Indiana Jones & the Staff of Kings

Indiana Jones & the Staff of Kings has the makings of a great Indiana Jones movie. Indiana Jones? Check. Spunky female love interest/sidekick? Check. Mystical religious artifact? Check. Nazis? Check. Way too complicated tombs built by ancient civilizations with apparent access to technology far beyond what was common at the time? Check. Unfortunately, Staff of Kings isn't the fifth Indiana Jones movie, it's a game based on a movie franchise. So does that means it sucks? Check.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings takes place chronologically before and after the first three movies in the franchise. This time you're after the staff of Moses (the titular "Staff of Kings"), jetsetting from Panama to San Francisco to Istanbul and finally to Nepal. The plot feels like its ripped straight out of an Indiana Jones movie... although, that's not particularly tough, is it? Indiana Jones and the Nazis are after a powerful religious artifact, they fight along the way to finding the artifact, Indiana Jones saves the day. (I guess that last part is a spoiler. But if you didn't see that part coming, you haven't been exposed to nearly enough movies... or, y'know, fiction.)

The best things about the game are the puzzle tombs (rooms?) that you navigate on the way to the Staff of Kings. They also feel like they're ripped from an Indiana Jones movie. Those rooms should be fun but they end up being frustrating with the horrible controls and camera. If the PSP had a second analog stick to more accurately control the camera, I think playing through some of these levels would have been much less frustrating. Another major annoyance comes from traversing across beams. You have to hit the corrosponding shoulder button to keep Indy from falling off, while avoiding the swinging obstacles from knocking you off. Which doesn't seem that bad in theory... until you add in the fact that it's nearly impossible to tell if you've cleared the obstacle or not. I can't tell you how many times I fell off a beam because I thought I was clear of an obstacle only to not be. Each of the levels also includes five challenges and a number of artifacts to be found to try to extend gameplay. But the challenges that aren't ridiculously easy are ridiculously hard, so either you complete the challenges right away or you don't want to play through those levels again to complete those challenges. Completing those challenges give you points that you can use to upgrade things like health, power, etc.

Other than raiding tombs, Indy is also known for his brawling. Unfortunately, the fighting in the game is nothing special. You've got a light attack, strong attack, throw and dodge. You've also got a revolver which takes down enemies in one shot and a whip that will trip and possibly disarm your enemies. You can also use your environment to throw Nazis off balconies or smash them with chairs or chandeliers. I do have to note that the last boss fight is particularly frustrating. The camera is mostly to blame because it constantly follows you around, making you feel like you're fighting on an unstable tanker on the ocean. (You're not.)

I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the voice acting in the game, particularly Indiana Jones. Just listening to the character made me question whether or not they had gotten Harrison Ford to do the voice overs. But then logic took over and I looked up the credits to find a sound-alike instead of Harrison "would have had to be desperate for a paycheck" Ford.

Rating

Recommendations

On the broken PS3 front... it's basically still broken. So guess what? There's probably going to be another review of a PSP game while I try to get it fixed and I try to figure out where my DS walked off to...