My kids have been huge fans of the Star Wars Lego games since they came out. In addition to "the car game" (Trackmania) and the occasional session of Tomb Raider, they're staples of my kids' computer time. So, when Indiana Jones Lego was announced, I pre-ordered it, and installed it the day it arrived.

With a single (but very notable) exception, the game is great. The problem is with the controller selection.. if you're used to the Star Wars games, the secondary characters can be activated or deactivated as desired with the "F2" button. The problem in the Indy version is that if you use the keyboard at all, it assumes, very incorrectly, that you want to use the keyboard for character control, and deactivates your gamepad. VERY annoying. There seems to be no way to "lock" your controller selection from game to game, either. I have no idea why LucasArts and Traveller's Tales implemented it this way, and hope a future patch corrects it.

Anyway though, the graphics are fantastic and quite noticably better than the Star Wars versions: surface reflections are very well done. I also like the attention to detail in all the characters and their movements. The cut scenes are pretty comical and spot-on with what you'd expect in a Lego game. The "skills" of each character type are pretty good too (although Willie's "scream" is a tad over the top and annoying). The Bazooka wielder does have a tendancy to blow himself up.

Some of the missions are much harder than I would have expected for this type of kids' game, and the developers rely much more on twitch gameplay than they did in the previous games. I can't say I'm a huge fan of this: in several of the missions, getting the last "treasure chest" relies solely on reaction time, and if you miss it, there's no recourse other than playing the entire mission over again. This is definitely not a fatal flaw, but having to play a mission 4 or 5 times just to get the timing right on a 3 second sequence is pretty annoying.

Still, there's enough content here to keep me and the kids busy for awhile... at least until Lego Batman comes out. I like what the Lego folks are doing with this franchise, and hope they keep it up, although I still maintain that if Eidos were to take the technology behind Tomb Raider, and create a kid-oriented (non-violent, exploration-focused) game, they'd have an industry-changing winner.

I'm still not going to watch the Indy movies with my kids, though - not until they're 10+.