Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

When LucasArts announced that they were canceling the highly anticpated Indiana Jones game for the Xbox 360 and PS3, fans were understandably disappointed. When it was announced not long after that a new game would debut on the Nintendo Wii, fans were shocked. It seemed like such an unusual move. Yet, Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, a whole new adventure for Dr. Jones, is now available on the Wii. Whether or not that was a wise move on the part of LucasArts remains debatable.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is a quirky game. It hearkens back to the good old days of point and click adventures on the PC. In fact, the classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis game is included on this disc. The new game takes a similar concept and instead of having you click on things it has you do various motions. Unfortunately this approach to the game is hit or miss. When it works, it works really well and makes this Indy game a fun and exciting adventure. When it doesn’t work, it makes this game tedious at best and boring at worst.

The main problem is an overuse of motion controls. Using motions for all major actions in a game doesn’t always work, and it doesn’t work here. This is complicated by the fact that the controls don’t always accurately register what you’re doing. Combat is the area where this is most obvious. While it may sound like a good idea in theory to have players punch with the controls to punch in the game, in practice this turns into a chaotic, wearying mess. Plus, when you’re hoping that the controls register the fact that you just threw punch because if they don’t the other guy is going to take you down, the fun is quickly sucked out of the game. I ended up mostly using my whip for combat, and the rest of the time I ran around and flailed about with the controls hoping I would land some sort of punch. Simple button presses with motion controls for finishing moves or even just the whip would have been a better set up.

Still, there are plenty of moments when the motion controls work just fine. There’s one point where Indy grabs a plane and flies down a canyon. You hold the Wiimote like a flight stick as you steer your plane. This was fun and intuitive and most importantly helped immerse me in the game without being tedious or tiring. Another area the motion controls work well is when you use a gun. You point at the screen, aim and shoot. You push up on the nunchuck to pop out of cover or move around behind cover and it all works brilliantly and again is a lot of fun. The motion controls for the puzzles mostly work, although occasionally they don’t make sense or don’t register what you’re trying to do.

Speaking of the puzzles, they avoid being completely obscure, but because they rely on certain actions to solve them it’s not always obvious what you need to do. That’s because you need to stand in a certain spot before an icon indicating what you need to do shows up. This is where the game feels most like its point and click brethren as you had to mouse over the right spot to discover what you needed to do. Other times no icon at all appears and so it might not occur to you that you can actually do anything and therefore you won’t try until you get so frustrated you start trying anything and accidentally discover what you were supposed to do all along and in previous areas you would have been told. These inconsistencies make the puzzles harder than they should be, which is a shame, because otherwise they would have been pretty enjoyable.

One of the few areas where Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings excels is in its story and presentation. This game looks and feels like an authentic Indy adventure. The level designs, although linear, are actually quite good and surprisingly varied. This makes the sloppy execution of what you do in those levels due to overused or non-registering motion controls so egregious. There’s a great adventure game hidden beneath the layers of issues, and that shines through in the design of each area and the way the story unfolds. Indy tracks the staff of Moses and is trying to get it before the Germans. It’s classic Indiana Jones. Add-in a pretty decent voice actor who does a good Indy impression, some solid and often witty writing that captures the essence of the character, and fun plot and you have the making of the next great Indiana Jones adventure. I almost wished this would have been a movie instead of a game, but seeing as it’s set early in Indy’s career (that’s right, no old Indy or “son of Indy” here), that would have been tough to do.

For whatever reason, Biblical artifacts just seem to work when it comes to Indiana Jones. Two out of the four movies used them, and they were the two better movies. This game uses one, and while control issues keep it from being a truly great game, the story is pretty good (probably better than Crystal Skull). However these artifact also represent the greatest tragedy of Indy’s life; he only ever saw the Bible and anything related to it as an artifact, nothing more. He’s not alone in that estimation. Many today look at the Bible as merely a collection of ancient mythological texts. Or they look at Jesus Christ as merely a good teacher. Two things to consider, however. One, Jesus claimed to be God. He couldn’t have “merely been a good moral teacher” if he was claiming to be God and was asking people to follow him as God. If his claim wasn’t true, then he couldn’t be a “good” teacher because he was propagating a lie. If he was crazy, again that’s not someone you praise as being a great moral philosophizer. If his claim was true, and he really was God, then obviously he was far more than just a teacher who shared moral platitudes. And if Jesus really was God as he claimed, that makes the Bible more than just an artifact, it’s a revelation of God.

The second thing to consider is that there is more historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead than just about any other historic event. It’s an accepted fact that Jesus rose from the dead; what are the implication of that? It always saddens me when Indy is pursuing one of these Biblical artifacts that he can’t ever see that the artifacts themselves have no special meaning or power apart from the loving God who used them to reveal himself to us. Because of that, Indiana Jones is missing out on the greatest adventure in all of eternity; the adventure of knowing a personal, loving God who sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross in our place so that we might have forgiveness of sins and who rose from the dead so that we might have eternal life through him.

For those craving more adventures with their favorite archeologist Indiana Jones, there’s a lot to like in the Staff of Kings. It’s a fun, globe trotting adventure that explores ancient Mayan ruins and the streets of San Francisco. The gameplay itself has a very classic feel in it’s similarity to those great point and click adventures of the past. However, control issues hamper the overall experience, as do some quirky camera issues and some puzzles that are harder than they should be. Still, there’s some fun boss battles (again hampered by control issues), cool ruins to explore with traps to avoid, and in some instances the motion controls help immerse you in Indy’s world and enhance the game experience. Most of the time, though, they just get in the way. So is this game a worthy replacement for the canceled high-tech Indy game? No, I’m afraid not. But it does have some quirky charm and fun of it’s own, if you can overlook the flaws.

Score out of 7:

Graphics: 5 - A surprisingly good looking game for the Wii. Good character models, nice lighting effects, good looking environments and backgrounds. Truth is, the game looks a lot better then it plays.

Sound: 5 - A solid sound alike voices Indy. All the sound effects sound as they should from Indy’s whip to his gun. Music sets the right mood for exploration and combat, and who doesn’t get nostalgic for Indy’s theme?

Controls: 4 - These can be a problem, but sometimes they’re a strength. Combat controls are tedious and don’t always work, but controls for puzzles and other events, when they work, they add an extra level of immersion to the game.

Gameplay: 4 - Combat quickly becomes tedious, the puzzles aren’t too difficult, but are usually interesting. Has an authentic Indiana Jones feel marred by the controls. A nice collection of extras including trailers, skins (Han Solo anyone?) and of course the full version of The Fate of Atlantis.

Story: 5 - A fun adventure in pursuit of Moses’ staff.

Content: 5 - There’s violence, but nothing gory and some scary moments (spiders, why did it have to be spiders.)

Final: 4 - Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings was a great idea that just wasn’t executed well. The potential of the Wii for an adventure game like this wasn’t used well and at times hampers the overall experience. Still, it’s a fun story with some fun moments that gives players a chance to enjoy some more adventures with Dr. Jones. Still, even fans may just want to rent this one from Gamefly before buying it.

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