After all the trailers and comments from the defs, the hype had you believe this would be great. WRONG!
Graphics. It looks cartoony, it looks buggy, it looks like a ps1 game minus the 3d polygons. The artifact icons and save popups remind me of a N64 platformer. Simple glowy icons just spinning there. Not resembling what its supposed to be for it only being Indys hat....Snow and wind effects are lovely, so is the final water mission with the parting of the sea. The enemies all look the same and sound the same as well. Expecting exciting bosses? Your harshly out of luck.
Sound/Music. May be the best part of this game. A great rendition of John Williams peice direct from the movies. It brought back all kinds of Indiana Jones memories of various scenes. They utalized mergeing his theme into the stages well. The voice acting wasnt anything special. Typical german accents, nothing memorable.
Level Design. It was actually very good. You travel around the world from Sudan, San Fran, Nepel, Istanbul, Panama, and each captured the essence. Not that Ive been to any of them, but it made you feel like Indiana has. The temples actually looked anciant and mysterious. Great interpretations of the puzzles into its coherent themes. The mayan ball game, and the insect lairs, and the ice statues in the Nepal mtns, the puzzles were more fun and numerous then the broken fighting.
Controls. BROKEN! Using the wii mote and chuck had you just flailing to an unresponsive Indiana punching air.The various whip moves seem to be very mixed up. But the WORST part about it was the airplane, the motorcycle, and the piano crane. Very VERY broken and frusterating events that will have you cursing at the tv at the top of your lungs. The sheer stupidity of tilting, wafting and shakeing your wii remote at the absurd tasks felt so delayed and so FAILED it just makes you mad thinking of it. Also adding enemies to fight via counter only or weapons only stole the strategy and skill from the fights. Its fun but not that fun. It could have been great. The shooting was like playing a lame shooting gallery for a cheap arcade. Remember Duck Hunt? Yea, just as fun as that. Its also very annoying and goofy seeing childish hands telling you to wave the remote ,BLOCKING your screen. Let me stress how retarded the piano crane scene is. You control a piano via crane and must tilt your remote and knock badguys off the ladder or youl die. The piano doesnt reach the top of the ladders so you have one shot and the stiffness was ridiculous.
Story. The story was okay and just that...Okay. You quest for the same staff Moses possessed. The one that in the bible he used to part the seas. A nice concept but it had every cliche done before. Persued by Nazis, a double agent vixen that you fall in love with. A menter that gets shot and dies. After all the Indiana Jones stories couldnt they come up with something besides Nazis? It takes another twist with the mythical and supernatural.
If you remember Emperors tomb for the xbox or ps2, this game will make you miss it. Emperors tomb is far superior in every way. It looks more advanced then IJSOK!! I was lenient on this game because it did keep me ennamered, probably because its Indiana Jones. The fighting was indeed fun once you got used to it, with plenty of weapons and environmental interactions. But what killed this game was the god awful controls for everything else. Motorcycles airplanes, elephants and the wretched piano crane. Even the gun fights were a turn off. The game brought nothing special, at all what so ever. We should sue for false advertisement.
It was chalk full of unlockables...which isnt exactly a good thing. Theres skins, like indy tux and big heads....Big heads? Yep N64! How freakin stupid!! Theres concept art (woopdy doo) movie trailers (Incase your only 7 or 8 years old or been living under a rock) Cheap game modes and co-op. Now if you manage to find a sucker to play co op its just a mish mash of tasks. Its cool that its Indys dad to.
BUT THE BEST part is IJ Fate of Atlantis. They ported the old pc game to this. It may even be better then SoK ...HAH!
Length. ITS FREAKING SHORT! 10 hours at best.
My view. What I think they should have done was give the option for controller use. A controller would dumb down the dumbness and amp up the execution. It would give the wii mote and chuck hooplah a break and nuetralize the over WAY OVER innovations of it. Mote n Chuck ticking you off? Just switch to controller....thatd be very nice. They could have made the graphics better as well....And forgod sakes its so short. All that or make it worth 30 bucks.
Now Im not hateing it rather then just dissapointed. Its a sub par game but if your not an Indiana Jones fan, just dont bother with it.