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Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings Please note that this review is strictly for the Wii version, the only one I've played. My understanding is that the PS2 version is more or less identical sans obvious control differences and the Fate of Atlantis port (two pretty huge omissions), while the PSP and DS versions are completely different beasts altogether. Indiana Jones fans could not be blamed for reacting to the release of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings with an eye-rolling "It's about time!" It hasn't exactly been a brisk wait since 2003's Emperor's Tomb for LucasArts' follow-up 3D Indy adventure, and the story behind that wait is memorable enough to reprint here, so let's take a six paragraph stroll through history, shall we?
At E3 of the following year, LEC had little more to offer on the game's story or gameplay, but had an awful lot to sound off about with regard to the technology that would power it. In the Spring of 2006, the internet was bombarded with test videos, interviews, and press releases bragging about Euphoria and NaturalMotion, "revolutionary" physics engines that new Indy was going to take advantage of. The main selling points were the AI of the game's characters (whose movements would be dictated by simulated behavior rather than canned animations) and heavily destructible environments which could react to real-time abuse down to the most minute splintering of a wooden door that an enemy has been hurled into. While boasting loudly about all this tech but keeping their lips firmly shut about anything else, LEC mumbled something about the game being released in 2007, which fans assumed would not turn out to be a bald-faced lie. Well, that faith proved misplaced, and the fibs on LucasArts' part didn't end there. In fact, all was quiet on the Indiana Jones front for a long time after that, and suddenly a Star Wars game called The Force Unleashed was all the company would talk about, a game that coincidentally was advertised to be powered by the exact same technology the company had been using to pimp the Indy game one year prior. But the Indiana Jones game was nowhere to be seen or heard from while the marketing machine geared up for The Force Unleashed, whose release was met with strong sales and a lot of fanfare while Indy fans sat, patient but confused, and perhaps a little apprehensive about the state of their game. Whether it was because the Indy game wasn't coming along as expected, or because LEC decided to put its focus on the game branded with the more popular of two insanely popular licenses, or both, it was clear that the silence was hiding some serious problems with this long in development Indy project. Rumors seemed to correlate this fear, and also confirmed the unsurprising fact that the game was simultaneously being ported by third parties to all of the lower-end platforms (Wii, PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS) sans the gee-whiz technology – a strategy that was also employed for The Force Unleashed in order to get that game on all platforms. In this case, the ports were handled by developer A2M, with the exception of the PSP version, which was handled by Amaze. 2007 came and went, and even throughout 2008 (which included the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), LEC remained pretty tightlipped about their supposedly still in-development Indy game, with few details other than a rumored title (Staff of Kings, which turned out to be real), emerging, along with some now traditional mass firings at the studio. Then (still with me?), in early 2009, the game was finally formally re-announced for the Wii, PS2, PSP, and Nintendo DS for a Spring 2009 release, with no explanation as to what happened to the versions of the games that were originally unveiled, and which the 3rd party ports were, to be frank, likely dumbed down version of. It turned out that, after all that time, LEC simply decided to quietly cancel their internal Indy game and release the separate and already completed low end ports, leaving 360/PS3 owners who had been patiently awaiting a game they'd been promised for five years to get the hell over it. And that pretty much brings us up to speed, with the Wii version (now the showcase of the pack) getting put under Mojo's critical eye. It should be said that the game you'll see on the store shelves while passing through your local Gamestop is not the same game that was in development several years ago. That game, while certainly sharing the same story and some of the basic ideas as the final product, was a completely different thing, and is, as my grandma would say, gone pecan. So anyway - Staff of Kings for the Wii. Is the first LucasArts game we've gotten a review copy of in a decade any good? Read on! Given its production history, it's pretty easy to be skeptical about the quality of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings without even taking the first glimpse at it. There's nothing promising about a title that was originally built as the outsourced port of a 360/PS3 game with the motivation of having all available platforms covered. The developer, A2M, doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, having a track record of producing suspect quality movie tie-ins and low-end ports for games originally developed for more powerful consoles. Then there's the fact that the released screenshots and footage of the game looked absolutely terrible, not merely by Wii standards, but by the standards of any gaming device manufactured in the past decade. Despite all of that portentous background (which if anything will do wonders in tempering expectations to a realistic level), I inserted the game into my Wii with an open mind, knowing that I should rule out the possibility of anything special or mindblowing and simply hope that I'd be getting a decently fun action/adventure game. Which, fortunately, I did. Staff of Kings isn't going to blow you away, but thanks to some simplistic but solid gameplay and genuine Indy thrills, the game should satisfy your craving for another Indiana Jones adventure even if not much else. The game is set in 1939, putting it one year after Last Crusade and around the same time of the events of Fate of Atlantis. Clearly, the game prides itself in taking its cues from the "classic" Indiana Jones era of the adventure serial 30s, complete with an in-his-prime Indy, Nazi villains (only they wear iron crosses instead of swastikas and are referred to only as "Germans," which is stupid and lowers credibility), a religious artifact, and such locations as Chinatown, Central America, Istanbul, and the Himalayas. And, oh yes, you'll hear a Wilhelm scream or two.
