Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii)
Rounding off my first bunch of reviews is Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings on Wii. So grab your fedora's, the bullwhips, and cue the Wilhelm screams, and let's see how this game does.
For the individual buttons, A runs a lot of your action commands, letting you pick items up, interact with things in the world, makes you prone against a wall so you can walk along a ledge, and pressing it in combination with the B button makes Indy duck during combat to avoid punches. The B button is only used during shooting sections of the game, firing Indy's gun. The D-pad moves the camera around, and pressing the C button will center the camera behind Indy. Lastly, the joystick controls Indy's movements.
The motion controls are where you will get the most interaction in this game. During combat, the Wiimote and Nunchuk allow Indy to punch. You can flick it down for a jab, sideways for a hook, and up for an uppercut, with the mote controlling Indy's right hand and the chuk controlling his left. After you've picked up an item, if you hold A and flick the mote, you will throw the item. Holding B and flicking the mote will use Indy's whip. You can use the whip during combat to either drag down certain areas of the environment to take out an enemy, or you can use it to bring an enemy closer to Indy for a personal confrontation. You can grab enemies around the neck, waist, and feet by flicking the mote up, sideways, or down respectively while holding B. During the shooting sections of the game, the mote is used to aim Indy's gun, bringing a small aiming reticle on the screen wherever you point it. You can also flick the mote offscreen to manually reload the gun.
Lastly, there are some mini-games in Staff of Kings that also make use of the motion controls. In the opening level you get to fly a plane by holding the Wiimote vertically and moving it around as if you were holding the flight control stick. There are quick time events where you have to make Indy run faster by "drumming" the Wiimote and nunchuk fast enough to keep him ahead of whatever he's trying to get away from.
All in all, a very well done control scheme. It's simple, and it makes use of the motion controls in a way that makes sense for what they're being used for. So let's see how the game itself stacks up.
All the levels begin with Indy arriving at his new location and generally start off pretty slow. You get to wander a bit and get yourself set for where you have to go or what you have to find. They all play out on very linear and very restricted paths, but a good amount of the puzzle areas are wide open for you to find your own way through for solving the puzzle. There's always some platforming to do, with Indy climbing his way across ledges or jumping over gaps and sometimes using the whip to swing across larger gaps.
The combat is broken up throughout the levels, typically not making an appearance until Indy gets to the heart of the level, and then surprise, the Nazi's are crashing his party. While in combat you can choose to either take the enemies on straight up by yourself, or use the environment to help you out as some objects can be grabbed with the whip and pulled down for a fast takedown of an enemy, or you can grapple your opponent and throw them into certain objects as well.
The shooting sequences turn into short on-rail sections, beginning with Indy taking cover behind something. You'll face a number of enemies in an area and once you clear your way through them, he'll come out of cover and run up to the next area, repeating the process until it's all done. These can be pretty fun, especially on the Wii version as you get to actually aim your gun. The reticle lends some assistance, turning green when you have it over something that you can shoot.
Puzzles are pretty plentiful in the game, and can be a lot of fun. There's a wide range of them, too, from simple ones like Indy moving a block to a specific point so he can reach a higher place, to my personal favorite, the inclusion of the Mayan ball pit game, where Indy has to dodge gigantic boulders being spun around the pit while he's trying to pick up a smaller ball and get it through a golden ring.
Lastly, there are a couple of bosses in the game, but they're not much more than just beefed up enemies to fight in hand to hand combat.
In the end, Staff of Kings is a great play. Let's take a look and see how much of a challenge it is.
The enemies, are a decent challenge. In the hand-to-hand combat, the majority of the enemies are a "normal" level, where Indy can just walk right up to them and start landing punches. Some are of a brute style, that usually require you to wait until the try to attack Indy, then dodge the attack and start in on them yourself. And the bosses have an even higher level of toughness that requires more precision of dodging their attacks before you start your own. These guys never appear on their own, you usually find them in packs of at least three or four, but if you come across bigger packs of them you might get a little overwhelmed as Indy's attacks are a little slow and can easily be interrupted by someone from behind.
