Lego Indiana Jones houses the first three movies in the tongue and cheek lego style. Though it does have a few flaws that are ironed out in future lego games, this one is still fun.
The story follows the movies very closely, with a few extra jokes and such thrown in for humor. Though I have not watched the movies in years, the cut scenes do a good enough job to fill me in on the story, but it will make a lot more sense if you have watched the movies. For example, the guy in the black hat is our enemy and we need to stop him, but if you haven't watched the movie you may not fully understand what he is up to and why he needs to be stopped.
The gameplay is basic enough. Each level has two modes. Story mode, which includes cut scenes and locks the player to certain characters only, and freeplay, which has no cutscenes and allows players to switch between a list of characters that are not always in the level during the story, allowing you to get extra stuff you could not get before, but we'll talk about that later. In the game are the first three movies, each one having six levels, so that's eighteen levels to play. And in each level is hidden a parcel, which you must bring back to the mailbox to unlock a cheat, ten hidden artifacts, and a whole mess of coins. The coins are needed to buy the extra characters and cheats. Silver coins are worth ten, gold coins are worth one hundred, blue coins are worth one thousand, and the purple coins are worth then thousand. However, the purple coin is the rarest kind, either hidden very well, or in dangerous places. To buy the extras, you will have to do some grinding (unless you cheat), so I'd recommend grinding for the treasure x2, x4, x6, x8, x10, and treasure magnet cheats first as once you have those they can make grinding much faster.
Each character has their own ability. Some are locked to certain characters but others can be done by anyone if a certain item is held. For example, only Indiana Jones can use the whip pads, only female characters can jump high, only small characters can fit into the hatchways, etc. Hieroglyph boards can only be used by characters who have books. Some characters always have the book, but sometimes a book is available for pick up and use by any character. In each level, there is a meter at the top of the screen that fills up as you collect coins, but it is difficult to fill it up without cheats. When you die, you drop coins, so it is better to save these for when you get the cheat codes, since it can be filled up by one coin when you have all the treasure multipliers, and you no longer drop coins when you die while using invincibility (you don't take damage from attacks, but instant kills, such as falling off cliffs still kill you)
The game has minimal challenge because when you die, you simply respawn where you died at, and that never stops. So these Lego games can be played by anyone, even those who do not play games often. They make a good statement that games do not need to be hard to be fun. And when you finish the game 100%, coins and hearts fall from the sky everywhere. It seems pointless to me, and it cannot be turned off, but at least anyone would be able to tell at a glance that you put in your time with the game.
However, the controls are a bit iffy at times. On the Xbox 360 controller, when the analog sticks are released they do not always return to their neutral positions. Because of this, the character may sneak off to the side when you stop moving because the game does not register this as a dead zone. While it may cause you to walk off platforms or cliffs by accident, because the game is very easy and has minimal challenge, it is negligible.
What is not always negligible is the sometimes derpy AI. There are times when you really need your AI partners to do certain things without you switching to them. While they do this about eighty percent of the time, there are times where the AI will not do what you really need them to do, and you cannot continue the level until they finally do. This isn't a problem when you have a second player, but playing alone can be annoying at times when the AI isn't being cooperative.
Another issue is during free play. When you choose your characters for players 1 and 2, you are given a list of others to use as well, sometimes a small handful, other times a large group, depending on what level you are playing on. However, there are times when the roster does not include the one character you really need. Though it always includes Indy no matter what, sometimes when you need Willie for her scream, Willie is not there. Though this is rare, when it does happen it forces you to quit the level and restart it, hoping it gives you the right line up. In later games, I believe Lego Batman 2 started this, but you can pull up the entire character roster in free play mode, so you always have access to the character you need when you've bought them.
For presentation, the game is awesome. It looks fantastic. This is an early Xbox 360 game and it clearly shows what the system can do. The music score by John Williams is present and accounted for and sounds just as good as it did in the movies. The cut scenes, though they lack dialogue (also first done in Lego Batman 2), do a good job of a "movie in minutes" thing, while adding in extra jokes to make you laugh. The game does not take itself seriously, and a lot of funny things happen in the background, so keep your eyes open.
Despite the flaws it does have, Lego Indiana Jones is still a fun time. You can enjoy it even if you are not an Indiana Jones fan, and the cut scenes give just enough detail about the plot so you have a small sense of what is happening, while adding it extra gags for laughs. If you can find it cheap at your local gamestore, I'd say go for it.
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