Yes, I realize LEGO Indiana Jones isn’t as swift to be written as my MGS4 review was, but then again I didn’t pick this game up a day before worldwide release. However, I’ve got to say, right away, in all seriousness, with as much use of punctuation as possible, that this is the best game you could ever buy. If it were in a sale. A really good sale. A really good sale where you also had a gift card to use. And there was nothing else in the store.

Minor exaggerations to be sure, but it’s all good, as I shall explain in this little piece on LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. I’d make some kind of whip reference but the chances are I’d make it sound hugely inappropriate, so forget that: onwards!

As you’re hopefully aware (grab your comfy seats, it’s backstory time) Travelers Tales have held onto the LEGO game license for a few years now, releasing the original LEGO Star Wars on every format under the sun and then a sequel - along with the inevitable cash cow that mashed both games together in a smorsgabord of LEGO-based lightsaber antics known as The Complete Saga - sometime later. Both games were very good and a laugh to play because they were simple, they were accessible, and their source material was instantly recognizable. Every location, character and even musical cue was something you could pick out and squeal “aaaah! I remember that from [film moment] in [film title]!”

Of course, since there aren’t any Star Wars films left to LEGOfy, Travelers Tales needed to move onto some new source material. Cue Lucasfilm who stepped in again and suggested that their other huge movie franchise be rendered in a more blocky form. I’m not talking about Labyrinth, because there’s just no way you could depict the tightness of David Bowie’s pants in that film on a LEGO mini-figure. Obviously, it’s time to don the plastic fedora and whip and step into the world of Indiana Jones.

Much like LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures revolves around the basic concept of taking the most memorable scenes from the first three films - since Crystal Skull, y’know, sucked - and letting you re-enact them with the characters, locations and the like intact, albeit made out of LEGO bricks. Each level is accessed from a central hub (in this case Barnett College, where Indy teaches in Temple of Doom), which also has various rooms which allow you to purchase extra characters with the LEGO studs you find scattered everywhere in the game, among other things.

Of course, LEGO Indy does its own thing too..more of that and more on page two.

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