"It's time to get ready to explore some ancient lego ruins in this fun adventure!"

I am a fan of the Lego Star Wars series. I own the first game and played the second game. Both times were extremely enjoyable and I loved exploring that galaxy that is far, far away from ours. Now when I originally heard that Lego Indiana Jones would be coming out, I jumped for joy over this announcement. Last week, I headed over to the local rental store and searched high and low for this game. Sadly I could not find it for the consoles, but I managed to find it for my DS and rented it right away. Now that I had it for a while, played and beat it, and then finally sent it back, I'll express my thoughts on this game.

Storyline:

Well, have you seen the movies before? The game follows the first three movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and the Last Crusade. This game does not, however, cover Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or something like that. The whole story is presented in small cut scenes and pantomimes so you won't hear anyone talk or explain what is happening. This works… mostly. The problem here with this method of telling the story is that people who have not seen any of the movies will be confused for the most part on what is happening in the cut scenes. However, for people who have seen the movies, they will instantly know what is happening. Plus, they'll even get a kick out of the humor and slapstick presented in the cut scenes.

7 out of 10!

Graphics:

Considering I haven't played many DS titles, I can't really say if this is the best in graphics for the DS. However, the graphics are impressive and look rather nice. I sometimes can't make out the faces of some of the characters and some of the areas are a little bland. Other than that, everything looks fine.

As for the cut scenes in the game, they all look very good and well done. However, these cut scenes are used on the console versions so there is no really difference on how they look besides the fact that the scenes are a little darker.

7 out of 10!

Sound:

Now this is great. They are using the original soundtrack from the movies in this game. For example, when you battle some enemies, the music that plays is the Truck Chase theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are plenty of other pieces from the movies in the game and they all sound great.

As for the sound effects, a lot of the stuff sounds like it has been recycled from previous Lego games. The studs sound the same and the characters make the same noises when they die as in many of the previous Lego Star Wars games. It is a small gripe, but it isn't too big.

9 out of 10!

Controls:

The controls for the game are easy to use. You'll learn them quickly enough so you'll be fine. There is no control of the camera, but you'll probably never run into a problem that make you wish you had control of it. As for using the DS's touch abilities and stuff, well, they aren't really ground breaking. Most things you can do with the stylus you can do with a button so you can really play through this game without having to use it, except for flipping levers and stuff. Oh, sometimes you have to blow out torches with your breath.

8 out of 10! (I took two points off because it really didn't use the stylus much)

Other Things to Note:

There are a couple of mini games to play, red bricks to find to unlock things, plenty of characters to buy, and your able to create different types of Lego characters for Free Play mood. There are plenty of things to do, but it doesn't take long to finish everything. It took me about a weekend to finish just about everything so I can say that this game isn't hard.

This game is fun and if you liked the Lego Star Wars series, you'll for sure love playing this. But because this game is so easy and it takes almost no time to finish beating it, I recommend renting this game instead of buying it like I did. This game is great and you won't regret at all playing it, but it is not worth the full price at the moment since this game can be beaten so easily and in such a short amount of time. Now I'll crunch all the numbers up and see what the official score is… divide this by this… add that… scratch that… round that…. Alright! Here's the score:

My Final Score: 7 out of 10!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/08

Game Release: Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (US, 06/03/08)