When the LEGO Star Wars games came out a few years ago, I had to pick them up, being an SW freak. Instantly, it became my new crack; my girl got hooked too. We would play these games for hours, over and over again, making them a staple on our PS2. When the LEGO Indiana Jones game was announced, I couldn’t wait, and rushed to get it right away. I couldn’t wait to jump in and replay the original movies in all the LEGO glory. Problem is, this wasn’t the game I thought it could be, and was left a little stung. The LEGO games aren’t meant to be some super involved Metal Gear Solid type of game. They are meant to be easy, silly and an intuitive play-through. Well, these guys nailed the first two parts...pretty much went limp on the last, though.

The game takes the 3 classic Indiana Jones movies - not that crap that came out this summer with a geriatric Indy - and presents them in an abstracted LEGO style. This really lends itself to the action and humor of the Indiana Jones universe. The option to play various characters from the movies is there, and it's interesting to have them be wonky, LEGO characters. You get to watch classic scenes from the movies done in a goofy and humorous style, which can be a lot of fun and gives you a new perspective on the original scenes.

The one thing that the LEGO games are known for is a really easy learning curve, and this one delivers much of the same. They have added some character features; you can sneak around walls, but these seem purely superficial. You can pretty much jump in and play alone or in coop mode. In coop mode, it seems a bit more fun ad easier to get through levels. A lot of “switches” require two players to activate them and sometimes the AI can be as dumb as Jessica Simpson. Being that this is one of the only coop games around is a good sell too.

Here is the part where they fell off, though - and I do mean this made it frustrating as fuck - which these games should never be. Sometimes it is kinda hard to figure out exactly what you need to do to get to another area of a level. You can pretty much guess, but because this is a LEGO game, your actions can be limited, and trying to figure out just how to get onto some ledge, with the camera angle fucking up, is annoying as shit. I sat there for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get a plane to work on one level; it pissed me off so much that I shut the game off. I haven’t done that since Contra. If they would have made it as obvious at the LEGO Star Wars games, it would have been better…a lot better.

If you want a game that is a fun weekend play, that you can have a little bit of easy-to-do coop play, this is a decent pickup. But overall, it sorta fell off on some of the key reasons that the original LEGO Star Wars games made famous. It really makes me wonder if the LEGO Batman games are gonna be any good - let's just hope for The Dark Knight they are - because this game was almost as close of a flop as the Indiana Jones movie that just came out...except that you had to pay full price for the movie…so I can let this one slide a little…