Fallout 3 takes place in the not so distant future (the year 2277), 200 years previously a mass nuclear apocalypse devastated the entire world and throughout your travels of “the wasteland” you’ll find that practically everything is radioactive. How are you alive you ask? Well you start the game in an underground vault and as you may have guessed you leave the vault and start exploring the United States of America.

Much like Oblivion you start by making your character and choosing your statistics such as Strength, Perception and Charisma. You then go onto to choosing skills for your character. Now unlike Oblivion where your skills went up as you used them (your athletics skill went up as you ran around) your skills in Fallout 3 only increase when you add points to that category (and by collecting little bobbleheads – but we’ll get to that later). You then have another sub category in the skills section called perks. Think of these as similar to spells in Oblivion except instead of paying for them in Gold you pay for them in points you receive when you level up. You can only choose one perk per level. These perks can be specially designed to your type of play: Do you like using rifles to kill your enemies? Perhaps you want the Commando Perk; do you go sneaking around and melee your enemy from behind? Maybe the Ninja perk is for you. There are over 50 perks available through your gameplay (and many perks can be used again for increased benefits).

One thing that has a very significant effect on NPC’s interactions with you is Karma. With RPG’s there are 3 main ways to go: Be a “good” character – kill slaves, performing “good” actions etc; Be a neutral character – if you can’t really decide if you want to be good or bad the best advice is to be both! Or you have the alternative of being “Evil” – if you just love to kill everything in sight whether it’s innocent NPC’s or if stealing’s your thing then you’re probably going to end up with bad Karma and as such people are going to behave negatively towards you, you might even get some of the “Very good” NPC’s attacking you for being “Evil”. All 3 ways have their benefits and drawbacks of course and at the end of the day just play how you want to.

If you haven’t guessed by now I should mention that the majority of weapons in the game are guns. You get the occasion melee weapon and it’s true that you may never have to use a gun in the game … although it’s pretty pointless if that’s how you’re going to be playing. The number of weapons available is huge but ammo for most guns (especially the big ones) is very limited so you must always conserve ammo and use it only when necessary. As for the types of guns you can get there are: Big Guns – in here you get flame throwers, missile launchers etc; Energy Weapons – as expected you can get laser pistols and plasma rifles; Melee Weapons – such as Baseball Bats, Combat Knifes and Shock Batons; and finally Small Weapons – which basically consist of everything else such as Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles etc.

A new addition to the series is the V.A.T.S Mode (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). This brilliant device lets you pause gameplay in the middle of a battle and target specific parts of your enemy. As you can see in the image above the targeting system shows you the probability of hitting a target in the head, leg, arm etc. This handy device can really save you alot of trouble in the more difficult battles and is crucial if you like playing around with a sniper from far away. As expected there are certain perks you can get which increase your V.A.T.S accuracy. You can’t of course use it all the time. You can only use it if you have the required amount of Action Points. These points which refill overtime allow you to use the Advanced Targeting Mode so make sure that when you use it you use it correctly!

The game consists of the main quest and many other miscellaneous side quests. The gameplay is very non-linear, what I mean by that is that it has a very open style. You can go anywhere at any time and do any side quests at any time (within reason of course). You can still of course play the game in a more linear way by doing side quests one at a time and choosing not to explore the place. One of the major disadvantages of this game in my opinion is the huge amount of exploring to do.

Unlike in Oblivion you see where you could fast travel to the major towns straight away in Fallout 3 you can only fast travel to places you’ve visited which means at the beginning you can fast travel to nowhere. Some places require you to walk for hours of game time just to get to them and that isn’t even the worst of it. When you start exploring Washington DC as you’d expect there is a lot of rubble everywhere. This means that if you don’t know how to use the map properly to look for entrance points you going to have a very difficult time finding your destination. There is nothing more annoying in this game to follow your compass towards your destination and find out there is a huge rubble pile blocking your way just metres from where you need to get too. Sometimes you literally have to backtrack your whole way back or circle all of the way round the area until you find an entrance point. It’s a shame that they don’t highlight these “no-entry” points on your map more thoroughly as they can really ruin your gameplay if you find yourself continuously lost.

