Indiana Jones And The Staff Of Kings

Hello fellow board members,

The new Indiana Jones - Indiana Jones And The Staff Of Kings - was released this month with little to no fanfare to attract much attention from the fans, I myself only discovered by accident that the game had been released as a Dutch game site had copies for the game as part of a contest.

I have now been checking out what the reaction has been to the game on the consoles it was released on; Wii, PS2, NDS and PSP (a PS3 and Xbox360 had been planned but have been cancelled) and which version of the game seems to be the best.

Unfortunate it seems that in general the game suffers from the movie to game curse as in general none of the four seem to be outstanding.
Still, being an Indiana Jones fan I would like to pick up at least one of the games once it is for sale on a budget price and now I am looking for the best of the lot.

Have any of you played this game?

I also had no idea it was released and haven't seen anything mentioned about it in the press. I might "obtain" a copy of the PS2 version just to have a look.

It is weird, isn't it Harrison, that there barely is any press information about this game.
Even the magazines here barely speak about it.

That makes it so difficult to determine which version of the game is the most fun.

A major newspaper here reviewed it, which is odd because the papers usually only review the mass-market titles. But anyway, the reviewer absolutely butchered the game except for one detail. In the Wii version you can early on unlock and play the full Fate of Atlantis game. So the reviewer said that alone makes Staff of Kings worth the purchase for the Wii at least. The other versions doesn't have this bonus unfortunately. And as for Staff of Kings, he had hardly anything good to say. There was a flying sequence early on that he liked which lasted 1 minute and 7 seconds (he timed it), and that was it. The review is here for those of you who can read it.

Hello guys,

I got to play the PS2 version today, now I can finally make an observation after having played it.

The pro side is that it does feel like Indiana Jones in certain segments, having to escape deadly traps without a second to loose and taking on bad guys in various situations.

In a way the gun fight sections also make more sense, I loved Infernal Machine and I liked Emperor's Tomb (hate it doesn't have quick save) but at some point it seemed like Indy was carrying an arsenal of guns with him which seems a little unlike the character.

In the gun scenes you just have to rely on your Webley, quick timing, and sometimes useful surroundings.
However you only get to use the gun in certain sections, in other parts you take on enemies with your fists and whip, and it sometimes can get a little repetitive even if you can beat most of the enemies easy.

Downers are that there are barely any conversation scenes between Indy and other characters, there is barely any build up of story and that is just as much a part of Indiana Jones as an action sequence.

Sometimes sections of the game are also really short and the players who have played Infernal Machine and Emperor's Tomb might feel they play a toned done version of those games.

Last, the game is glitchy in some areas which is rather a shame.

I think all of us Indy fans will pick a copy of this game up sooner or later but I again recommend that you wait until it is in the bargain bins or get it cheaper second hand.

Trust me, you will thank me for that advice.

Sounds a bit like the last film! Being an Indy film it had great promise, but it was too late and it's style of action had past its time. Sounds like it could be better than any direct movie tie in could have been though, which is some consolation.

In a way it is indeed better than a movie tie-in to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with the plot centering around Indy trying to find an object of biblical lore while having to confront Nazis who are also after it (though I really have no problem with Indy facing the Red Army as they were also the antagonists in Infernal Machine).

Unfortunate the story isn't that told well because as I said before; there isn't that much conversation or exposition of the McGuffin in the begin part of the game.

They did really nail some of the Indiana Jones atmosphere but often it feels very short.

I think they made it a little to much arcade-ish than is good, now if it could have combined the good parts of Staff of Kings with the good parts of Infernal Machine and Emperor's Tomb including long levels you get to explore this game could really have been a winner instead of being mostly something for Indiana Jones fans.

I played this on the Wii the other night and I was quite disappointed. The game flips between 2 types of game. Firstly, you will walk into a fight scene and you have to fight people. You use both the Wiimote and the Nunchuck to hit people, but you can also grab them, whip them, pick up objects and throw them at people or hit people with the objects. I found the fight scenes hard because there's too many types of move to remember - and you forget them all since you're feverishly just trying to knock everyone out so I just ended up trying to punch people since I couldn't remember what combination of buttons to use to e.g. grapple with someone. The fight scenes are also very fake - if you want to run away from someone around a table for instance, you don't run any faster than a walk and since some people can run faster than you, you end up just getting punched in the back whilst trying to move to a better position. Also, and frustratingly, the controls didn't respond too well. I stood there getting punched in the face whilst I was swinging the Wiimote to do a right hook, but Indy didn't respond and just got punched some more.

Once you complete a fight scene, you then have to wander around the location trying to find the one hotspot where you can do something. I'm on the second level - the backstreets of Chicago or something, running around a deserted warehouse and back alleys. I'm chasing a kidnapper, but end up spending most of my time walking around an alleyway trying to find the one location where I can use my whip to hook onto something. I wandered around for 10 minutes in one location, and it turns out I had to stand in a certain place, facing a certain way before the icon appeared for me to barge down the chain-link fence, which I could hardly see anyway due to the lighting.

"Fate of Atlantis" is available from the main menu once you do a "Glory Move", which I accidentally did in the warehouse. It's the full-talkie version and you can set it to anti-aliased so it looks even prettier. I didn't even know there was a talkie version!

I spent about half an hour very early on trying to get through the "fly a plane" section. You use the Wiimote like it's the flying joystick but it's incredibly hard to do - you have to fly through a canyon, under stone arches etc and if you hit the walls you die. I managed to fluke my way through it in the end, and I didn't enjoy it.

If you lose a fight scene, you just get taken back to the start of the scene, so there's no concept of having a certain number of lives. This just means you'll be able to brute force your way through the game, since it saves your progress once you complete each fight.

I wasn't overly impressed and if I continue to play it will just be through perserverance rather than enjoyment.

The talkie version of Fate of Atlantis was on the FM-Towns I think.