LEGO Indiana Jones

Quizzing my pint-sized team over orange juice and chocolate buttons later, I asked them if they felt the game was better than LEGO Star Wars and they all enthusiastically said that it was. On the subject of difficulty, opinions were split. Some elements - particularly those familiar from the previous games - were judged too easy. Other parts were deemed harder, though there were no points where frustration tipped over into anger, and the only sulks came when it was time to switch the Xbox off. Achievements are shrewdly paced, taking their titles from classic Indy quotes and serving up a steady stream of points for advancing through the story mode and finding all the items in Free Play.

To my adult eyes, it certainly seems more sophisticated and complex, requiring much more traditional platforming skills than LEGO Star Wars, as well as the ability to solve sequences of interlinked puzzles. This is presumably in keeping with the slightly older profile of the Indy character, but it didn't seem to deter these youngsters. I only had to pitch in with the joypad a few times - mostly involving some hard-to-judge perspective jumps - but mostly I could offer suggestions from the back, and they soon clicked with the game's similar-but-different vibe. Unlike them, I did notice some of the old screen-tearing that so blighted LEGO Star Wars, but the welcome addition of a v-sync menu option seems to sort it out.

I also feel that while the game itself is as fun as ever, the world of Indiana Jones itself doesn't map quite so neatly onto the LEGO brand. While there was plenty of repetition among the 160 LEGO Star Wars characters, they were at least an eclectic bunch of droids, aliens, heroes and villains. Even the most useless character had a certain collectability about them, which tied nicely into the Star Wars fanbase. By contrast, I find it hard to imagine that people will be too excited about LEGO Indy's line-up, populated as it is by lots of grey-uniformed bad guys (no room for Nazis in LEGOland, clearly) and a supporting cast that doesn't translate all that well to LEGO form. Anyone itching to play as Chatter Lal? Anyone even know who Chatter Lal is? The little Sean Connery is incredibly cool, but for the most part it's a collection of interchangeable blokes with no real appeal beyond chasing that 100 percent completion score. It's perhaps no surprise that the game makes frequent references to the galaxy far, far away, with a couple of cut-scene jokes as well as five hidden Star Wars characters to find throughout the game.

They're restricted by the tone of the films, of course, but this carries over to the levels themselves. The actual design of the levels is fine - and sometimes ingenious - but visually speaking it can all start to look a little samey. Inevitably, there's a lot of running around in jungles and deserts, catacombs and temples while the lack of vehicle levels, a gameplay element greatly improved in The Complete Saga, is noticeable. And, since I've started down this road, it's hard to muster up the same enthusiasm for collecting pieces of generic statues and artefacts rather than miniature X-Wings and AT-ATs. This isn't a criticism of the game itself, per se, just an observation about the licence itself. I suspect, for this reason, that regardless of gameplay LEGO Batman may prove to be the more varied and colourful game.

Those rather tangential concerns aside, LEGO Indiana Jones is looking like another meticulously crafted slice of family entertainment from Traveller's Tales. The evolution away from specific character types and tasks may have been forced by the nature of the Indiana Jones movies, but it benefits the game as a whole. It now feels, rather appropriately, a lot more like an adventure game and one that should both please and stretch young (and old) fans of LEGO Star Wars. It certainly hit the spot for my hastily assembled audience of small people. Plus, you can change the colour of Indy's nuggets. How cool is that?