When asked to compare this game to Oblivion there are many differences and similarities that I can spot. They both follow the same “Sandbox style” rules and both have a main quest followed by many side quests. Fallout 3 tends to have the idea that every item you pick up in the game has a use (where as in Oblivion things like Quills and bones). The main difference though has to be the gear and setting. Oblivion has a medieval like theme with swords while Fallout 3 has a post-apocalyptic theme with guns. Which do you prefer? I much rather like swords than guns which is why I think Oblivion is that little bit better than Fallout 3.

A very important thing I should say without giving too much away is that if you buy the game without the “Broken Steel” add on make sure you’ve done everything before you get to the last stage in the main quest. I won’t say too much but if you finish the main quest without the Broken Steel add on you do not get a chance to do any side quests etc after the main quest has finished. A huge let down for most people and another reason why I think Oblivion is that slightly bit better than Fallout 3. I would game this game a ranking of 9.1/10.

So what’s new with this game then? Well starting off one of the most annoying things in Assassin’s Creed was that whenever you jumped into some water you drowned. This seemed a bit pathetic for an unstoppable assassin who can kill loads of people and then to die by falling in some water. Well in this game you can swim! The graphics of the game has also been completely revamped so it looks absolutely brilliant.

If you remember in the first game there were two parts to it. You as the assassin and you as Desmond in real life. Unfortunately as Desmond you were practically useless. You couldn’t kick, punch or anything. You just went to bed and woke up, probably the most boring part of the game. However straight from the start you killing people and escaping the evil Templars headquarters.

In my opinion one of the basic necessities for an assassin’s game is the weapons. Now in the previous game you didn’t have a lot of choice. You just got a large sword, a small sword and some other weapons. In this game however there are loads of different types of weapons. For example if we start with the hidden blade you can now have a double hidden blade, a poison blade and even a pistol! If we move onto medium weapons you can start from a measly common sword all the way up to a Condottiero War Hammer. These weapons of course are unlocked once you pay for them so there is a point in looting people for money. You can also change your armour and dye your clothes different colours by going to tailors.

This game really involves loads of different objects. There are not only loads of weapons but also different types of enemies now as well. In the previous game it was there were about 4 different enemies. In this game there are agiles, brutes, seekers and archers amongst others. One thing I found too easy with the previous game is that as soon as you got in a hiding spot you could relax. However the seeker’s job is, as you might have guessed, to seek for you. They often carry an extremely long pike which they will use to prod haystacks and wells which will force you out of the hiding spot. Also if you happen to be on a bench between two citizens the seeker will ask them to stand up fooling your cover again.

Another thing that has been improved is the morale of the enemy. You might remember in the last game where you might occasionally get a straggler who runs away from you. However this seemed to be a random event rather than something you did to scare him (not including of course killing everyone else). In this game certain things you do can increase or decrease enemies morale. For example, if you kill a brute every enemy around you will have a decrease of their morale by -30 points. If you assassinate an enemy with a pistol they will have a decrease of -20 points. However if you get injured they will have an increase of +10 morale, and if you enter critical state it will be +25. If an enemy is going to flee you will first see them freeze
briefly to the spot. They will then drop their weapon and run away from you as fast as they can.

The best of the game though has to be the brilliant storyline laid out before you. There are over 14 sequences for you to explore which have you assassinating important historical figures, to hiring thieves for you, to trying to find hidden glyphs. There really is a lot to keep you entertained for a long time, so if you decide to buy the game you won’t be disappointed.

I would give this game a rating of 93/100.

The game was released in November last year on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. If any of you have played “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” it is quite easy to relate this game with it. Both games are in the role-playing category and they both are brilliant. Dragon Age: Origins main plot is you becoming a Grey Warden, who are the “protectors” of Ferelden. You then engage the main enemies of the game “The Darkspawn” which is the name suggests are hideous creatures.

The game begins with you choosing your character. You can pick which class you want, which race you want, which gender you want, which origin story you want and of course you can customise nearly every detail of you from your hair to your eyes. Starting with classes you have three choices, Warrior; Mage or Rogue. The three races which you can pick are: Human; Elf or a Dwarf. Each of these choices has an effect on the origin story you can pick. There are 6 origin stories in total. If you are an elf you have a choice of two stories. if you are a dwarf you have a choice of 2 stories whereas if you are a human you get a choice of 1 story. However there is one story solely for a mage regardless which race you picked.

