We very nearly fell of our chairs in shock when LucasArts confirmed Lego Indiana Jones. You see, literally only days before we'd been discussing how utterly excellent it'd be if the whip-cracking archaeologist got the same treatment as Star Wars. Thank you, LucasArts, from the bottom of our gaming hearts.
Anyway, since then the game's been kept in a manila folder stamped "Top Secret", but finally the first concrete details have emerged via an awesome-looking cover feature in the latest edition of Edge magazine.
Dealing with basic nuts and bolts first, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures parodies the three Spielberg-directed movies that released in the 1980s.
The game's broken down into three chapters and 18 levels, and stars Lego-ised renditions of all the main characters. And, naturally, loads of classic moments from the films.
Lego Indy being chased by a giant Lego boulder included? You never expected it to be otherwise, right? Major Toht's ink is "flushed of his pea-sized face", says the article, describing the game's version of the gruesome moment at the end of Raiders when the Ark is finally opened.
Indy's iconic whip is used to attack enemies and latch onto scenery, and it's no surprise to learn that the hero will be able to pull himself up the whip to before clambering onto ledges.
But it's a spade that's described as a key 'weapon', as digging yields weapons and bonuses. And unlike Lego Star Wars, Lego Indy features an ammo limit.
Jone's snake phobia hasn't been overlooked either. When faced with slithering nasties the hero will be rendered ineffective leaving it down to another character - presumably AI or player-driven - to help out. And the phobia mechanic won't be exclusive to Indy, either.
Stacking the Indy adventure up against the Star Wars games, Edge says that "Pulling levels to open doors, building platforms to reach them and then destroying them (and everything else) for studs has grown into something more open and explorative".
According to the article, Lego Indy is far funnier than Lego Star Wars. It describes how, in the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy shoves the Staff of Ra into a hole in the map room, the intense beam of light that reveals the resting place of the Ark will actually either blind the hero of set the room on fire. But it's not saying which.
Perhaps partly in keeping with this, according to Edge Traveller's Tales has chosen to remove Nazis - and any reference to them it appears, from what TT says - from the game, "Lego having already replaced them with an anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race". The studio explains it has left it down to the strength of the Indy characters to show they are bad guys - but "that said, we like to reinforce the fact that these really are terrible, terrible people".
TT's director Jon Burton is describing the game as "a careful next step" for the developer and Lego franchise.
The studio doesn't "want to change the game so much that we lose the audience", he explained.
"...and the more things we can keep intact about the formula, the better. If by some chance the game isn't a success, then we'll know it's probably something about Star Wars the works so well".
According to Edge, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is out this June. The magazine's full preview - it includes a ton of fab screenshots revealing action and various environments from the game - is in its current issue, #186. Go and buy it. Now!
After the aesthetic novelty & charm of seeing stuff cleverly rendered as lego wore off in the Star Wars game, it proved to be totally s**te. Or was that novelty supposed to carry the entire game?
Woah woah woah. No Nazis? I would have thought they would have been a key ingredient to the Raiders and Last Crusade sections of the game. I don't want generic bad guy number 1 looking for the Ark of the Covenant, I WANT NAZIS DAMNIT!
How on earth can this work with no Nazis?!??! The 1st and 3rd films were chock FULL of Nazis. Yes, terrible people, yada yada, but they were in the movie so they should be in the game, especially as they were such an integral part.
Come, witness Lego Schindlers List. Unfortunately we didn't want to upset people by including Nazis, so instead, it's about Oscars recent shopping trip to the local Co-op....
No doubt they'll do a 'Saga' sequel to also include the fourth film if this sells well. I'm looking forward to it, as long as they fix some of the glaring problems and bugs in the Lego Star Wars games.
Indy has just the right sense of humour to carry this sort of game(unlike Batman), and I understand that Lego has to keep it's reputation clean, I wouldn't want to see children playing with little Lego Nazis either. Also after 50 years they've only recently started making Lego guns .
i might get this, i want to stand and watch a lego arab sword guy while he threatens me with his show-off lego sword swinging skills... then shoot him with my lego gun
Indy has just the right sense of humour to carry this sort of game(unlike Batman) HALO-LEGO?
How can you say batman doean't have the right sense of humour and then suggest lego Halo? Batman has a range of colourful, fun characters to play and a series of themes from many different incarnations to draw on for material, be they comics, films, the animated series... Just because the recent films have decided to go down the grim, 'realistic' route doesn't mean there aren't themes or things to poke fun at. Look at Adam West's series if you don't believe me!
I'm personally looking forward to both though, I just wish everyone would get over this irrational fear of Nazis they seem to have. They were just men, at the end of the day, horribly misguided men who did terrible things in the name of flawed ideals, but still men.
I hope they fix the two player co-op. The way they implemented it in Lego Star Wars was frustrating and horrible.
Also, if they're going to limit the ammo then they'd better get rid of the areas with infinitely respawning enemies and more importantly give me the ability to actually *aim* rather than fire randomly in the general direction of what I want to hit and hope.
i agree, lego batman is taking its queue from the old adam west shows which were funny as hell and ripe for a lego revival. POW lol
plus its a shame that the nazis such a defining part of the films will be omitted but i can understand thier reasons. Oh well at least we have a teeny lego Short Round to look forward to
"okey dokey doctor jones, hold on to your potatoes!"
Indy has just the right sense of humour to carry this sort of game(unlike Batman) HALO-LEGO?
How can you say batman doean't have the right sense of humour and then suggest lego Halo? Batman has a range of colourful, fun characters to play and a series of themes from many different incarnations to draw on for material, be they comics, films, the animated series... Just because the recent films have decided to go down the grim, 'realistic' route doesn't mean there aren't themes or things to poke fun at. Look at Adam West's series if you don't believe me!
I'm personally looking forward to both though, I just wish everyone would get over this irrational fear of Nazis they seem to have. They were just men, at the end of the day, horribly misguided men who did terrible things in the name of flawed ideals, but still men.
"the dark knight detective" says it all.
and Halo Lego was tongue in cheek, I just thought it might spark some sugestions for Lego themes from posters here.
As for your comments on Nazis, you should be thoroughly ashamed, what you write comes close to justifying some of the worst atrocities ever comitted in human history, "flawed ideals", it sounds like you agree with them.
Come on LucasArts, Lego Monkey Island. You know you want to.
Oh how I'd love that.
Great way to bring an old genre back to life.
Why not re-do all the old lucas arts point and clicks with the lego edge. Sam and Max, Day of the tentacle, the dig, full throttle and the indiana jones and the fate of atlantis - the possibilities are endless.
But they can leave the Lego Harry Potter well alone.
and Halo Lego was tongue in cheek, I just thought it might spark some sugestions for Lego themes from posters here.
As for your comments on Nazis, you should be thoroughly ashamed, what you write comes close to justifying some of the worst atrocities ever comitted in human history, "flawed ideals", it sounds like you agree with them.
Dark Knight Detective doesn't even come close to saying it all. He's a multi-faceted character, who you can do a million different things with, and tell stories in dozens of different tones. I've watched and read people do it - So I have faith that TT will be able to find a lot of fun, and tongue in cheek humour there.
As for the Nazis... I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of, because at no point was I trying to justify their actions. Just pointing out that they were human, they were part of our history and that it's far more dangerous to make them into some sort of taboo than it is to just acknowledge them. They were there, they had real, human faces - Don't give them the anonymity or the mystique of being a faceless evil.
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