“throw me the yellow brick, and i’ll throw you the whip!”

[chronovore]

Travelers Tales, makers of the Star Wars Lego games is currently working on Lego Indiana Jones. Though those games were quite fun, I found myself playing largely to complete the game, not just for the joy of it. In the end, I was unable to convince myself to play through each level enough times to get all of the Xbox Live Achievements.

In the end, it turns out to have been a fairly simple miss - in trying to make a game which plays identically on any of its many platforms, they failed to take advantage of the features which are specific and beneficial on particular platforms. The Load Game dialog is suspiciously similar to the Playstation 2's process, which fails then to account for the possibility -no, probability- that a consistent data storage unit will be present and tied to the logged in user's account. Every boot-up, instead of referring to the User Account's save data instead makes you locate the storage unit, then select the Save Data file, then confirm that you really want that Save Data... Does anyone really accidentally load the wrong Save Data file? The Achievements in the game are really lazily implemented - instead of tying in to a number of different stats that are already tracked in the game, it instead tracks whether or not you've died during completion of a level; a fact which is entirely de-emphasized in regular play, and nearly impossible unless you've got the reflexes of a 12-year-old who's hopped up on a brick of Hershey's and mainlining NoDoz through a nasal tap.

The other measure for Achievements is a base check on percentage-completion of the game, which is tied into several variables, but also affected by purchase of unlocked characters, some of which cost over a million Lego bits. So it's a short game which ends up overcompensating by requiring obscene amounts of repeated play, which manage to rob the all the fun of the initial play-through in the name of completion. And all of it could have been avoided if they'd just tied Achievements in to the tasks which award Gold Bricks and Power Bricks.

So, yeah; I started off loving the game, ended up getting kind of sick of it, and if an Achievement Junkie like me won't jump through those hoops WHILE PLAYING WITH LEGO AND STAR WARS FIGURES, they've screwed the pooch.

In retrospect, this post is mainly about how happy I am that the implication is that there will be Indiana Jones themed Lego - though I suspect they'll replace the more generically pulp-themed Adventure! sets, and that's a little sad. But it may mean we get Nazi Lego - and that will just be... weird.

Comments

[andrewv.livejournal.com]

I doubt we'll get Nazi Lego, cause then they couldn't sell the sets in Germany. We'll get stern-looking Lego in black suits with red armbands with frowny faces or something.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

So, Pink Floyd: The Wall legos?

[ferricide.livejournal.com]

i think the problems with LSW can be summed up more succintly: travelers tales is a fucking pile of shit developer.

[andrewv.livejournal.com]

the only reason the games are even playable is because so much of it is predefined--the building blocks of the world, many of the vehicles, the characters and narratives. they just have to put in bog-standard button mashing and set all surfaces to Shiny and then call it a day

[ferricide.livejournal.com]

which is pretty much how they get through their entire career as a developer, really. oh, and then there's haven. giggle.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

I felt that to be true this time; I was less of an evolution of LSW1 than the previews had touted.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

I worked with them on a major localization effort, and they were amiable, honest, and realistic. We generally made our deadlines as well, and hit our critical launch date perfectly. I'll also state that the title was surprisingly good for a movie tie-in; I was pleasantly surprised at the replay value they'd added. Unfortunately they've missed how to do that properly, for this latest game of theirs, LSW2.