Basically the origin story acts as a mini tutorial for you, so you can learn the ropes of the game. After this all stories are linked to the main game where you start battling the Darkspawn. Much like “Oblivion” this game focuses a lot on attributes and skills. You choose how strong you are, how easy it is for you to block incoming hits etc. There are a few skills which you can learn such as Survival, Combat Training, Herbalism, Trap-Making and Poison- Making.

However unlike “Oblivion” the game also focuses on talents which your character can learn. These depend on the class you picked. So for example if you picked the Warrior class you can learn a talent called “Taunt” which increases the hostility of enemies around you. If you’re a Mage you can learn a talent called “Lightning” which speaks for itself, whereas if you’re a Rogue you could learn a talent “Stealth” etc. Each class also has 4 specialisations. These specialisations can be very beneficial if you decide to use them. You can learn 1 specialisation when you are level 8 and another when you are level 12. For a Warrior the specialisations are: Champion, Templar, Berserker and Reaver. If you are a Mage there is a choice of Arcane Warrior, Blood Mage, Shapeshifter and Spirit Healer. If you picked a Dwarf as your class you have a choice of Assassin, Bard, Duelist and Ranger.

Another important feature in this game is the buddy system. As you progress in the game you meet new people who join you in your quest. Each companion has their own personal quest if you get to know them an you can equip party members with weapons and armour which suits them. You can also select tactics for each party member. Do you hate it when archers and killing you? Well simply set a tactic for one of your companions to automatically target an enemy who is in attacking you with a ranged attack.

When comparing this game to Oblivion it would seem that whereas both games are very good Dragon Age: Origins is a bit more complicated. For example Oblivion has far less talents and attributes settings and when you attack in Oblivion you can only do one or two type of attacks. In Dragon Age: Origins however there are loads of talents and skills and you can do loads of attacks from flurries, to death blows etc.

The game can be complicated but by the time you’ve finished the origin story you should have a greater understanding of the game/. I would give this game 95%.

If I start by talking about the campaign mode I have to say that it has to be the best so far. There are 18 missions (well actually 19 but I’ll leave you to find out the last one!) split into 3 different acts. Each mission is fun, challenging and is a great option to play first if you are new to the Call of Duty franchise. The first mission’s even a tutorial which helps you learn the basics; it also features a time-trail exercise which at the end suggests to you which difficulty section you should have on the game regarding how well you did in the trail. I won’t give too much away but the ending is absolutely brilliant, in-fact saying that all of the missions are brilliant. In previous games there is usually one mission that stands out for me as being annoying, but in this game there are none. Although I must mention that mission 4 is very controversial and you may have heard a lot of bad press about it. As far as I’m concerned Infinity Ward has done everything they can to warn you off this. There is even an option to skip the mission if you want to.

New to the series is “Spec-Ops” Missions. There are a total of 23 co-op missions (although you can play them alone) which are quite a nice add-on to the game. The missions have three levels of difficulty and you really need good teamwork to complete the missions on veteran difficulty. The death cards in the previous game which seemed to serve no real purpose except in online co-op mode have been replaced by enemy Intel. Although this again serves no purpose (except for receiving a trophy/achievement) it actually makes sense that there is enemy Intel to collect.

Now we move onto the best part of the game … multiplayer mode. Currently there are 16 maps to choose from (although there will probably be more soon) which are all unique to each other. Some maps are in Brazil, some in Afghan and some somewhere else. Each map has its advantages and disadvantages. Some maybe better than others but I feel that each map is great in its own right.

