Let me start by saying I liked the latest Indy movie. Turn your brain off, and it’s a lot of fun. Controversy! Anyway, Staff of Kings is an all new Indy adventure for the Wii, but unfortunately it falls into many of the same traps as a lot of Wii games.
The story is generic Indy stuff, seeing the titular hero travelling the globe in search of artefacts, on the trail of his kidnapped friend, and punching Nazi face. You’ll travel through a wide variety of environments including places like jungles, deserts and cities, and the locales actually look quite nice. The Harrison Ford sound-alike does a decent job as Indy (though the facial animations are freaky), and the music, while mostly forgettable, does feature that all important theme tune. The potential was certainly there for a grand adventure…
Unfortunately, another Wii game has fallen prey to the overuse of waggle. To throw a punch, you waggle. To complete quick-time events, you waggle. To use the whip, you waggle. It works for some games (such as Twilight Princess), but here it just feels imprecise and frustrating. This is a shame, because combat is fairly enjoyable, if repetitive. Indy will throw a different punch depending on which direction you waggle, and punching baddies in the face is actually quite satisfying. There’s no block button, but Indy can dodge and counter if A and B are pressed together with the right timing. You can also pick up weapons and use the environment to your advantage. Unfortunately, ‘the environment’ generally translates to what the developers specifically want you to use, and this usually means pulling down small structures on top of everyone, Indy included. The iconic whip also makes an appearance in combat, allowing you to disarm or grapple opponents with a flick of the wrist (while holding B). Bafflingly, there is no lock on feature, so make sure you point in the right direction when punching, and if you want to target a specific enemy with the whip, tough. Combat can be frustrating, but generally there are enough options for it to remain fun.
Combat is interspersed with shooting sections, where Indy takes cover and the game turns into a third-person Time Crisis, involving peeking out of cover and taking shots at the enemy with the Wiimote. These sections are actually really fun, and you really need to be quick on the draw to take out enemies and avoid being shot, clever use of the environment (e.g. shooting out water tanks) often being the only way to progress.
I bet $100 you can't whip that ball into the corner pocket!
Navigating the environment, however, is dull and tedious. Indy’s movement is not fluid, and generally you are just moving through the linear path the developers have laid out for you. No Prince of Persia style shenanigans here – just Indy lumbering without haste from place to place, looking for the next ‘interact with environment here’ icon to flash up – which, incidentally, can be quite hard to find, since climbable walls and ledges all tend to blur into the surrounding environment. The game really would have benefitted from some actual movement puzzles, rather than just ‘find the whip icon’. As a sidenote, flying the plane (using the Wiimote as a joystick), while difficult, was actually quite fun and showed potential for a proper flight sim on the Wii.
There are also numerous frustrations in the game that should have been picked up in play-testing. Chief among these is the stupid checkpoint placements. Far too many times you will die and have to restart a tedious series of basic climbs, or watch a long, unskippable cutscene again. In this day and age, there is simply no reason for this. Indy also seems to be particularly fond of falling off cliffs. Press the wrong direction while shimmying along a ledge, and Indy will decide the best course of action is to leap off to his doom – and of course the control of movement doesn’t always align with the camera angle. Often, you will come to a dead end, with no idea how to progress, so you try dropping down a ledge, only to discover it’s slightly too far, and Indy just dies halfway down. Later, you discover you simply missed some featureless area of wall that you can actually interact with. Silly. It feels like the game is almost punishing you for playing it.
Trampled by a statue of a horse. How ironic.
And finally, playtime is quite short – around 5-6 hours to complete the main game – but there are some co-op missions and unlockables (including the full version of the PC adventure game, Fates of Atlantis!) to keep gamers occupied. Ultimately, it might entertain younger Indy fans, but it’s probably too simple and frustrating for older gamers. Hardcore Indy fans may want to give it a rent.
By watchers_eye
Graphics: C+
Environments look nice, but characters animate poorly and Indy’s face looks bizarre.
Sound: B-
Decent Harrison Ford sound-alike and ‘that’ tune, but pretty forgettable generally. Kudos on the ‘punch to the face’ noise though!
Gameplay: C+
Shooting is great, combat is good, but navigating the environment is dull and frustrating. BEGONE, WAGGLE!
Overall: C+
Worth a rent for Indy fans, but too frustrating and dull to warrant a purchase.