In the shooting sections, you're usually pretty far away from your enemies, who are also taking cover of their own. You have to time it so you pop out of cover to shoot them when they pop out before they can get a shot off on you. But you're usually dealing with at least three at a time, so you have to find the sweet spot where you can shoot at one without either of the others shooting at you. Sometimes you get these shooting sections with explosive items near your enemies so you can take most or all of them down with one shot if you time it right, and depending on how close they are.
A lot of the puzzles are fairly easy. As long as you're paying attention to what's going on, they don't require a lot of explanation, since most of them are just finding your way to a switch. Some are a bit tougher, but Indy narrates his way through the whole game and he'll tend to either give you a quick tip for what you need to do, for example there's a hallway with giant gears that are pushing sections of a stone wall out into the path that could crush Indy, but there is a pile of skulls nearby and he comments that maybe he could do something with the skulls, leaving you to figure out exactly what to do with them.
The platforming and quick-time events aren't too bad. The platforming is pretty simple, Indy can swing his way over gaps, or use the whip in places to climb to higher ones, and shimmying along ledges. However, the quick-time events can be pretty frustrating as a lot of them don't pop up with a lot of time for you to do the required action before Indy gets killed, so some of the sections with a lot of platforming between checkpoints turn into a bit of a memory game.
Overall, Staff of Kings can be a bit challenging, but not too much so. The biggest "challenge" really only comes from the QTE's that don't pop up in time, something that could have easily been avoided, but it doesn't take away too much from the game. So, let's look more at what was good and what was bad about this game.
- Indy's respawn. Anybody who's seen any Indiana Jones movie knows the key scene where something happens that may or may not have killed Indy, and all the other actors start treating as he did die. Then Indy's hat blows in from off screen, then you see the boots as he steps into the frame, straddling the hat before bending down to pick it up. Well, any time you die in this game, when it brings you back to the last checkpoint, this is exactly what happens each and every time.
- Wilhelm scream. Another big staple from really any Lucas or Spielberg movie is the Wilhelm scream. If you don't know what it is, it's an old sound clip that nobody really knows it's actual origin, but the earliest use is in an old Western movie Distant Drums where the scream was added in for a character who was being torn apart by an alligator. The scream sound has been used in hundreds of movies ever since, but it tends to find its way into the majority of Lucas and Spielberg projects, and it's in this game as well. (And now I taught you something with this review too...maybe).
So that's it for my first "lap" of reviews, I covered every major console I currently own (with the exception of PS4). From here, I'm going to start going all over the place. I have a Facebook page that will be live by the time this is posted so I'll start leaving the link at the end of the reviews. So please, pop over to the page and leave me a comment on what you think of my reviews, and definitely throw me any suggestions you'd like, whether it's something interesting you think is a must play for me, or just a game that you have your own thoughts on and you want to see what mine are. So I hope you've been enjoying this and hope to hear from you soon!
www.facebook.com/mbentonhg
The Story
The game begins in Sudan with Indy finding his way to a temple that contains a lost idol. He makes his way to it and swipes it, but is stopped on his way out by a couple of Nazi soldiers. He gives them the idol and makes his escape from the temple, fighting through more soldiers outside before flying out of a canyon in a small plane. Later, Indy is summoned to San Francisco by a friend of his, Archie, who tells Indy of the disappearance of an old colleague of his. He arrives to discover that Archie and his granddaughter, Suzie, have been kidnapped. He manages to rescue Suzie before it's too late and learns that Archie was guarding an artifact called the Jade Sphere. Indy sets out to find the importance of the sphere as well as save his friend. His rescue plan leads him all over the world and throws him into the middle of a quest that just might lead to Moses' staff.The Controls
The controls for Staff of Kings don't use very much of the Wiimote and Nunchuk buttons, but it makes a very good use of the controller's motion capabilities.For the individual buttons, A runs a lot of your action commands, letting you pick items up, interact with things in the world, makes you prone against a wall so you can walk along a ledge, and pressing it in combination with the B button makes Indy duck during combat to avoid punches. The B button is only used during shooting sections of the game, firing Indy's gun. The D-pad moves the camera around, and pressing the C button will center the camera behind Indy. Lastly, the joystick controls Indy's movements.
