Indy and the Staff of Kings for the DS is atrocious. While playing through the tutorial – just the tutorial mind you – this overwhelming surge of anger hit me and I thought I should stop playing the game. Unimaginative, slooooow and where the hell are the save points???
The Wii version, however, is quite different. 10 minutes into the game (which is how long I lasted on the DS version), I unlocked Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Joy. But the game’s actually decent enough for me to continue playing – despite having crashed TWICE in the first 20 minutes of gameplay. I have a natural talent for breaking things, see. At least there are save points this time round so all’s well.
The game’s meant to be an action-adventure (adventure as in roam around, find clues) and I like how it sneaks in sly references to both the movie and Indy and the Fate of Atlantis. However, the action bit seems a little half-hearted. I actually enjoyed the puzzle parts more than the action parts, most of which involves some laborously slow process of repeating the motions. Still, that’s not as frustrating as the glitches and bugs that remain in the game. Aforementioned crashes aside, it is quite unacceptable for glaring glitches like perpetually stuttering speech, sudden jittering of cameras or random deaths to be featuring as constantly in a game that’s being sold for real-life money.
3 hours into it, the novelty’s wearing thin. The linear gameplay and lack of progressive difficulty makes the action very predictable after a while. After dying 5 times in the same area due to loose controls in a particular area, I think I’m going to keep the game only for Fate of Atlantis. Brings back memories.