How do you guys like the new music? ZP was getting a bit too big to continue using commercial music without drawing attention, so now it opens and closes with generic heavy metal. Call it his Guilty Gear period.

Zero Punctuation: LEGO Indy [The Escapist]

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures looks like and plays like the Star Wars games, but is it as fun controlling a mini-fig Short Round as it was controlling the blocky, arm-ripping Chewbacca? Read on to find out.

Loved
Art Design: Traveller's Tales nails the look of this latest LEGO adaption of a beloved movie franchise. The mini-figs are lovingly detailed, from the large-dot stubble on Indy's chin to the trim of Willie Scott's dress. The environments are naturally more organic looking than those found in Star Wars with plenty of plastic spiders, bugs and snakes crawling around amid lots of jungles. And the traps, from spears to spikes to saw blades, add a much needed sense of trepidation to the game.

Fun Abilities: Any first-timer with the game is going to want to bogart Indy and run around whipping things, anything, because it's that much fun. But the other characters also have some fun abilities. Satipo comes equipped with a shovel for digging things up, some of the female characters can jump higher, Thuggees can access secret passage ways behind statues, Henry Jones Sr. can solve hieroglyphic puzzles, to name a few. My favorite? Willie Scott has a button dedicated to her famous scream... and it breaks glass.

Phobias: Call them anti-abilities, but some of the characters in the game have phobias that have a pretty sizable impact on gameplay. Indiana Jones' famous fear of snakes, for instance, is so strong that when he approaches one, or hundreds, he covers his eyes and walks around in little circles moaning until they move away. But his is not the only phobia in the game.

Lots of Depth: It may not have taken me much more than a few days to make my way through the three movies, but there's still lots to explore. A typical play-through of a chapter meant I found maybe a third of what was there for me to do. All of the chapters, once unlocked for freeplay, are going to require going through multiple times with different characters to find everything.

Happy Easter: Apart from the depth of the game, the ability to replay levels over and over again just to find everything Indiana Jones related, this game is packed, absolutely packed with Easter Eggs. Everything from out of time, out of space characters to whole scenes from other movies make appearances in the game and uncovering them is always a delight.

Hated
Plot Change: LEGO-fying a movie gives developers a lot of latitude about what they can deal with without getting a higher rating, I suspect. This game manages to deliver decapitations, people being crushed to death, impaled on spikes, all in a way that I allowed my 7-year-old to watch. So why did they decide to remove crucial scenes from the movie in this adaptation? How can it be the Last Crusade without Nazis? How can it be the Raiders without face melting? The only heart plucking going on in this trilogy is the one the developers did when they created Temple of Doom without its most memorable scene.

Perspective Issues: As with the LEGO Star Wars game, Indy has some issues with perspective. While platforming through levels, the odd perspective makes it almost impossible to tell if you're going to land on solid ground or thin air. Fortunately, this doesn't happen enough to bog down the whole game and the developers did add some visual cues to help locate hanging objects.

Not So Funny: Maybe LEGO Star Wars set the bar too high, maybe there isn't a lot of inherent comedy in a story about a death-defying archaeologist wrestling with supernatural powers and (ahem) generic German bad guys, but I really didn't find a lot of opportunities to laugh in this game. Part of the problem, most certainly, was their decision to cut some pretty memorable scenes, which would have been quite funny played out in LEGO. I also think that the writing never quite finds the proper pacing.

