LEGO Indiana Jones: Hands-on preview

Then we skipped on to the Temple Of Doom section of the game (the opening levels of all three films are accessible from the university hub environment right from the start) and things began to improve rapidly. Escaping from Club Obi Wan required club singer Willie to take centre stage as Indy flailed round in a semi-drunken state after being poisoned. Taking part in an extreme game of Piggie In The Middle in an effort to obtain the antidote saw her using ever more inventive means to get hold of objects to hurl at the bad guys, and the whole thing was rather a hell of a lot of fun.

Moving on to the jungle, our enjoyment accelerated as the puzzles became bigger and more complex. Environmental conundrums spanning whole rooms began to crop up regularly, and required sharp co-operative use of the abilites of all three of the characters under our control. Indy can use his whip to swing across hazards and pull objects towards him, Short Round can crawl through small tunnels to previously inaccessible areas and Willie, rather fittingly, has a scream that can break glass, as well as being able to jump further than the others. As the scope of the puzzles expanded, LEGO Indy began to feel more and more like a 3D update of old 16-bit favourite The Lost Vikings, and there are few more complimentary comparisons for an action-puzzler than that.

The Last Crusade continued the theme of increasing quality, throwing in a comedy boat chase alongside a great sight gag based around the “X marks the spot” moment in the library. And by the time we’d liberated LEGO Sean Connery, the smiles were appearing on our faces much more regularly. Stamping around a Nazi castle using Jones Sr. to crack secret codes and Jones Jr. for the whupping of arses, we could almost feel the chemistry of the film’s stars begin to exude from their little plastic counterparts.

Some of our issues with the beginning of the game remained. The puzzle-fight-puzzle-fight structure continued, as did the occasional solutions that came about by us simply smashing everything in the room. But our attitudewas changing. With more interesting problems to solve, new weapons to play with and our nostalgic childhood memories of building and mercilessly destroying countless LEGO creations fresh in our minds, we were having a great time in LEGO Indy’s eminently destructible little playground. We were feeling far more hopeful for the finished game than we were at the beginning of our play, and we still are.

It still remains to be seen how dominant the game’s tone and pacing problems may or may not turn out to be in the final build. Indeed, it also remains to be seen whether the LEGO magic is strong enough to maintain its vitality past theStar Warsgames andintoan extended franchise. We are though, most definitely looking forward to finding out. And as soon as we find out, you will too.