GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
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Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 06/22/2009
- Released on: 06/09/2009
- Originally published on GameSpot: Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii) Review
Will the disappointments never end for Indiana Jones fans? After last year's disappointing Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie, along comes the same heartbreak in video game form. Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings for the Nintendo Wii is every bit as big of a letdown as what Spielberg and Lucas foisted onto the silver screen last summer. Awful motion controls, simplistic action, a host of dumb design decisions, and graphics so old that they could have been dug out of an ancient tomb by the whip-cracking archaeologist himself make this third-person action-adventure one of the most dissatisfying games of the year.
6211951NoneBecause shooting directly at enemies is so last year.
Story is about the only area where Staff of Kings doesn't disappoint, and that's because it rips off Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. The year is 1939, and Indy is globetrotting in search of yet another Biblical McGuffin in the fabled Staff of Moses. His big enemies are--wait for it--Nazis and yet another rival archaeologist with no scruples. About the only Indy stereotype missing is a love interest, since Dr. Jones flies solo here. Even without the presence of a Marion Ravenwood-type, the plot is a far sight better than that in Crystal Skull. However, it unfolds in a very routine connect-the-dots fashion that holds absolutely no surprises for anyone who has ever seen the original tomb raider do his thing in a movie, and it doesn't have any sense of humor even in the goofiest moments. The absence of any chuckles is kind of a drag, too, since the Harrison Ford stand-in does a great job with Indy's dialogue, and a few wisecracks would have been welcome. The only innovative plot twist here comes in the cooperative multiplayer mode, where Indy teams up with his dad, Henry, in a series of 3D platforming challenges unrelated to the quest for Moses' great big stick. Because Henry was dropped from the Crystal Skull script due to Sean Connery's refusal to reprise the role, this cameo nicely steps in to serve as an alternate farewell to a memorable character in the Indy universe.
Once you get beyond the movie homage, however, the wheels fall off. The biggest problem is an overreliance on the Wii's motion-sensing control capabilities. The control stick handles basic movement, but beyond that, every one of Indy's signature whip cracks and roundhouse punches is choreographed with wiggles and waggles of the remote and the nunchuk. Whenever you need to do something more involved than running around or climbing onto a crate, an icon pops up on the lower right of the screen indicating what sort of wrist aerobics you have to pull off. And this gets old quickly.
No Indiana Jones adventure would be complete without lots of creeping around through ancient temples and tombs.
At first, it's kind of neat to flick the controller to punch out thugs, snap the remote forward to pull baddies into finishing moves with Indy's whip, target enemies with a pistol in carnival-style shooting sequences, pick up bats and other objects to use as weapons, and even fly a biplane. But such relentless use of motion controls for all of the action sequences in a nonstop action game wears you out, even in relatively short play sessions. The six-level jaunt through Sudan, San Francisco's Chinatown, Istanbul, and other stock pulp settings can be wrapped up in little more than six hours of play, though that limited amount of time seems awfully long and hard on the wrists when you're even pumping the remote up and down in a pretty intense manner to reload Indy's revolver. More judicious use of the motion controls for boss fights and puzzles would have been a lot easier to take than this kitchen-sink approach.
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Where to buy
Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii):
$18.99 - $19.99
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$18.99 | No |
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$19.82 | Yes |
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$19.99 | Yes |
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