Indiana Jones Gets "Lost" On His Latest Adventure...

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings could have been one of the greatest games in the series but falls short. For several years LucasArts has teased fans with various clips and footage from the "upcoming" Indiana Jones based video game. First it was announced that the PlayStation 3 would be the console of choice for this "upcoming" installment. And after years of getting fans worked up over a new Indiana Jones video game, they announce that the game has been canceled. When I heard this, it was has though I had been dropped into the Well of Souls with a lot of venomous snakes. And after a year-or-so of hating (with a passion) LucasArts, they re-announced that they were working on another Indiana Jones game for the Sony PlayStation 2.

The story line in Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is a "return to form" in some aspects. The story follows the further exploits of the famed College Professor/Archeologist/Adventurer, Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. (remember not to call him "Junior"). Those who have followed the first three films would appreciate this. It's 1939 and Indiana Jones is once again on a quest to find a Biblical artifact before it falls into the hands of the Nazis. This time around Indy is on a quest to find the Staff of Moses (aka...The Staff of Kings) which was used by Moses himself throughout the Old Testament, including using it to part the Red Sea. If an object is said to have great power, Hitler wants to lay claim on it so he can conquer the world.

For the most part it is great to see the plot centered on the chase of another Biblical object, especially after the disastrous 2008 film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which Indy was chasing down aliens, etc. The story is bogged down by some horrible dialogue though and too much jumping from one locale to another.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings features clunky and sluggish controls. You would have thought that this game was released ten or more years prior than what it actually was. The game is your typical third person action and adventure game on the surface for the most part. For that last few years it's been popular to add QTE (Quick Time Events) throughout the various stages or keypoints in a game. For those who do not understand what a QTE is, here is a quick explanation. At random (or somewhat random) sections of the game various Button Commands flash up quickly on the screen. The player is required to hit these button commands in the proper sequence or timing shown to do things like, jump out of the way of a falling tree, dodge a moving car, etc.

Lucasarts decided to take this one step further and added interactive environments as well. Interactive objects have icons above them telling you what to do with them. Items you can throw at your opponents feature little "hand" logos above them and items you can grab onto with your trusty whip feature "coiled up" whips as logos above or near them. It's a cool concept to be able to pick up pretty much anything to aid you in your quest. One of the problems I have is that you are pretty much guided on what to do instead of being able to figure out puzzles and problems on your own. It's like you have a babysitter sitting next to you holding your hand while playing. Dull if you ask me.

The fighting system is very archaic in my opinion. When you come up against a foe, you are almost locked into a battle with him/her. The game focuses on button mashing instead of actually using a combo system to disarm or defeat your assailants. You can use your whip to knock stuff out of their hands or use it to pull them towards you, which is really cool. But you can't pull out your gun whenever you want to. Instead your gun is used for specific tasks within a level; like shooting around corners, firing at explosive objects, etc. There is also quite a bit of slowdown when you have more than one enemy on the screen at once.

Another disappointment with the gameplay is the levels you are given the opportunity to pilot a plane. The action is hindered by a ton of slowdown and glitches. In the first level I was given a chance to fly a plane, it got almost halfway through the canyon when the screen all but froze on me. It's like somebody was hitting the pause button every-other-second. I almost crashed because of the slowdown and the controls were almost unresponsive. There was a delayed reaction of about 5 or more seconds. Luckily I made it through the level and got on with the game.

The visuals are a mixed bag and it's really hard to try and compare them to the current generation of games on consoles like the PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360. But when you have a game that was just released looking far worse than a game released three years prior it's a let down. The PlayStation 2 is still capable of producing great looking games that rival "current gereneration" games. I use Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams as an example. It was released on the PS2 around 3+ years ago and it featured stunning in-game visuals as well as specatacular cinemas.

Staff of Kings features ultra-grainy looking cutscenes. I am not sure if Lucasarts was trying to make the cinemas/cutscenes look like "dream seqeucnes" or not, but they failed even if they were trying to achieve that look. The in-game graphics when it comes to the character designs are fairly jagged looking in my opinon. The environments for the most part look great and you really feel like at times you are in the game. The dark streets of San Fransisco's Chinatown are probably amongst my favorite levels. But even the great looking environments are marred by the horrible camera angles at times as well as some glitches when trying to navigate the levels.

Even the worst Indiana Jones games feature outstanding audio except this time around, it falls short like the visuals. The game does feature the iconic Raiders March by John Williams which is the highlight of the soundtrack. But for the most part music is absent for a good amount of the game and you are forced to listen to the in-game sound effects and usual noised you would hear in the jungle, etc. That's not a bad thing though.

The voice-acting is horrendous and you would have thought that LucasArts would have used Harrison Ford to do the voice-overs for Indiana Jones, especially being produced around the same time as the actor reprising his role from the most recent film. Also the dialog is pretty corny at times and his new female side-kick in the game is abnoxious more than usual. The voice-overs are not dubbed properly and do not match a great many of the facial animations.

I've never been so disappointed in a game that was hyped up over the last few years. I would have thought that LucasArts would have taken their time on the game since it was announced, what seemed like, a dozen years ago. The game is plagued with a sluggish control scheme, horrible camera angles, graphical glitches galore, and the absence of Harrison Ford providing the voice-overs of his character.

The only positive thing about the game is the ability to collect "Fortune" throughout the game that unlocks movie trailers from the first three Indy films as well as the retro point-and-click game for the PC, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis originaly released in 1992. Other than those "high points" there is no real replay value to speak of. And that's really sad to say. I want to like this game because I am a diehard Indiana Jones fan, but the game has too many weak points to make it enjoyable enough to want to play through again. It seemed as though LucasArts was on the right track with releasing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. This game could have been that good. I just hope that the "rumored" Indiana Jones game that is being worked on for the PlayStation 3 is not just another hype.

Of course, if you want more information on how to play Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, make sure that you check out the complete walkthrough of this PS2 game here on Bright Hub.