Leave Luck to Heaven #12: LEGOs, Whips, and Disappointment
LEGO Indiana Jones was my first tryst into the brand themed LEGO action games and I adored it. So when LEGO Indiana Jones 2 was made, I assumed that I would be playing a revamped of the original with even more levels.
Well this couldn’t be further from the truth. The game removes the college as the hub for everything; instead you have boxes that hold the movies. Within each movie, there is a giant hub where things are gradually unlocked and this is definitely where the problems begin.
The hubs also have minigames and hidden areas, which is the only way to unlock everything. Most of these are so obscure that unless you use a walkthrough you will be searching for hours on end. Now some are fun and simplistic, like the ones where you grab a specific vehicle and race around. Although, these aren’t even perfect as the vehicles are difficult to control and the view does not zoom out enough to see where the next marker is, those problems aside I still like running things down in a vehicle. Other areas that need to be unlocked are only accessible by using the flying vehicles to parachute into, which I guess seems intuitive, unless you don’t realize there are flying vehicles.
Other minigames needed to achieve 100% require you to go back into the main levels. Since this is the first LEGO game to have a different level inside a level you already played, it is initially very confusing. On top of this, the levels are darkened the second time through making it difficult to discern parts of the level at times. Some levels call for this change based on what happens in the main story missions but other times it is unnecessary and annoying. The good thing about these levels is that it lets you know the types of characters you need, rather than just making you go in and out till you figure out exactly what you need.
The good news is that, other than the vehicles, the controls carry over well from the previous game. The characters that are in the game for the most part make sense to have, while others such as zombie mannequins don’t make much sense. The vehicles, since most function similarly, can be a lot of fun. I mean really who doesn’t want to drive a refrigerator around in the desert. The flying vehicles are also a convenience if you need to get around the hubs faster.
The stories are what confuse me the most. I understand that for younger audiences Crystal Skull is the freshest in their minds, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be divided into three parts while the other movies are boiled down to one abridged segment. For how much people bad mouth Crystal Skull, it surprises me that it is given so much importance.
Overall, the game is good. It would have been better if this was the first one and the other was the second so you would see an improvement. That seems mean but I do love the original trilogy and this one just seems over the top and being presented as LEGO doesn’t help its case.