jorimslist.com - Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures ESRB content review

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

Pros & Cons:
Pertaining to My short list below.

Full Pros & cons re-review coming soon...

The graphics are sharp, clean and look just like their real-life Lego counterparts; while the gameplay can sometimes be simple, it's simply addictive to smash and collect everything in site; the game's story has a great sense of humor and direction; and it has an almost unprecedented amount of extras to unlock. However, the fixed camera angle can make it hard to jump some gaps—you lose some depth perception—making it not so easy to calculate where you're going to land. It's also easy and quite simple; once you finish it once, there isn't much reason (for adults) to play it again.

Great, thanks Indy; nice that you have a whip. Now what am I supposed to do, hm?

Discuss this game at the forum

© 2008-2010 jorimslist.com. All Rights Reserved. No part of this work, reviews or custom images, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the author, pertaining to the entire site, jorimslist.com. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Lindenville Publishing via the About page. The ESRB rating icons are registered trademarks of the Entertainment Software Association. All the original images are copyrighted by their respective owners.

Content review for this game:
Pertaining to the ESRB rating and My age rating.

Content-wise: There is hitting and "guns," but it's all done in the harmless form of Legos. And since there are very few games for kids that don't have some form of hitting/shooting in them, it's one of the most mild games you can get--in my opinion, it's quite suitable for kids 6- to watch.

Concerning gameplay for this age group, it's very forgiving, and because of the co-op mode, as long as they have an older sibling or parent to guide them through, I see no issue in it hindering kids 6- in being able to play this game.

Difficulty-wise: You have unlimited lives, there's virtually no penalty to dying, the base enemies are a piece of cake, and the overall gameplay mechanics are easy to master.

And unlike Lego Batman, the puzzles are far less cryptic and much more straightforward, making this game far less frustrating--I don't see kids 7+ having any problems with the difficulty this game brings.

Fun for: Although this probably isn't the first choice for adult gamers, this is a great choice if you like playing games with your kids--it has an extensive (and very fun) co-op mode.

The gameplay can be simple at times, but it's a blast to smash everything in sight and collect Lego studs; the cutscenes are humorous and entertaining; many of the puzzles could even stump adults for a while; and even after beating all levels, there's still tons of extras.

Gameplay sum up: The base gameplay consists of you (and your AI or human partner—just press start at any time to jump in and out as the secondary character) picking a level from the main hub, Barnett University (where Indy teaches), and then navigating the pseudo 2D/3D side-scrolling levels, while fighting enemies, solving puzzles, dodging traps, and above all, smashing every object in sight, which will reward you with Lego studs (the game's currency).

To successfully traverse through these levels, Indy and friends will have to rebuild Lego blocks into useful objects, drive a variety of vehicles and use each of their specific abilities. In addition, you'll be using Lego studs to buy extra characters and cheats; collect mini-kits to unlock viewable trophies; and use a certain room in the Barnett University hub to mix up all of the characters' parts and create custom ones—which you can use in any of the game's levels.

(The Wii version includes motion controls; you'll shake the Wiimote to attack and swing Indy's whip; swing it up to dig objects up; swing it down to throw held objects; and shake it left and right to fix broken objects, etc.)

Cartoon violence: Lego Indiana Jones loosely follows the famed trilogy of the same name. This means that you'll be seeing (and playing) a plethora of familiar characters from this mythose—mainly Indiana Jones. All cutscenes are done like silent movies, with no dialog (okay, some incoherent mumbling) and only characters' many comedic movements to express the finer points of its humorous, silly and very kid-friendly (as in, no melting faces, etc.) version of each Indy movie.

The tone of violence in cutscenes is very cartoony, consisting of your basic comic mischief (A.K.A Looney Toons, or any cartoon for that matter), with plenty of goofy situations involving the game's characters. The gameplay's tone is identical, with the playable characters punching, kicking and shooting their enemies, resulting in them falling apart into their disassembled Lego forms, and then immediately disappearing. You can shoot enemies with guns, rocket launchers, and hit them with swords/spears by picking up said weapons from the downed ones—but you'll only have a limited time before they run out or disappear. Additionally, you can pick up crates, chairs, stools and bottles, and then hit and/or throw them at the enemy, and enemies will attack with the same weapons--some will even throw grenades at your character.

Female characters can hit their male partners, not visa-versa (but all characters can shoot anyone with guns); you can do this in single-player and multi-player as many times as (and whenever) you want, resulting in the male characters falling apart, and then immediately reappearing (which could get on your playing partner's nerves ;P). The levels are also moderately destructible, with you being able to smash (sometimes blow up) anything from trash cans to enemy military trucks, and you can run over enemies with large vehicles. However, although this might seem worse written down, all of it is done in a silly, very harmless and completely kid-friendly way—I see no problem with kids of any age watching (and/or playing) this game.

Discuss this game at the forum