The weapon list has been completely redone as well with over 40 different guns. One major advantage this game has is that the shotgun category has been moved down to secondary weapons. So now you can have an SMG, LMG or assault rifle as well as a shotgun. The attachments for the weapons are plentiful as well. In World at War there were only a couple of attachments but in this game you get the whole package. Heartbeat sensors, akimbo (the ability to wield dual weapons), thermal scopes, rapid fire and silencers just to name a few. This makes the games much more interesting. And of course where would any good shooting game be without perks. There are new perks introduced in this game such as: Bling (which lets you have two weapon attachments), Hardline (where killstreaks require 1 less kill), Last Stand and One Man Army just to name a couple. Also new to the game are deathstreaks. If you happen to be doing really bad in a game then once you have been say killed 4 times in a row you get a little bonus to help you get a comeback. There are only 4 deathstreaks in the game and one of them is the ever favourite Martyrdom.

One of the biggest expanses in the game has to be the killstreaks. In World at War there were simply 3 killstreaks. Radar, Artillery and Dogs. In this game there are 15 different kinds! Starting from a simple UAV when you get 3 kills, to user controlled predator missiles when you get 5 kills to an end of game tactical nuke if you manage to achieve 25 kills. Nothing is more satisfying than achieving a triple kill after sending a missile from an AC130 into a group of enemies.

One more thing that should be mentioned is the wide range of equipment available. Instead of just frag and sticky grenades you now also get throwing knives! These knives are absolutely awesome and can save your life if you master them. Just imagine your reloading when an enemy appears a distance off in front of you. A grenade wouldn’t kill him because by the time you’ve thrown it he would have killed you. So simply throw a knife at him and it saves your life!

Well I think that goes over the basics of the game and why you should buy it! I would rate it 97%!

Now the fourth Harry Potter game was completely rubbish. It was a totally different gameplay to the other games and the age rating (7+) probably should have been more like 7, because it seemed like the game was made for seven year olds. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the other hand is a lot better. It’s a 7+ again but in this game it doesn’t matter what age you are, you will still enjoy … unless of course you utterly despise Harry Potter but why would you be reading this if you did?

The style of the game is what people call a “sandbox”. Just like games such as GTA it basically means you can go pretty much anyone and do things in your own order, within a certain boundary. An example of this in the game is when you have to collect all of the members of Dumbledore’s Army. The game doesn’t tell you what order you must collect them, so you can go in any order you wish. Another brilliant thing in this game which we have just seen recently in the Sims 3 is that there are no loading screens. The whole of the Hogwarts School and grounds are loaded all the time. You don’t even get a slight pause as you go from one area to the next, it runs very smoothly.

One of the main features of this game is the spells. Owners of a Wii will have more fun casting spells in the game as they simply swish the wii remote in a certain direction to cast that spell. However don’t think if you own a Playstation 3 you are missing out on much, because you also do it on the PS3. You have two options … you can either cast spells by using the right analog stick or you can enable the motion sensitivity function and move the whole Playstation 3 controller to cast the spell. So really with the Playstation 3 version you are getting better graphics than the Wii and also the same motion control. If you’re lucky enough to own both the Wii and Playstation 3 you’ll probably better buying on the PS3.

As you walk around the grounds you will notice that there are quite a few things not quite right: such as paintings on the floor and statues covered up by curtains. You can use your spells on these objects and earn discovery points which in turn make your spells stronger. Another thing in the game is the portraits. As with the film and book versions all portraits need passwords and you need to find out what they are. It’s no use searching for them on the internet because you can’t type them in. The portraits give you clues as to what they are … some even just tell you the password straight away.

One of the unfortunate disadvantages of this game is that is quite short. Although saying that if you don’t rush through it you will find it will take quite a while to get 100% on the game. Many people say they complete this game within an hour. I can tell you that it is completely impossible to do that even if you’re on the easiest difficulty. If you’re on normal difficulty and play it at a steady pace this game should last you at least for over 10 hours … and that for a game is actually quite reasonable.

I think overall this game is very good … although non Harry Potter fans wouldn’t think it was as good as I’m saying. In conclusion buy this game only if you’re either a Harry Potter fan or you like a good RPG game because it is very good. I would rate it 88%

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Well things didn’t start off brilliantly. After buying the game I found out that it was unbelievably slow to play so I had to spend £40 on some new RAM for my computer. Not so good so far. Although the new look of the game is that you can play outside your house now it means you need a really good computer. Basically if you haven’t bought a new computer in the last year the chances are you’re going to have to do something to upgrade it. I think that it’s a shame that EA thinks we all have top-notch computers we in fact most people don’t.

