Title: Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings
Platform: Wii/PS2/PSP/DS
Platform Reviewed: Wii
Developer: A2M
Publisher: Lucasarts
MSRP: $59.99, £39.99, €59.99
Writer: Martin '
lost' Perry
Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings Review
With Lara's future looking rocky can the original raider of tombs claim the action adventure crown?
Indiana Jones has been relatively neglected in the world of videogames when you compare it to Lucasart's most famous franchise. Odd really when you consider the that Harrison Ford's character is the perfect videogame hero. A2M, who will soon release the shooter Wet, seek to take advantage of his particular strengths for this outing. With the Lego version of Indy's first three adventures standing out against Batman and Han Solo it was always going to be a challenge to produce a more successful adaptation of the character.
Unfortunately they haven't quite pulled it off. This is an incredibly simple action adventure game which can be simply described as an incredibly watered down Tomb Raider. Players will spend the majority of their time exploring linear levels which sport some smartly designed but hardly tricky puzzles that will fail to perplex even the most junior gamer. Platforming is particularly clunky with Indy moving at a very slow pace. Shifting along edges, automatically leaping small gaps and using your whip to cross larger ones is all far slower, far more arduous than you will be used to. Games like Prince of Persia, the new Tomb Raider games and Assassins Creed have made this sort of gameplay feel outmoded. Given the vigor which an older Harrison Ford showed in 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' it is a shame this younger, digital man can't manage the same.
It isn't entirely without merit. The simplicity of the levels at least accommodates this curmudgeon of a hero. You will trot across the globe to locations that feel unique not only because of their looks but because of the style of gameplay they favour. The weakest of these is San Francisco which puts a significant focus on the game's combat system. Wii controls at the ready you'll wave your hands around wildly in an attempt to overcome enemies. Timing and skill is promoted by the in-game tutorials but waggling makes accurate execution incredibly difficult – perhaps this is less of an issue in the PS2/PSP versions. Once you figure out that the most effective means of dispatching your enemies is to smash their heads into tables and fish tanks a smirk will spread across your face. The environmental kills save this portion of the game from being entirely tedious.
So between the simple exploration and the weak combat system we haven't found much to recommend this game on. What else is there? A2M have stuffed in a few enjoyable vehicle sections that break up the monotony. There are enough of these, and there novelty great enough, for you to forget your frustrations for a while. The best of these is a plane section where you hold the Wii remote as a flight stick and blast Nazis out of the skys. Unfortunately this is only a single level but the Elephant riding section, the San Francisco street-car section and the finale motorbike portion, in which you drive between massive walls of water, are good fun and are pulled off with far more flair than the rest of the game. It is difficult to explain how these and the combination of the generally weak gameplay elements actually combine to create a fairly enjoyable experience. An extra layer of mist is applied to your crap-detectors through decent on-rails shooting sections.
They do come together reasonably well though – the game is an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. It may well be that the game feels so out-of-date and simplistic that it taps into the same desires that drive the sales of retro game collections. The phrase 'good for the Wii' seems pretty prevalent these days but put that alongside 'unambitious for the PS2' and you begin to see the problem with this game as a full price release. What is most disappointing is that when you compare this to the now canceled PS3 and 360 games it just looks so tame. Gone is the ambitious animation system, away the hope of making something great and instead A2M have delivered a fun-ish game by numbers.
Perhaps the one thing that bucks this trend is the game's visuals. The detail on show in the levels is absolutely fantastic and the variety of locations goes a long way to make this a journey worth taking, especially where the Wii is concerned. Character models are, like the gameplay, very simple but the textures and geometry really evoke the nature of your locale. In San Francisco there is a satisfying grime to Chinatown, the dust of Sudan glows orange and the Zeppelin level feels straight out of a classic WWII movie. The game is worth renting just to see how well the Wii's power can be put to use simply by apply some effort.
The same can't be said for the story unfortunately. You and the Nazis are after Moses' staff and the army of the Third Reich follow you with ruthless efficiency as you essentially do their work for them. A couple of extra characters are thrown in including a female lead but it completely lacks any sense of urgency or tension. That's what made the films so great, it's what was re-captured in the new film regardless of what you think of the aliens. The tale merely facilitates your travels and that is good enough I guess. Just a shame that there wasn't some effort left over for it after the visuals were sorted.
Rounding it all off and, quite frankly, making the game something worth considering is the huge amount of extra content you get chucked on top of the short single-player. Point and click classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is here in its entirety with Wii controls actually working well for a change. The co-op missions bring the mandatory party fun and take the most intriguing ideas from the single-player and add in even more fun by allowing a friend to come along for the ride. Chucked in is a single-player Horde style survival mode that drags the combat system out across a number of levels. Other than the long-standing excellence of Fate of Atlantis these pile up some extra mediocrity to the growing mound.
It won't excite you, it won't revolutionise gaming but all of this average stuff comes together in a package which is inoffensive enough to sit through. If you haven't played the Lego game then get that instead, if you still have an original Xbox then see if you can find a copy of Emperor's Tomb. If you have truly exhausted all other modern Indy gaming options then give this a go. This review may well seem as though it undulates, shifts up and down through positives and negatives. That is exactly the experience you get from the game. It feels like a launch PS2 game and does nothing to quell concerns over the quality of Wii focused development. Tolerable fun, most of the time.
Score: 2.5 out of 5
The Good- Some of the best presentation on the Wii.
- The locations change frequently and are interesting enough.
- The extras are great and the sheer volume of gameplay styles thrown into the single-player makes for a tolerable experience.
The Bad- The combat system is fudgy on the Wii.
- The platforming is slow and simple.
- Your iconic whip is almost ignored other than a Scorpion-esque 'get over here' fighting move and being used to traverse gaps.
- There's a few glitches in the collision detection and the checkpoint placement causes immense frustration.
The Ugly- Horrendously unambitious.
