For all the grief the LEGO franchise receives, they have always delivered a solid gaming experience and a unique take on pop-culture. Well, until now. This half-hearted sequel is the first time it feels as though the franchise is just mailing it in, with Indiana Jones 2 taking major steps backwards in just about every way possible. While not the first time the developers have taken a second stab at an iconic series, their first sequel, for the Star Wars films, had three additional films worth of material. Here, gamers find only the sub-par Crystal Skull film as the new material. Unlike LEGO's solid reworking of the lackluster prequel trilogy, they do not make a bad film more tolerable here. They actually make the film seem even worse, by artificially extending the ham-fisted cash-grabber with inane vehicle sections sure to bore just about anyone to the 'eject' button before seeing it through. The vehicle sections handle as poorly as any of the other LEGO titles, with the same stubborn camera angles, but this time are much more frequent; with minigame races to keep you occupied through each film's hub.
The wonderful overworld hub for choosing your movie world and purchasing new items or characters, present in all LEGO titles to this point, is conspicuously missing this time around. Instead, you choose your movie from a bland warehouse-style menu system. Once in the film world, you move about a film set, of sorts, where you enter each level by walking into buildings marked with a green arrow. There are also bonus levels and optional minigame levels marked with yellow arrows, along with various items and characters to purchase, but one spin through the main movie levels is all anyone in their right mind will give this one. The longer, more platform-heavy, levels are gone in large, in favor of claustrophobic single-room levels where you clear out one wave of enemies, only to have another appear. Repeat this a few times, and the level is clear and you head back to the film hub to track down the next green arrow. It is a convoluted way of getting from one story level to the next, and the mind-numbing monotony of the levels is enough to make you wish for a nearby ark to open.
In addition to all else the game gets wrong, it leans far too heavily on the Crystal Skull film. The game delivers each of the first three films in one chunky section for each, told with new LEGO-ized takes on the classic moments. Seeing the disco-dancing ending to Raiders Of The Lost Ark might make your stomach turn a bit, but the developers do a nice job of delivering some childish humor for younger gamers. They extend Crystal Skull to three parts, each the size of the other three films. Not even the cute LEGO pantomimes can save the film, though. There is a solid level editor, where gamers can create their own levels with items from game worlds they have already played, as well as an entertaining character creator, but the creation mode fails by not connecting to Live. With no Live functionality here, you not only are locked into playing with same-console partners for the whole game, but also cannot share your created levels, adventures, or characters.
This also cuts off any possibility of extending the gameplay beyond what you can do yourself, by not allowing you to download friend creations. It is not anywhere near the level of complexity of Little Big Planet, but the level creation could have definitely made up for a lot of the game's ills if opened to the Live community. LEGO Indiana Jones 2 feels like a cash-grab, tossing a half-baked version of a well-liked franchise out to retail just in time for unsuspecting parents to purchase. Do your little gamer a favor and avoid this one like a pit of snakes.