The motion controls are where you will get the most interaction in this game. During combat, the Wiimote and Nunchuk allow Indy to punch. You can flick it down for a jab, sideways for a hook, and up for an uppercut, with the mote controlling Indy's right hand and the chuk controlling his left. After you've picked up an item, if you hold A and flick the mote, you will throw the item. Holding B and flicking the mote will use Indy's whip. You can use the whip during combat to either drag down certain areas of the environment to take out an enemy, or you can use it to bring an enemy closer to Indy for a personal confrontation. You can grab enemies around the neck, waist, and feet by flicking the mote up, sideways, or down respectively while holding B. During the shooting sections of the game, the mote is used to aim Indy's gun, bringing a small aiming reticle on the screen wherever you point it. You can also flick the mote offscreen to manually reload the gun.
Lastly, there are some mini-games in Staff of Kings that also make use of the motion controls. In the opening level you get to fly a plane by holding the Wiimote vertically and moving it around as if you were holding the flight control stick. There are quick time events where you have to make Indy run faster by "drumming" the Wiimote and nunchuk fast enough to keep him ahead of whatever he's trying to get away from.
All in all, a very well done control scheme. It's simple, and it makes use of the motion controls in a way that makes sense for what they're being used for. So let's see how the game itself stacks up.
The Gameplay
Staff of Kings is an action game with a lot of puzzle elements in it as well as some platforming. It's broken down into levels, each of these broken down into smaller scenes. Each level is very linear, but there is some minor exploration included, letting you wander a little off path to find different fedora icons that are completely optional.All the levels begin with Indy arriving at his new location and generally start off pretty slow. You get to wander a bit and get yourself set for where you have to go or what you have to find. They all play out on very linear and very restricted paths, but a good amount of the puzzle areas are wide open for you to find your own way through for solving the puzzle. There's always some platforming to do, with Indy climbing his way across ledges or jumping over gaps and sometimes using the whip to swing across larger gaps.
The combat is broken up throughout the levels, typically not making an appearance until Indy gets to the heart of the level, and then surprise, the Nazi's are crashing his party. While in combat you can choose to either take the enemies on straight up by yourself, or use the environment to help you out as some objects can be grabbed with the whip and pulled down for a fast takedown of an enemy, or you can grapple your opponent and throw them into certain objects as well.
The shooting sequences turn into short on-rail sections, beginning with Indy taking cover behind something. You'll face a number of enemies in an area and once you clear your way through them, he'll come out of cover and run up to the next area, repeating the process until it's all done. These can be pretty fun, especially on the Wii version as you get to actually aim your gun. The reticle lends some assistance, turning green when you have it over something that you can shoot.
Puzzles are pretty plentiful in the game, and can be a lot of fun. There's a wide range of them, too, from simple ones like Indy moving a block to a specific point so he can reach a higher place, to my personal favorite, the inclusion of the Mayan ball pit game, where Indy has to dodge gigantic boulders being spun around the pit while he's trying to pick up a smaller ball and get it through a golden ring.
Lastly, there are a couple of bosses in the game, but they're not much more than just beefed up enemies to fight in hand to hand combat.
In the end, Staff of Kings is a great play. Let's take a look and see how much of a challenge it is.
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
Staff of Kings presents a moderate level of challenge between the puzzles, combat, and platforming elements of the game.The enemies, are a decent challenge. In the hand-to-hand combat, the majority of the enemies are a "normal" level, where Indy can just walk right up to them and start landing punches. Some are of a brute style, that usually require you to wait until the try to attack Indy, then dodge the attack and start in on them yourself. And the bosses have an even higher level of toughness that requires more precision of dodging their attacks before you start your own. These guys never appear on their own, you usually find them in packs of at least three or four, but if you come across bigger packs of them you might get a little overwhelmed as Indy's attacks are a little slow and can easily be interrupted by someone from behind.
