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Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings Page Two
As a LucasArts game, the sound impresses more. The music is a generous collection of cues taken from John William's soundtracks for all four films, material from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and a number of original (and well done) compositions mixed in for good measure. The familiarity of most of the music is both a good and bad thing – while it's awesome to hear a fully orchestrated Williams soundtrack throughout your quest, it was kind of distracting for me to be able to place all the poached cues.
The sound effects are great, with Ben Burtt's signature over-the-top punches and revolver shots 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 remarked 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 that doesn't preclude them being fun and sometimes clever. The previously described fighting isn't a very demanding experience either, save a fiery boss fight in the middle of the game and a manic brawl aboard a zeppelin toward the 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 more to the game's relatively casual feel, though, is its unabashed linearity. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself since this is a surprisingly narrative-driven experience, but the sense of exploration takes a huge hit thanks to your never having the danger of veering anywhere off a predefined path. As I played this game, I was reminded of something that I couldn't put my finger on, until I did - an arcade game. Because that's exactly what Staff of Kings feels like - an unreleased Indiana Jones coin-op that got lost to the ages until somebody discovered the game cart and ported it to a Wii disc. It's a pretty favorable light to look at the game under.
What will ultimately determine how you feel about Staff of Kings is whether this is an approach you can appreciate. There was a part of me irritated to be playing such a guided game that wasn't setting its sights very high, but on the other hand, I kind of liked how focused of an experience this made for. There's no room for extraneous content, and while you probably won't find the game to be epically sized, it never drags. This was designed with the intention of most people being able to finish it, and that's not something I can really fault it for. There's a place for a game like this, is I suppose what I'm saying. A review should judge a game based on whether it succeeded in what it sets out to do, and Staff of Kings does that.
What will and should be disappointing to a lot of people 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 broader 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 arguably the greatest adventurer of the silver screen. His name is synonymous with adventure. He is the inspiration not just for an entire genre of movies in the wake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but for more than a few video game franchises. 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?
An honest analysis bears out the conclusion that LucasArts never really got their 3D Indy games totally right in the ten years they've been taking whacks at them, and this installment is not the one that transcends. For an enjoyable Indiana Jones experience, Staff of Kings is certainly good enough, but since when is that an acceptable mark to strive for? The game's shortcomings have less to do with its execution than with the timid vision it's executing on, and one can't help but wonder how the game that got cancelled might have compared in that regard.
In addition to the main single player campaign is a co-op mode with Henry Jones, Sr., exclusive to the Wii version. No companion to enlist, I was unable to play this and so can't offer any kind of judgment or comment there, but from what I understand it's basically a series of extended minigames punctuated by storybook style interstitials. Other offerings include a number of fluff unlockables (mostly acquired by finding fedora collectables hidden throughout the game) such as trailers, concept art and, restrain yourself, model skins (including Han Solo).
There's nothing insubstantial about one bonus feature, though. The prize unlockable, and a reason I suspect most of you reading are even interested in this title in the first place, is the graphic adventure classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Also Wii-only, this wonderful inclusion ups the value of the package tremendously. The port is the full, talkie version of the best Indy game to date, 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 emulation might be at variance with your memory), but that's fine. What would otherwise be a somewhat reluctant recommendation turns into a full-hearted one for this brilliant extra alone. (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.)
In spite of everything I really dug Staff of Kings, certainly more than I expected to, but there are legitimate arguments to be made against it. 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. Those craving a hardcore experience will find that the years LucasArts made us wait haven't paid off, and will be justly disappointed to learn that what ultimately shipped was a heavily compromised version of what was originally planned.
Still, I can easily recommend this game to all Indiana Jones fans, especially thanks to the value added by Fate of Atlantis. 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.
Pros: Enjoyable if standard action/adventure gameplay; looks and sounds good; story does the job; Fate of Atlantis unlockable lends tremendous value to the overall package.
Cons: Extremely, unabashedly linear; unambitious design makes the game feel relatively casual; where’s the effing satchel?