It is hard to believe that a Playstation2 game released in the summer of 2009 – more than 6 years after the Emperor’s Tomb – could be so terribly dated and backward. It is even more shocking when one puts Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings into context with contemporary games on the “next gen” systems at the time of its release. This atrocity came out just a few months before the release of the visually stunning action/adventure masterpiece Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and two full years AFTER the release of the first Uncharted game on Playstation3.
What went wrong? A lot. The graphics and character models are embarrassing, particularly for 2009. The PS2 is capable of far better visuals (in fact, they were superior in Emperor’s Tomb). While the animations are rather poor, the camera tracking is even worse, jumping around from screen to screen with little consistency. The controls are downright bizarre at times, clearly geared more toward the game’s Wii port rather than a PS2 version with a traditional controller. For example, while there is no “jump” button, there is a “squat” button to dodge attacks. The combat is also wonky. While several of the attacks Indy can perform are weak and do little damage, there is one that always drains 100% of enemy health (I used this frequently).
There are a few different “modes” that show up in gameplay, with part of the game taking place in a traditional 3rd person/platforming perspective (with poor camera movement, etc.), part of the game taking place in a “shooting gallery mode” in which you drag crosshairs around the screen and shoot at different objects (like “Lethal Enforcers” on the Sega Genesis), and also random “quick-time” event sequences in which you have to press a random button quickly or else die on the spot. These game modes are complemented with a few additional “mini-games” of varying quality. There is a sequence when you fly a plane through a canyon, race on the back of an elephant through the streets of Istanbul, and an absurd (and irritating) sequence in which you knock over a seemingly endless stream of incoming Nazis with a grand piano suspended to a slow moving crane. The experience of playing through these sequences is largely forgettable.
In addition to the terribly dated graphics, poor animations, bad camera, and questionable controls, “The Staff of Kings” is a dark and muddy game. Even after tinkering with the brightness settings on my TV, there are still rooms that are pitch black and you just have to guess at what is going on. There were a number of random times in which the game seemed to bug out and Indy died for unclear reasons. Sometimes, he would walk into a different room and I would think the game was loading the next area, but I would instead find him respawned to the start of the level because he had apparently died (for some mysterious reason).
It is not all terrible though, and in some ways this makes things worse as it makes the player think of what "might" have been. The plot, for example, is not bad. It involves Indy questing for a biblical object, which is generally a winning idea for an Indy story (see Raiders/Last Crusade/etc.). While searching for “The Staff of Aaron” might not be the most original idea in this case (Indy already found it in The Secret of the Sphinx), its still not a bad idea. The story also features a lot of travel, starting in Sudan, going to San Francisco, Panama, Istanbul and to Nepal. There are some new characters too. Once again, while these might not be terribly well developed or the most original character types, they fit into the style Indy cannon. There is Magnus Voller, a rival archeologist and a German, who shared the same mentor Indy did in learning his craft (two sides of a same coin perhaps…). There is a Professor Charles Kingston, an aging and wheelchair-bound mentor to both Indy and Voller who wears a brown fedora. There is Suzy Tang, a rough approximation of a female Shortround, and last but not least, Maggie O’Malley, a red-headed Irish love interest (with a secret!).
These characters and locales are all very “Indy,” and there are some other random details that the game does get right. For example, I found the opening menu screen for the game surprisingly compelling. Set in Indy’s University office with old-timey music coming from a gramophone, the menu features an old projector, Indy’s passport, old maps, and an assortment of collected artifacts. However, pointing to the main menu as a highlight for The Staff of Kings, is rather damning praise. If only the game were as fun to play as this menu screen. Good ideas, poorly executed and an essentially broken product. It’s a shame, this game might have been a lot of fun.
Indy Rating: 2.5/10
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