Well, finally <WHEW> another post for you all to read; my opinion on which Lego game is better. Is it Lego Star Wars Complete Edition or Lego Indiana Jones.

I’ll get to the point, Lego Star Wars Compete Edition, hands down

Now, I’m not trying to be biased since this is a Star Wars website, oh no. I enjoy BOTH movie franchises and both Lego games. So here comes three big “BUTs” that concern the Indy Lego game.  The first “BUT” is how the game handles the “Cut Scenes” between each level. Second, to be politically correct in the Indy game, the story lines have been tweaked. Lastly, it appears that Travelers Tales was pulling anything or anyone from the Indy movie franchise just to give you more characters to play, not just Indy. Even with these three things that bug me, the game does have the Lego charm which makes it fun to play.

My take on the Cut Scenes of Indiana Jones. When you enter the Cantina in SW Lego, you have six doors in front of you that represent each movie. When you enter the room for the movie that you want to play, you get to pick from 6 “chapters” plus a bonus chapter. Once you pick the chapter you want; you enter the door, you get the scroll text (which you can escape out of the scroll if you want to) and boom, you’re in the game.

In the Indy game, you start out at Bernett College where you walk up to three maps that represent each of the movies. Here is where your adventure begins but it is also the spot that makes the game drag. Once you pick the map you want to play you then need to pick the Area you would like to go. For example, let’s say that you’re in the middle of the Temple of Doom story line and you need to get to “Area 4: The Gorge.” You highlight “The Gorge” on the map, and then (in Indian Jones tradition) you watch the red line (ala a plane flight) fly from your starting location (Bernett College) to each location that comes before “Area 4: The Gorge.” Like I mentioned above, if you play the the SW game you can exit out of the scroll at the beginning of each level. With the Indy game, you are stuck watching the red flight line go from Bernett College to your final destination. You cannot hit a button and escape the flight to get to your destination faster. Bummer :-(. Doing this once is fine, but every time you play the game it gets tiring. Why they didn’t add the feature to let you exit out of these cut scenes I don’t know but it’s needed here.

The second thing that kinda bugs me is the “tweaking” of the story line. Okay, okay I know that when the original movies where done, the country was not in this “Politically Correct” mentality. To tell you the truth, in my opinion, it blows!! But hey, we move on. The Nazi’s, Russians and any other thing that could be considered offensive has been stripped out of the game. And, I will contradict myself on this subject, it does not “really” bother me, yet it does on a small level. In a game like this, for kids and adults alike, that kinda of stuff is not necessary to move the game along or take away the charm. But, being a guy that grew up with the original movies ( like Star Wars ), you miss the “feel” of Indiana Jones. Sure, some of original story line really couldn’t translate into the Lego game and I can understand the tweaking that needed to be done. Then there’s the ……….. Ya’ know, I better stop here because I will probably start to really contradict myself in this area. I um, better get along to my next point.

My third problem is there are “too’ many characters in the Indiana Jones game. Ya’, ya’ I can hear you asking me right now “How can there be “too” many characters in this game, I don’t get it???” Well, have any of you heard of the “Enemy Boxer,” “Enemy Radio Operator,” or “Sherpa Brawler?” Okay I know, I may be nit picking and pulling anything out of the game to knock it down. And, I know the “real” names of these characters had to be changed for “nice” reasons. But, in the SW Lego game, you know where all the characters came from and they “work” within the game. To me, and please understand this is my opinion, the game is too character heavy. Some of the characters, and again in my opinion, could have been left out.

Now, Travelers Tales is coming out with Lego Batman soon. To me, the amount of characters that will appear in this game will work, as it does with the Star Wars Lego game. To me, Batman and Star Wars can “stand” to have a ton of characters in each game because each of these “universes” can support them. Indiana Jones as a “universe” to me, can’t support a lot of characters because some of them could be considered “throwaways.” The Indy characters, especially the secondary ones, don’t last long in the movies to be memorable. The Batman game you’ll get to play the Joker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Nightwing and so on. Star Wars Lego you get to play, Clones, Bossk, Luke, Chewie, Darth Maul and so on. You get the picture, for both of these games you KNOW the characters and they are a “part” of each universe.  And it works for these games, it doesn’t work for Indy.

Okay, now that I’ve spilled my guts about the three things that bugged me, there is that Lego charm in the Indy game. Indiana Jones movie in jokes are throughout the game along with the standard Lego mayhem and destruction. And, as you go through the game, you will find Star Wars Easter Eggs. 5 beloved SW characters make an appearance in this game BUT, once you find these 5, you cannot use them within the game. There are two “other” characters within the game that you can play which I will spoil one of them right now. That one character happens to be <SFX drumroll> Han Solo. The other one, well, I’ll let you figure it out on your own and then figure out “why” that character is there.

Well, I know that there is a lot more I could write about which I’m afraid I did, I could either lose whoever is left at this point or put whoever “is” left reading this asleep.

I’ll leave you all with the short version. This is still a fun game to play and if you can get by my nit picking above you will also agree. It is solid fun and it has not lost the Lego / Travelers Tales charm. But, once I get done playing this game, I can see myself turning it in for game credit at the local video game store and get something else. Star Wars Lego and if I do get the Batman Lego game, I can see myself keeping these and playing them from time to time.

Comments, questions, anything positive or negative is always accepted. That way I know people are reading these.

So, this is your Uncle Kal signing off. Now go to bed Ord’ ika, you have school in the morning

Good Night All