The storyline occasionally feels a little bit too much like a mildly loose remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I suppose that was true of the movies, too. The game opens with Indy recovering a The story and dialog get the job done and might even surprise people who expect absolutely no care or effort to be put into that area. I was entertained, with my only real whine being that plot felt a little needlessly episodic, mostly thanks to near nonexistent transitions. There are times when Indy's adventure abruptly cuts from one part of the globe to another when his trademark red tracing line against the map (an image which is unforgivably absent) would have come in really handy. That said, the frequent in-game cinematics are surprisingly well directed and animated, and you'll most likely be appeased by the Indy yarn provided, which provides sufficient motivation for you to keep playing until the end. The levels are lengthy and varied, with frequent checkpoints making sure you don't get set very far back after meeting an unfortunate end. (The visual for Indy respawning is excellent.) The gameplay is simplistic, but generally satisfying. The levels are basically comprised of puzzle-solving segments interspersed with the occasional fight and shootout, and although by the end things do get a bit repetitive, it's all pretty fun. The fighting mechanics are pretty easy to get the hang of (and you will most definitely get the hang of them, thanks to frequent and impossible to by-pass in-game tutorials) and are surprisingly addictive. Keeping things interesting, many objects in the environment during these bits are destructible or otherwise useful. (You and your enemies have such items as chairs, wrenches, pool cues, and even fish at your disposal.) The Wii remote and the nunchuck are used in combination for a variety of attacks, and the whip can be used to swing across chasms, climb vertical walls, and attack/unarm enemies. For environment interaction, an icon of a Wii remote movement will appear whenever Indy is near something he can perform an action on. Unlike most Wii games where the features remote is intensive used, it's all actually pretty well handled, and I even found myself looking forward to the next brawl segment once I got a handle on the controls. The game's visuals are surprisingly good, especially considering how bad those screenshots looked. I don't know what to say other than in motion it's much better, and there are even some nice subtle touches in there. (It should be said I played Staff of Kings on a large, standard-def television, which is a setup that tends to serve Wii titles the best.) The environments are reasonably varied and detailed, and as said the animation is good as well. My only complaints would be some occasional drabness, low detail for character models, and the fact that Indy lacks his signature satchel. This absence is completely inexplicable, and what's weirder, he evidently sports the accessory in every other version of the game. Bizarre stuff. I was also slightly put off by the distracting glowy effect caused by the excessive bloom lighting the game sports, much like that seen in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which feels implemented for the sake of it and does not fit the license very well. Look, all I'm saying is that when I think of Indiana Jones I think of this:
 ...and not this:
 As a LucasArts game, the sound impresses even more. The music is mostly comes in the form of cues taken from John William's soundtracks for all four films, with the occasional original (and well done) composition mixed in for good measure. This is both a good and bad thing – while it's awesome to hear a full orchestrated William soundtrack throughout your quest, the fact that you're hearing mostly recycled music is hard to exactly praise. I suspect one's reaction to this will depend on how much of an Indy die-hard you are - many of the cues taken from the films are not necessarily obvious, and so to many people they might as well be original, but I could place them all. The sound effects are great, with Ben Burtt's signature over-the-top punch and gun sounds being thankfully retained and exploited. The voice acting is good for both Indy and the supporting characters, though Indy (voiced neither by Doug Lee nor the guy from Emperor's Tomb) tends to sound closer to Warwick Brown from CSI than Harrison Ford at times. I saw that the game features a standalone tutorial, but I don't know what it could possibly contain, because the entire game feels like one giant tutorial. Every objective is clear and straightforward, and what isn't given away by the interaction icons that will always accompany a hotspot, Indy's explanatory dialog will. Anyone who's played a Zelda game will find the "puzzles" laughable (and in most cases, derivative), though they're still fun and at times clever. The fighting, while certainly fun, isn't a very demanding experience either, save a boss fight and an intense brawl aboard a zeppelin near the game's climax. When prompted with two difficulty settings at the beginning of the game, I shrugged and picked "hard," and the experience that followed isn't one I'd call particularly frustrating to any intermediate gamer. Contributing most to the game's relatively casual feel, though, is its 100% linearity. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, and you might surprised by how much stock the game puts into its narrative, but the sense of exploration takes a huge hit thanks to you never having the option of veering anywhere off a predefined path. The main question, and what will ultimately determine how you feel overall about Staff of Kings, is whether or not that's a bad thing. There was a part of me that knew I was playing a game that wasn't setting its sights very high, but on the other hand, I kind of liked it. Whenever I got stuck in the game, I was always stuck because of an intentional obstacle rather because the game left me confused about my goal or handed me a puzzle designed specifically to frustrate. Another side effect of the game's linearity is that none of the game's content is extraneous. You probably won't find the game to be epically sized, but you probably will never be bored, either. This game was clearly designed with the intention of people being able to finish it, and that's not something I can really fault the game for. A review should judge a game based on whether it succeeded in what it sets out to do, and Staff of Kings does that with competence, if not an overabundance of creativity. What will be disappointing to a lot of people, and reasonably so, is the fact that the game's ambitions are so modest in the first place. It's been over five years since the last full-fledged Indiana Jones game, and fans have a right to expect something meatier that what they're getting, especially when the LEGO games already satisfy the "An Indy game anyone can play" market. They have a right to be a bit pissed at LucasArts for their failure to deliver every half a decade to Indy fans what they deliver annually to Star Wars fans. Besides which, Indiana Jones is the greatest adventure hero of all time. His name is synonymous with adventure, action, and intrigue. He is the inspiration not just for most action/adventure movies made since Raiders of the Lost Ark, but for more than a few video games that fall into the same genre. Doesn't the character that was pretty much responsible for Tomb Raider (a series which, ironically, the 3D Indy adventures are shallow clones of) deserve a bolder, more sophisticated game? Let's face it, LucasArts never really got their 3D Indy games quite right in the ten years they've been taking whacks at it, and this installment doesn't exactly transcend the genre. For an enjoyable Indiana Jones experience, Staff of Kings is certainly good enough, but is that the mark LucasArts should be striving to hit? The game's shortcomings have less to do with its execution than with the general timidity of the vision, and one can't help but wonder how the game that got cancelled might have compared in that regard. In addition to the game's main single player campaign is a co-op mode with Henry Jones, Sr. I was unable to play this, and so can't over any kind of judgment or comment there. The game also includes a number of fluff unlockables (mostly acquired by finding fedoras collectables hidden throughout the game) such as trailers, concept are and model skins (including Han Solo), but the main attraction here, and a reason I suspect most of you reading are even interested in this title in the first place, is the inclusion of the graphic adventure classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Exclusive to the Wii version, the Fate of Atlantis bonus feature ups the value of the package tremendously, accounting for a full skull in the review rating. This extremely faithful port includes the full, talkie version of the game, and it holds up spectacularly, putting the game it's packaged with to shame. Aside from making the controls work with the Wii remote, no attempt at all has been made to update this game from its 1992 condition (though the music may not sound exactly as you remember), but you know what? I don't care. What would otherwise be a somewhat reluctant recommendation turns into a full-hearted one thanks to this inclusion alone – whether that is a statement of the feature presentation's mediocrity or just how awesome Fate of Atlantis is, I'll leave for you to decide. (By the way, I unlocked Fate of Atlantis fairly early on in the game, but if you want to unlock it right off the bat, do the following: in the main menu while holding down Z, press: A, Up, Up, B, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, B.) I really dug Staff of King, certainly more than I expected to, but I don't expect everyone to agree with me. The linearity and lack of depth didn't particularly bother me, and I in fact liked how the experience felt basically like playing through an Indiana Jones movie, but those craving a hardcore experience will find that the years LucasArts made us wait haven't paid off. Still, I can easily recommend this game to all Indiana Jones fans, especially thanks to the value added by the Fate of Atlantis unlockable. Let's just hope LucasArts has bigger ideas for their next Indy game, and let's hope we won't be the age of the knight from the end of Last Crusade before they decide to put it out.
 A review by Jason, who no longer believes that WWII existed due to LEC's decision to remove swastikas and Nazi references
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