Weak Multiplayer: LEGO games, while fun alone, are really about playing together, often, at least in my house, with family members. It's disappointing that the game not only maintains the two-player drop-in cooperative play cap, but loses the online multiplayer ability.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is a blast to play and a fun way to be introduced or reintroduced to the Indiana Jones trilogy, but it doesn't quite live up to Star Wars. I suspect the problem is more with the source material than the developers. Indiana Jones doesn't really have a lot of memorable side-kicks. You've got Short Round, several woman who scream a lot and a bunch of faceless bad guys. Fortunately, what set-backs and problems the game has are more than made up for by the stunningly detailed set pieces and intricately detailed mini-figs. Rats, snakes, spiders, intricate puzzles, traps and phobias, they all help vividly capture a trilogy deserving of good games. I'd call it stunning, but deleting some of the most memorable scenes of the movies prevents it from quite delivering that accolade.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures was developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts. Retails for$50. Available on DS, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii and Xbox 360. Played to completion on the PlayStation 3. Played half with my son and half by myself.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Now the two companies have teamed up again to give the classic Indiana Jones trilogy the tiny toy treatment in the hopes of recapturing the magic and wonder of the first two outings. Have they unearthed yet another treasure, or are they up to their waist in a pit full of snakes? Throw me the whip, and I'll throw you the review roundup.

G4 X-Play
The LEGO games have never been lookers, per se, but they’ve always had solid graphics and, most importantly, a great style accenting the notion of an evilly possessed LEGO play set. Original Adventures definitely continues the trend, delivering the same sort of clean and goofy looking graphics seen in the Star Wars games. Each character’s simple animations deliver a ton of personality, and while the environments are a bit flat, they set the scene well.

GameSpot
Though the puzzle aspects alone are enough to make Lego Indy worthwhile, the humor makes it enjoyable even for people just watching the action. The silent cutscenes take you through the journey in a much sillier manner than Steven Spielberg originally envisioned. No, you won't see the Lost Ark melt some unfortunate Lego person's face, but you will see Indy's father fall asleep (because he's old!) and even the Harrison Ford look-alike donning a blonde wig to deceive a foolish guard.

Eurogamer
Where the game unfortunately suffers is in what's been taken out. It's not entirely fair to compare Indy to the feast of content that was LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga since that was a compilation of sorts, but even compared to the single Star Wars editions this feels disappointingly light on the features that matter once the story mode has been exhausted.

TeamXbox
Lego Indy doesn’t vary much in scope and content from the previous titles that the pair (LucasArts and Traveller's Tales) have worked on, but it’s still a fun game to play and a smart take on the game-from-a-movie process, which more times than not turns out to be lacking in the “game” portion. Most of all, it makes me wonder what they’ll team up on next.

Perhaps they didn't capture all of the magic of the Lego Star Wars series, but a great deal of it made it into Lego Indy.

The list details the 10 and upcoming 11th (Lego Indiana Jones on June 6) and 12th (a TBA action title later) games featuring Dr. Jones. Ahhhhh but they left one out!!! Neener-neener this is why I posted it, to make myself look smart! Midscape released "Indiana Jones in the Lost Kingdom" for Commodore 64 in 1984 — and it deliberately did not include an instruction manual. "No one told Indiana Jones the rules. And no one will tell you."

It was a puzzle game, and definitely not rendered with the kind of appeal the Lego games have. Death consisted largely of being hit by a bird or falling from a great height, then running off the screen in a panic as a funeral dirge played. It was hard and stupid. But because it was Indiana Jones, I felt compelled to play it.

That hooks back into my feeling about Crystal Skull. I was gonna see it no matter how badly it was reviewed, and pretty much everyone except Roger Ebert put a butt-hurting on it. I felt very much like I did during the Star Wars Prequels. After coming out of Attack of the Clones, I told a friend: "George Lucas has created a new moviegoing experience. The Joyless Obligation." And now it's infiltrated the Indiana Jones franchise.

Hey, we're not the only ones. Sex and the City fans probably know what I'm talking about after this weekend, too.

Indiana Jones and the History of his Video Games [British Gaming Blog]

And it's quite possible that this is viral marketing for the upcoming title (out in June), if not the movie (this week). They roll this sucker in San Francisco, and LucasArts is around the block in the Presidio. Five million Legos is not something you buy or assemble that quick — if it is a solid 5 mil Legos. I don't really see them flaking off as it tumbles, so it may be a bunch of big pieces- parts made by Lego and assembled by this team. Also, it's S.F. in the middle of the day, no moving cars in the shot, very few parked, so they probably got a filming permit. And the big flatbed truck too ... good bet this is marketing.

