years since the sliding began.

Crash and Spyro were instant losses. As in, the instant Naughty Dog and Insomniac left their respective franchise, the games started to stink.

[j_factor]

Crash and Spyro weren't that great to begin with.

[Bojay1997]

Crash and Spyro weren't that great to begin with.

I don't agree with that. In their time, they were pretty remarkable platform games. Of course, that time has long since passed.

[Zing]

Funny, I just recently started playing through Spryo. It's a great game, polygons and all.

[Ed Oscuro]

Here's the straight dope (as of November, '08) on IJ and the Staff of Kings (http://goneisgone.blogspot.com/2008/10/indiana-jones-and-staff-of-kings.html), which got cancelled.

Thread makes me want to play some original Crash and Spyro. Ohh yeah!

[j_factor]

I don't agree with that. In their time, they were pretty remarkable platform games. Of course, that time has long since passed.

I own the original Crash Bandicoot and played it not long ago (as well as when it first came out). It has some wonky perspective problems, where you can't quite tell precisely where you're about to land. It also has a noticeably low framerate. The level design is pretty "meh" and the scenery is very repetitive. I do like the third one, which has more variety. But the original is weak.

I haven't played Spyro in a while, but I remember it being really boring. A lot of sparse areas where you're just moving forward without anything really coming at you. The bosses were dumb, and the game overall was just too easy. Perhaps the sequels spiced it up, but I only played the first one.

[SegaAges]

All we need is a random famous person like what they did in double switch for Sega CD. Oh wait, Harrison Ford.

So that means we will see a Wii port of Night Trap, Double Switch, Dracula Unleashed sometime very soon?