Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings Review

Six years and three different cancellations later, we finally get an Indy game.

That's the 360, PS3 and novel versions if you're keeping track. Now I'm an unashamed Indiana Jones fan. I sat through and enjoyed both Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and despite obvious problems with both I'm still happy to go back to them.

Why? Because what I value about the Indy series was done correctly. Indy looked and sounded right (particularly with Harrison Ford under the hat of course); there was an interesting story with all the necessary explanations; Nazis were Nazis or they weren't used at all; (in Emperor's Tomb) the controls were fine; and the people involved really felt as if they cared about the character.

This is why Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings fails.

Whatever you do, don't look at it!

This problem is best illustrated by what some fans have labelled 'satchel gate'. Let's take a random picture of Indiana Jones and a picture of him in Staff Of Kings.


Notice anything wrong? Yes, he doesn't have his shoulder-bag. This may not seem like a big deal, which it isn't, but does show what little regard A2M have towards the franchise when they can't even get the character model right. They also don't see the harm in removing the word "Nazis" from the game either, with the enemies called "Germans" instead. That's actually Indy's first word in the game. It just takes something away from the Indy feeling in my opinion.

I don't know if you watch the Indy films for their exciting, adventurous stories, but you won't be getting that here either. The story jumps all over the place with little or no explanation (and no red lines on a map), with some major characters barely getting an introduction. Who's this Magnus Voller and why should we care? When did Indy and this Maggie O'Malley lady get a relationship? Oh, so that's Charles Kingston?

It's pretty obvious that cutscenes are missing, which very probably would have been ported over from the 360/PS3 version but after that got canned. A2M "forgot" to include them. It's a real pity, because the hints that we get about the story and the artifact (the biblical Staff of Moses) suggest that this could've been a really interesting Indiana Jones tale if only it'd been done properly.

Still, the music's handled well (although it's a little disappointing that it's mostly music from the films and Young Indy series and not all-new compositions like previous games), with good sound and the usual great LucasArts voice acting. Indy's voice is pretty much spot-on, for example.

He chose. poorly

Getting on to the game itself, gameplay is divided into three styles: Tomb Raider-style action/adventuring, Time Crisis-style on-rails-with-cover shoot-em-ups, and crap Wii-style motion-control frustrate-fests.

Of the three, the platforming, exploring and brawling is the most prevalent, just like it has been in the most recent Indy games. Unfortunately it's pretty disappointing how painfully linear these sections are, with both Emperor's Tomb and even Lego Indy offering more chances for exploration and treasure-hunting.

There are treasures to find, but since the path you're forced to follow is often confining, it's not usually hard to pick these up. It also took me a while to realise that there isn't a jump button, illustrating how dumbed-down it all is.

The first few levels are awful, but then, mercifully, as soon as you hit the Mayan Temple the game hits its stride. Puzzles are more puzzling, levels get a bit more open, and even the graphics get better. It's still sub-Tomb Raider, but it at least becomes fun and a bit of a challenge.

Fighting on the other hand stays pretty fun all the way through, thankfully. There's usually an abundance of things to pick up and use, or to chuck Nazis (sorry, Germans) off of, with a fair amount of combat moves too.

The shooting gallery moments are brief interludes in the main game, and I suppose they do their job. Unfortunately it makes some impressive sections far smaller than they seem to be, and probably would've worked better with a Gears of War-style optional cover system instead, but that's probably one of its lesser crimes.

A more heinous crime Staff of Kings commits is the motion-controlled sections, where you have to wave the Wii-mote about and hope it registers as the thing you want it to be. Some of these sections are rendered far too hard by the controller's over-sensitivity, with the biggest offender being a moment where you have to mimic a lever to swing a piano around a hangar. Nazis (sorry, Germans) run across the hangar and try to climb ladders to reach you. If even one makes it up the very-short ladders in time, you're dead. If you don't hit them at the bottom of the ladder, you find the piano's too low to hit them. Combine this with sensitive controls, some clipping issues and a lot of frustration, and you've got a recipe for TVs with Wiimote-shaped holes in them.

What a stupid legend, what a waste of my time!

So then, the single-player campaign is okay, fun in parts, but often frustrating or uninspiring. It must be said that the extras do go a long way towards making this feel better (another kick in the teeth for PS2 owners, who don't get most of them). The multiplayer battles are quite fun, with survival brawling for single or multiplayer too, although most of them have to be unlocked.

There are two really great features though. The first is a two-player co-op campaign totally separate from the main quest, where one player plays Indy and the other his Dad (complete with Sean Connery impersonator!). It's a little too reliant on motion controls, but co-operative play is fun in any game and that's certainly true here too.

The second is the much-advertised inclusion of the classic adventure Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis appearing for the first time on a console and it's first re-release in years. It's still just as brilliant as ever, although plenty of Wii owners will be stumped by the rock-hard puzzles (it doesn't have a hint system like LucasArts are doing for the Monkey Island Special Edition, this is a straight port).

It's a shame that subtitles can't be turned off, and bizarrely there's no Quit option to get back to Staff of Kings either (is that a bad thing?). However, it's a great example of all the things missing from the main campaign. I haven't checked to see if the word 'Nazi' is still in there though.

If you're an Indy fan, there's enough here to warrant a purchase, although preferably not at full price as you will be complaining about it all the way through. You might want to wait a month or two for it to get reduced.

It may be fun, but one thing's for sure: it wasn't worth the six-year wait. Why does a long wait for an Indiana Jones story usually end in disappointment?

5.5/10

Chris Capel