But it's clever, and I admire any creative impulse that gets you to roll a Lego boulder down a big hill into a parked van. Plus it has a guy dressed as Sallah, and fezzes are awesome. But if this was Boston, they'd all be arrested for terrorism.

LEGO Boulder [YouTube, thanks cashius22]

Lego Indiana Jones Demo {Games For Windows]

Lego Indiana Jones Website [LucasArts.com]

It's this little fat plastic cube... It doesn't look the least bit like me. How could it, a little yellow plastic cube? It wears a white hat at some point. It is better than Marian's, though. They haven't made her the most beautiful LEGO figure in the world, have they? Her hair looks a bit like a tea cosy. It's strange.

Fantastic, now I have two excuses to buy Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I wonder when I can start showing my son the flicks? I'll have to rewatch them to make sure they're not too racy first, I guess.

Special Indiana Jones DVD to Ship with Lego Indy Demo [Ars Technica]

Lego [have] already replaced them with an anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race.

We just leaned that LucasArts will be hosting an event at their Presidio campus during the Game Developers Conference to show off some of the cool tech behind Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Fracture and... gasp... let us catch a glimpse of some live gameplay from LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures.

I am as giddy as a school girl about that game, and I'm not kidding. I actually look longingly at the new Indie LEGO kits every time I see them in stores. I've been trying very hard to kick my son of his LEGO Star Wars habit, just so I have an excuse to buy them. So want.

5. Lego Digital Designer

Not so much a game as it was the updating of Lego to the digital age, allowing you to use your Mac or PC online to create your own Lego design and then order the blocks online, bringing your virtual creation to life. For those of us who can't afford the millions of Lego bricks it would take to build their own Lego home, this is as good as it gets.

4. Lego Racers (PC)

Number four would have to be sublime mixture of racing and building that was Lego Racers. While some reviewers thought it rather average, for me it was a lovely combination of two of my favorite pastimes, allowing me to build my own car and driver and then run them through a rather impressive series of tracks. Simple, sure, but I was pretty simple back in 1999 too.

3. Lego Chess (PC)

Oh sure, it's pretty much just Battlechess with Legos, but I'm a big fan of any game that mixes my deep love of strategic thinking with the torturing of tiny Lego beings.

2. Lego Island (PC)

The closest you're ever likely to get to my dream game, Grand Theft Lego, Lego Island was an open-ended PC game that allowed you to customize an entire island to your liking and explore using any number of vehicles you found or created to explore what your inventive mind had wrought. While it didn't let you stab prostitutes, you could always imagine it...Lego is all about using your imagination.

1. Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

You knew this was coming, didn't you? I wouldn't be the geek I am today if not for both Lego and Star Wars, so the combination of the two is almost like merging my parents together into one amazing, half-dead parental unit, which while creepy really is the essence of the Lego brand. Putting things together using your imagination. I choose the first game because it was the success of it that led not only to the sequel and repack, but Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, and - if I had my way - Grand Theft Lego.

A short list you might not all agree with, but that's the beauty of lists now, isn't it? Honestly the franchise has had a rather rocky start in the video games industry, but with Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, and the upcoming MMO Lego Universe on the way, things are looking brighter every day for those little clickable building blocks. Happy 50th, Lego!

There will also be a LEGO Indiana Jones game announced during the show and finally, Fracture, Lucas Arts earth warping video game, will get a July 2008 release date. The game, the tipster says, will take place in the middle of a second civil war, West Coast mutants against the East Coast cybers. The game will feature maps based in San Francisco (where global warming has dried up the bay), a desert in middle America, and Washington D.C. The gameplay will have defined mission objectives, and not sandbox play. The terrain deformation will affect buildings, which will be powered by the Havok physics engine.

Keep in mind these are only rumors. I'd say they sound likely, because of the rumblings of a new Star Wars game and the upcoming Indie film, but I'm still 50/50 on them.