In the shooting sections, you're usually pretty far away from your enemies, who are also taking cover of their own. You have to time it so you pop out of cover to shoot them when they pop out before they can get a shot off on you. But you're usually dealing with at least three at a time, so you have to find the sweet spot where you can shoot at one without either of the others shooting at you. Sometimes you get these shooting sections with explosive items near your enemies so you can take most or all of them down with one shot if you time it right, and depending on how close they are.
A lot of the puzzles are fairly easy. As long as you're paying attention to what's going on, they don't require a lot of explanation, since most of them are just finding your way to a switch. Some are a bit tougher, but Indy narrates his way through the whole game and he'll tend to either give you a quick tip for what you need to do, for example there's a hallway with giant gears that are pushing sections of a stone wall out into the path that could crush Indy, but there is a pile of skulls nearby and he comments that maybe he could do something with the skulls, leaving you to figure out exactly what to do with them.
The platforming and quick-time events aren't too bad. The platforming is pretty simple, Indy can swing his way over gaps, or use the whip in places to climb to higher ones, and shimmying along ledges. However, the quick-time events can be pretty frustrating as a lot of them don't pop up with a lot of time for you to do the required action before Indy gets killed, so some of the sections with a lot of platforming between checkpoints turn into a bit of a memory game.
Overall, Staff of Kings can be a bit challenging, but not too much so. The biggest "challenge" really only comes from the QTE's that don't pop up in time, something that could have easily been avoided, but it doesn't take away too much from the game. So, let's look more at what was good and what was bad about this game.
PROS
- While the voice actor for Indiana Jones isn't Harrison Ford, the guy who does it (Jack Armstrong) does such an amazing job that at first listen, you think it is Harrison Ford. So even though it's not the original Indy, it's close enough that it still gives you the same feel.- Indy's respawn. Anybody who's seen any Indiana Jones movie knows the key scene where something happens that may or may not have killed Indy, and all the other actors start treating as he did die. Then Indy's hat blows in from off screen, then you see the boots as he steps into the frame, straddling the hat before bending down to pick it up. Well, any time you die in this game, when it brings you back to the last checkpoint, this is exactly what happens each and every time.
- Wilhelm scream. Another big staple from really any Lucas or Spielberg movie is the Wilhelm scream. If you don't know what it is, it's an old sound clip that nobody really knows it's actual origin, but the earliest use is in an old Western movie Distant Drums where the scream was added in for a character who was being torn apart by an alligator. The scream sound has been used in hundreds of movies ever since, but it tends to find its way into the majority of Lucas and Spielberg projects, and it's in this game as well. (And now I taught you something with this review too...maybe).
CONS
- Delayed QTE's. It is such an annoyance in this game, you'll be doing so well then all of a sudden something falls or starts chasing Indy, but the action you have to do to avoid it only pops up on the screen for a split-second and before you can even start doing what you have to, Indy dies. It's not everywhere in the game which makes it not as bad, but it happens enough that it will probably be one of the leading reasons you die.Final Verdict
In the end, while Staff of Kings can be a little frustrating, it's still a great play, even if you're not a die hard Indiana Jones fan (but let's be real, who isn't?) The story is a lot of fun, the graphics are great, and you get to control all the Indy action yourself which is a blast. This game got made on a few different platforms but if you're going to pick it up, I'd aim for the Wii version as it makes the shooting sections a bit more fun with actually getting to aim.So that's it for my first "lap" of reviews, I covered every major console I currently own (with the exception of PS4). From here, I'm going to start going all over the place. I have a Facebook page that will be live by the time this is posted so I'll start leaving the link at the end of the reviews. So please, pop over to the page and leave me a comment on what you think of my reviews, and definitely throw me any suggestions you'd like, whether it's something interesting you think is a must play for me, or just a game that you have your own thoughts on and you want to see what mine are. So I hope you've been enjoying this and hope to hear from you soon!
www.facebook.com/mbentonhg
