Lego Indiana Jones (DS)

10/16/08 - I got into Lego games in the same way a lot of folks did - the first Star Wars one. Who would have thought that a crappy franchise like Lego (good toys, lousy games) would turn out such a winner? I loved both Star Wars games (and played through them too!) and started playing the Lego Indy game for the Wii with John on his last visit. However, handheld success hasn't been so forthcoming. I tried to play both GBA Lego Star Wars games and couldn't really keep with either. I was either getting killed constantly (not a real setback, but annoying), getting lost, or just got tired of seeing the same boring scenery. When I saw this one, I figured I'd give it a try. At first I was a little apprehensive that it would just recycle the same levels from the Wii/PS2/etc versions. Well, it does use parts of the same cut-scenes, but the levels, from what I've seen so far, are all different - and in some cases, more enjoyable IMHO.

Truthfully, it's a very simple game. I've already gotten through the first "movie" and am half-way through the second. But, unlike it's mini-ancestors, this one has really fun levels. It really shows how much more powerful the DS is over the GBA. I will say that the touch screen didn't get used much in the design. Almost all the things you need to do other than fight and jump, can be done with a press of the Action button (A?). When I first started playing, I would use the stylus to "draw" Indy's whip. Something of a pain that breaks the flow of the action. Now I just press the A button. You can do that for lots of other actions, but not for anything that involves the microphone (ie, blowing) or turning cranks. Neither happen too often and I like blowing out torches. ;) One interesting change is that you can have more than 2 characters at your disposal during missions. During the second movie, I have the chick, the kid and Indy, but I can only have 2 out at a time. If I need a different one, I just have to select him/her from the bottom screen. The other thing I didn't expect happened during the end fight of the first movie. I'd seen red platforms during the game before, but I didn't know that you could stand on them and change the character to a monkey so you could access areas via vines. I thought you needed to bring in a character with a monkey at another time (like when you come back to try to get more secret items). This taught me, although I wish I had caught on sooner, to keep an eye on the bottom screen for context sensitive options.