Monday, 21 October 2024

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings(Playstation 2) Review

This was a weird one, I randomly just found out about this game when looking up Emperor's Tomb and I randomly stumbled upon it. I did emulate the PS2 version of Staff of Kings. I decided to play this game at all because it was interesting to see an Indy game that wasn't done in Lego and especially before the upcoming new game.

As a whole, the game is really nothing special, it doesn't really stand out in any particular way, everything about Staff of Kings feels like it's a 7th gen action game for people who didn't own an Xbox 360 or PS3.

Emperor's Tomb is the better game to me mainly because in that game, you could be platforming and then randomly encounter enemies while traversing through the level. Staff of Kings however takes the 7th gen action game approach where major gameplay section is clear cut and exists in isolation of each other.

Staff of Kings will have your fist fighting bits, your shooting bits, your platforming bits, and your puzzle solving bits. None of this is outright terrible but just isn't done in a way other games doesn't already do.

The shooting sections in particular feel like they are borderline on rails even games like Uncharted and Gears of War at times lets you move around and try to flank the enemy, in Staff of Kings, Indy's is just in a sationary position as he shoots human enemies, occasionally shooting environmental objects even if it is never made clear to shoot them or enemies, and often dealing with the fact that one gun shot from enemies staggers him and loses a large chunk of health. You also only get one gun in these sections too.

The platforming is just stuff many games at the time did with a lot of it being automated where it revolves around holding the left stick and occasionally pressing sqaure to get past small gaps when shimming and pressing L1 and R1 to have Indy regain his grip. You also have to use Indy's grapple hook whip to get across but there is no timing involved just press the button and Indy will make it there.

Fist fighting fares the best out of all the gameplay pillars, where there is a punches, grabs, dodges, and environmental objects it's decent fleshed out and does an okay job at breaking up the pace. It does a good enough job at replicating the movies where it feels like Indy barely scrapes by in fights and it is amusing to use makeshift objects as weapons or throw broken parts of weapons at enemies since it has that quick thinking Indy would do in the movies all though it never reaches the heights of Emperor's Tomb. In the latter game firearms can be used in junction to fist fighting and enemies can drop weapons during fights making fist fighting more dynamic or having to save ammo so you can defeat enemies quicker.

You also never need to manage health, or given any resources to look around the levels and be attentive much like Uncharted so in many ways, Staff of Kings takes the scripted rollar coaster approach of that series with much lower production values, there's even a level in Nepal like Uncharted 2. It's a kind of design I never really cared for since health, collecting and research management makes a game engaging to me. A game's mechanics could carry a game if it doesn't have that but neither this game or Uncharted really does.

As a whole the game, is moderately entertaining at a service level even if it never leaves a lasting impression since it juggles these gameplay ideas so much, it never outright gets monotonous.

There is other problems with the game like an excessive use of QTEs and weird gimmick sections like moving a piano around to hit enemies. Sometimes it's never made clear what Indy can and cannot interact with since the button prompts don't show up to tell me I can interact with this. There is also a lot of on rails sections which almost feels like they were there to show off the Wii's motion control gimmicks and this was a carry over to the PS2 version.

Story is okay, typical Indy adventure with him fighting Nazis to get to some buried treasure. It's nothing to write home about. Some points I'll give is that it looks better than Emperor's Tomb and the short length prevents the game's problem from feeling too noticeable since if it was longer, I would get annoyed by all it's shortcomings. It also checkpoints often and you get health refills on checkpoints too.

Overall, Staff of Kings is just okay if rather forgettable. If you didn't own a 360 or PS3 during the time this game can out, then I can see it being a solid if unremarkable time.

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