PlatformOVERALL
Wii6.00
Overall 6.00
More pasted impressions!

So I start Indiana Jones, its notbad looking at all, it actually runs pretty smooth with a sweet frame rate. I am in a cave and I walk around, climb up something (auto climb) get to a gap and an icon shows up. The game cuts to a tutorial showing me to hold down B and move the wiimote forward to whip. So I whip onto this rock and it automatically swings me across the gap. There is a torch on the floor, you need to light it by making arubbing two rocks together motion, once lit I pic it up and use it to burn down a spider web (swing by waving). I get to a bridge and a bunch of spiders come out. This is all in a cutscene, they swarm Indy and to get them off the game tells you to shake both controllers, so I shake shake shake and I get out of that mess. I enter a room with a gap but a small ledge to cross on, so you hold A to shimmy along a wall. Once on the other side there is an idol on a pedestal, use the whip to whip it toward you, you whip and then pull back on the wiimote. Of course the whole temple starts crashing down and in another cutscene you need to, guess what, shake shake shake to run and escape.


Then Nazi show up and the game enters a whole combat tutorial spoken by the dude playing Indy (not so good). Your wiimote and nunchuck are your two arms and you swing them as you would a fist. Upward for an uppercut, across for a hook, forward for a jab. Z grabs and enemy which you can drag to say a table and a context move will show up where you can slam the guys head into the table, or you can push them into objects. There are items all around to pick it up press A, press A and swing to throw it. The whip is very useful, just hold Z and swing up or down to do different types of whip attacks, they all end up bringing the enemy toward you for some free hits. You can disarm an enemy as well with the whip. Finally dodge is A+B.


So the game allows me to fight a group of Nazi and its pretty fun. There was this wooden stucture that some enemies were under so I used the whip to bring it down on top of them. Everything in the area that can be used will have an icon over it. The only issue is having no lock on it can get messy with many enemies. Also swing the wiimote all over the place is not as precise as a button press but its more interactive. I lost my first battle, the next time I made much better use of the weapons and whip. It reminded me of a simple Yakuza, that game has many more moves but the way this game uses the environment is similar.


So you beat up some enemies, next you hop on a plane... I crashed into a wall instantly. why cause I tried to use the analog stick, the game makes you hold the wiimote as a flight stick and use B to shoot. You fly through a canyon while some german planes try to take you down. It was a bit difficult, especially to try to aim and shoot while dodging rocks. Not so great but hey it's something different.


Then I am in San Francisco in Chinatown getting into battles with Yakuza. The game has a sort of achievement system which gives you goals to accomplish in each chapter. Like one was to kill 2 enemies with an octopus. You get into a fight in this bar that has fishtanks, you grab an enemy and throw them at the tank to bash it open, then inside the tank are some octopus you can throw. Oh there were two different paths to get into this bar, one lead you around a back, got you a hidden item and allowed you to sneak up on enemies. The other has you bashing in the door and getting jumped.


After the fight I end up in a fireworks factory where some guy is shooting at you so it's time to pull out the gun. There is a whole tutorial on how to use it, very slow, unskippable. The game puts you into cover, so you are always behind something, use the stick to move across the cover and up to pop out and aim. There was an enemy on a cross walk above me hiding behind cover. I had no clue what to do so he killed me a few times, which forced me to do the tutorial over again (AHHHHHH!). Finally I saw that I had to shoot these fireworks under him to blow up the crosswalk. Later you end up outside where there is a shootout on a roof, you shoot a water tower to get the enemies and such. The game moves you from cover to cover so you dont have much freedown, its almost like a gun range shooting gallery that shoots back.


Later you discover this hidden passege to a ship below, you have some more shake the wiimote moments, some shimming, some whipping. The finale of the level was a chase on one of the san francisc trollies, enemy vehicles would drive at it, you pop out of the sides to shoot their tires, very simple.


What you should take from all this is that I did a whole variety of things in just an hour and a half. None of it is award winning gameplay but I have played far worse, at least it keeps me on my toes. I like it so far, I see nothing horribly wrong with the game. I am already 25% done with the game though so its going to be SHORT. Yeah the story is almost non existant and Indy has no personality but that Indiana Jones quality of always getting into more and more trouble is there.

...


I think I can officially say that I like Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. The last two hours has mostly been spent inside temples, tombs and hidden passages. For larg chunks of time I didn't even fight, it was all about puzzle solving or avoiding booby traps. The puzzles are simple, mostly stuff like hit switches in order or move a block to a certain spot. There was one room where it was this large square arena and as you hit switches giant bolders would come out, there were these pieces of spinning floor which would send the boulders in different directions, soon the whole area was filled with giant rocks and you had to avoid them. It's linear and there is tons of hand holding but every I have noticed that there are hidden paths you can take, you need to be aware of the area to find them. There has been plenty of shimming across ledges and in classic video game fashion a piece of the ledge would crumble and you need to shake the wiimote to get up. It's been fun, the locations constantly change and the rooms always present some new puzzle or obstacle. By the time you feel the need for a fight one comes along.

It is a very simple game, it almost feels like it was made for kids. The game is fun, it's not a disaster, the simple gameplay it does have it does it well. While the wiimote implementation not that interesting, it's mostly waggle mania, it is not over the top as some websites *cough*Gamespot*cough* want to make you believe.

I have been looking for hidden artifacts, 36 of them allows me to play as Han Solo. As soon as I finish with this I will jump into Fates of Atlantis. Yes I will play a point and click adventure game, it'sa rare event.



...

I finished Staff of Kings last night, 6 hour game. Decent game,it's simple as nothing really stands out but it at least keeps you on your toes with puzzles and constantly changing gameplay segments. The combat is of the beat em up variety. Very few moves, you can pick up objects, use the environment to throw people into. Beacuse it uses motion control to punch its not as responsive and can lead to fights where you felt the controls messed you up rather than the difficulty, but it's still ok overall.

I tried the co-op a bit, it's cool, you got Indy's father and him on an adventure. I wish that was the main storyline. There are a few other modes and of course it comes with Fate of Atlantis. In no way is this game terrible.

Posted by Dvader Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:17:01
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