Title: LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
Platforms: PC, PS3, PS2, Wii, Xbox 360 (review platform)
Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: Traveller's Tales
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

I was as surprised as anyone when Traveller's Tales and LucasArts released LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game to critical and financial success in 2005. It was such a simple idea but executed perfectly. Since then we've enjoyed LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga; each adding new pieces to the LEGO game formula. Following the logic of the LEGO Star Wars phenomenon comes LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. It's exactly the game you expect it to be which, in the end, makes it just a tiny bit disappointing. LEGO Indiana Jones holds few surprises for fans of the LEGO Star Wars games but it's still a great time.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures takes gamers through the first three Indiana Jones films rendered in LEGO-block glory. Like LEGO Star Wars before it, this game opts out of rehashing the movies' plots with much detail and focuses on the films' high points with gameplay sections connected by brief, dialogue-free cut scenes. All the classic scenes are touched on: the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the giant boulder, the mine cart chase from "Temple of Doom" and the Grail temple from "The Last Crusade." If you've never seen the films you'll find the game's "story" to be largely unintelligible. However LEGO games aren't about telling a story, they're about replaying the exciting parts of stories you know by heart.

The game opens with "Raiders" of course, and the level called The Lost Temple where Indy and Satipo venture through spiders and booby traps to retrieve the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol. The opening level serves as a tutorial introducing the game's basic controls and principles. Smashing and building LEGO objects to collect studs remains a big part of the game as well as special silver LEGO objects that can only be destroyed by explosions, movable objects and special character access abilities. Once The Lost Temple level is finished Indy finds himself at Barnett College which acts as the hub for the duration.

LEGO Indy uses his whip for swinging across chasms, solving puzzles and even some combat.

From Barnett College Indy can choose to play levels in any of the three movies. Only the first level in each movie is available with subsequent missions unlocking as you play. The College has several rooms where Indy can spend studs to unlock other playable characters, view the artifacts he's found throughout the levels, build custom characters and watch the cut scenes that have been unlocked just to name a few.

The movies are made up of six levels each corresponding to action scenes and locations of importance. For instance in "Raiders" there's The Well of the Souls level which isn't very action-oriented but it has to be there. The levels all have their own look and feel and being aware of the films will definitely help you get through some of them. There aren't any vehicle-only levels like in the LEGO Star Wars games but there are a few levels that involve the use of vehicles and even chase areas like in Pursuing the Ark in "Raiders" and Escape the Mines in "Temple." All the missions are good but some are more fun to replay than others. The Free Play option allows you to get to entire areas that were inaccessible in Story Mode so playing through the levels again has its own rewards.

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