Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

We really enjoyed the original Lego games as they tapped into a spirit of wonder, elevating them way above their simple platforming mechanics and clever Lego-based puzzles. It didn’t hurt that they were funny as hell, with comedic movie cut scenes both children and adults could appreciate. Now with a three Lego Star Wars games, a Lego Batman and the previous Indy game already in the toy box the concept is feeling overused. This is the same Travellers Tales (TT) brand of Lego collecting, puzzle solving fun interspersed with comedic asides, but the experience is missing some magic.

It was interesting just how much our love of the original movies coloured the first Lego Indy experience. We haven’t seen The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which made playing those sections of the game slightly bizarre. Unlike the first Indy game, we didn’t get most of the jokes. To us, these were just Lego characters doing slapstick things. The first time out you could solve some of the puzzles purely on the basis of your love for Indy, but that wasn’t the case here.

To be honest, the game’s lost something as a result, but as this covers the whole saga we had all the other sections from the original movies - right? Not quite, as these are an odd re-imagining of many of the classic movie moments. It’s fair enough, TT couldn’t have just regurgitated the old levels, but again it comes at the cost of some charm and affection. They mostly depict random things that didn’t really take place in the respective movies, which sort of defeats the point. Rather than re-hashing the old movies, TT would have been better served crafting totally new adventures. There are expanded hub worlds for each movie, which seem a good idea at first, but are far too confusing and finding the all too short original movie chapters becomes frustrating.

There’s a further conundrum here in that part of the Lego games’ charm is in their simplicity. That’s been lost with the plethora of character abilities in Indy 2 like whips, guns, swords and so on. That problem is compounded by the way in which the game requires you to remember their use after fleeting introductions, especially during boss fights. While on the one hand we can see why TT wanted to up the game play ante, it detracts from the pure fun factor. It isn’t often we complain about games getting more complicated but Lego Indy 2’s gameplay feels cluttered. It also depends far too much upon combat which is by no means the series strong point. We liked clever little ideas like the character and level creators, but despite being very Lego-like additions they don’t offer much long-term appeal.

The music in Lego Indy 2 is superlative, taking centre stage in place of any dialogue – as life-long John Williams fans we were in hog heaven. But ultimately the music and pure charm of the Lego franchise aren’t quite enough to get us past the confusing, complicated and frustrating gameplay failings.