Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii)

The past Indy adventure wasn't the greatest. Although grossing over 300 million at the box office, it lacked a true Indy adventure. Lucasarts hopes to redeem themselves with Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, for the Wii, PS2, and DS gaming systems. This review is for the Wii version.

The story is very intriguing so far. It revolves around Indy's quest for the Staff of Moses. It is set in 1939, and features many locales spanning from San Francisco to Panama.

Of course, Indy's greatest weapon is his mind, and he'd much rather come into a brawl the easy way than the hard way. That being said, if you want to avoid a head-on brawl, then search for an alternate route. The combat is where this game shines. Of course, what Indy game would be complete without mention of his whip, which couldn't be represented better in Staff of Kings. You can whip it by pressing B and swinging the remote like a whip. You use the whip for combat, grabbing items, and swinging across trenches.

During combat, you swing the Wii remote and Nunchuck wildly until you kill someone. You can pick up weapons, such as a shovel, a broom, or a stick, and use them against your foes. Of course, they can use them, too. Another cool feature is grappling, which means grabbing the enemy and ramming him into anything nearby, such as a gong, a desk, or even an aquarium. Sometimes, I saw myself just swinging the remotes wildly and not relying on the environment at all. I think the developers could've done a better job in the combat.

I'm not yet sold on the scenes where Indy must use his Revolver. They are difficult, and the enemies are very adept with a gun, and you just started. With that being said, I had to go through these levels quite a few times, and this means watching the cut scenes. This became annoying.

Another bothersome thing is that whenever I needed to interact with the environment (i.e. swing over a trench, or sneak across a ledge), it took me a while to find where to do this. And I usually ended up falling to my doom while trying to place my footing correctly.

The motion controls work very well, and you use them not just for fighting enemies, but also lighting torches and swinging items around, and much more.

The graphics are just fine, not great, not bad, just ok. There were a little frame rate issues, especially in a level where a building was on fire, but this issue quickly resolved itself later in the game.

Is Indy's latest adventure top-notch, or does it fall short? I think it has as many hits as it does misses, but this is still a fun adventure game. Rent it first.

Pros:
Fun Overall Adventure
Nice Story

Cons:
So and So Combat
Frame Rate
Some Control Issues

OVERALL: 5.9/10