STUDIO: LucasArts
RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2008
CONSOLE: PSP
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: PS2, DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, PC
DEVELOPER: Traveller's Tales
GENRE: Adventure
PLAYERS: 2
ESRB RATING: E10+

When LucasArts and Traveller's Tales released the first LEGO Star Wars game, they launched an unexpected phenomenon that appealed to both kids and adults. It was such a silly idea that it was practically perfect. An entire generation of video game players had childhood memories of both LEGO toys and, of course, the Star Wars franchise. Why not combine them? Players controlled a myriad of characters from the Star Wars universe and video game developers realized that sometimes simpler is better. There was something about controlling a LEGO Obi-Wan as he used the force to build a LEGO spaceship that was incredibly addictive. Now that they've completely exhausted the world of Yoda and Jar-Jar Binks in not one, not two, but three games, the franchise has moved on to another "holy trilogy" of Master Lucas, the first three Indiana Jones movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade. Employing a lot of the same gameplay as the three LEGO Star Wars games might have seemed like a good idea at first, but the law of diminishing returns smacks the LEGO games in the face with Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, a game that promises a lot more of the same and delivers, for better and worse.

If you've played the LEGO Star Wars games, the gameplay of LEGO Indiana Jones will be incredibly familiar - almost too much so. Naturally, the light saber has been replaced by the whip, but the control scheme and the general gameplay is identical, all the way down to the often-frustrating camera angles. On a structural level, Indiana Jones is a little less action-driven with more focus on puzzles, but there's still a lot of jumping, punching, and general destruction. If you played with LEGO toys for the primary reason of destroying what you built, these games are for you.

Players work their way through each of the three films, usually in pairs. For example, in Raiders you can control Indy and Marion, switching off between them, where a level in Temple of Doom might feature Short Round. Each mission has a clear cut start and end point, but the real draw of these games has been the hidden treasures, the hard-to-find places where bonus items might be hidden. The basic game can be finished relatively quickly, but finding all the artifacts and hidden places will take days. If you have the patience to go back and find everything.

The force and the light saber played major roles in the other LEGO games and Traveller's Tales and LucasArts have found worthwhile replacements for them. Just as there were obstacles that required the force in the other LEGO games, there are sections of Indiana Jones where you'll need the whip to proceed and other sections where the small size of Short Round will play into solving a puzzle. The size of characters and other traits, even the hats they wear and their phobias, will make a difference in finding each of the secrets of the game. But you'll have to have a ton of patience to do so. Somewhere around the middle of Temple of Doom, the incredibly repetitive patterns of Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures started to wear on this player (although, to be fair, almost like the movies themselves, the game gets fun again with the third film). Collecting studs and carrying around LEGO pieces is entertaining at first and the game has a few interesting puzzles, but at least half of them are frustratingly similar. I also don't remember Indy using a wrench or shovel nearly this often. When the game moves outside of the typical punch-and-collect structure and features levels with some ingenuity to the puzzle-solving or, believe it or not, ones where Indy's fear of snakes actually plays a role, the gameplay finds some of the magic that made the original trilogy version of LEGO Star Wars addictive, but those moments are fewer and farther between than I was hoping.

One final bit of frustration with the PSP version of Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is that it is the only version, across all the systems, that features no multiplayer. The world of video games is getting more and more cooperative. And we're talking about a game here that clearly lends itself to a cooperative multiplayer system that two kids with PSP could play ad-hoc. The repetition wouldn't be nearly as annoying if you had a buddy to explore The Last Crusade with. Just try not to argue too long over who gets to be Harrison and who gets to be Sean Connery. Oh, and don't try it on a PSP.

Franchises like the LEGO series have to walk a fine line with each installment - not fixing what isn't broken and ruining what people like about the games but also satisfying players who demand something new with each purchase. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is definitely far from a bad game. There's too much nostalgic fun here and it's still a mostly enjoyable experience, but it doesn't spark the imagination the way the Stars Wars installments did. For the impending LEGO Batman release (9/1/2008), I truly hope that they can find the magic once again.