However that is one of the few bad points about the game. Once you get the game working it is pretty good! Having changed quite a bit from the Sims 2 the annoying needs of comfort and environment have been removed (hurray!). This means that you no longer have to litter your walls with thousands of pictures to make your Sims happy. There is also now a new thing called traits. There are a total of 63 different traits however there are also a couple of secret ones which I will go into in more detail later.

Traits are very important in your Sims life. How many traits you choose depends on the age of your sim. 2 for a baby, 3 for a child, 4 for a teenager and 5 for everything else. If you are a baby, child or teenager then when it becomes time for you to go into the next age group you get two options: If the sim is unhappy a random (most likely to be negative) trait will be selected for him/her. However if they are happy you get to select the trait! Some traits included in the game are Genius, Brave, Loser, Neat and Handy to name a few. For a full list of traits I’ll post a blog soon.

With traits also come Lifetime Wishes. These are affected by your traits. There are over 30 wishes and the game selects a possible 5 for you sim based on your traits. The lifetime wish you select will be your Sims overall goal in life. There are many wishes such as Rock Star, Become a Master Thief and Celebrated Five-Star Chef.

Anyway the main highlight of the game is the fact you can openly explore outside your home. You can watch your kids on the school bus to school, you can even get them their yourself either by bike or car. There are no limits (except for staying in the boundaries). Of course that means that the create-a-neighbourhood option is no more and you’re stuck with one town. But you can download new ones of the Sims 3 store.

The create-a-sim mode has also been updated and improved with new clothes, new designs and more. You can create your own designs on clothes etc. You can customise your Sims anyway you want … you can even change their eye colour. Perfect for someone wanting to create an evil sim with red eyes!

If you are unsure on whether your computer can withstand playing the Sims 3 then I would recommend going to this website:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest. However make sure you also check the results yourself. Sometimes although it may say you pass you could fail.

Overall I think the Sims 3 is a very good game to play it’s just unfortunate that many people will be disappointed when they realise they won’t be able to play it on their computer. I would give it 91%.

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This year this has been dropped which makes the matches a bit fairer and certainly more challenging which is a good thing, unless your rubbish at it! Instead of the diving this has been replaced by the staggering option which to be honest isn’t that good either. Basically your person just hits the ball with the racquet and then staggers for what seems like eternity. During that time all the other person has to do is hit the ball the other side and there will be a small chance you will hit it – if you do you will simply stagger again and then the match will probably be over. Although it may be a bit better than the diving option it is still horrible. Maybe if there was a little stagger that would be fine but it lasts for so long that as soon as you’ve done it you already know you’ve lost.

Anyway now for some positive points about the game! This game involves the new world tour and online ranking system. Which is good, quite an improvement over the last game. What happens is that you start ranked 100 in the amateur league and you have to work your way up by winning tournaments. Quite simple enough and also as you play people with a lower rank their skill is increased so you’ll eventually face tougher opponents. You can also go online and vs other people which can be fun, especially if you win!

The game features over 20 of the worlds top players including three legends. As well as that there are some new minigames as well as some of the previous ones from Virtua Tennis 3. There are many new courts and you have more control over how your player looks.

I think this game is mainly for tennis fans and quite obviously people who don’t like tennis are not going to be very interested. Also if you get the Wii version you can play it with the new Wii MotionPlus which gives you more control over your swings.

A good game overall although one that will only appeal to tennis fans. I would give it a ranking of 8.4

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Now, I personally prefer some good old shooting games such as COD or Resistance 2 but it is always good to have a break from that and play a RPG game. The game is split into many different sub sections which all fall under the main game. If you haven’t bought this game yet I would recommend getting the “Game of the Year” edition because as well as the normal game it also comes with two expansion packs (that are all in one disc): the knights of the nine, and the shivering isles.

Anyway the first sub section is the main quest. Which basically has you going around fighting monsters called Daedra. To be honest I have to say that I haven’t completed the main quest because I haven’t wanted to. Out of all of the sections I find that at a certain point the main quest becomes a bit dull. This isn’t because it is dull but because of what is available. This is an open-ended game so you can go anyway. If you’re an adventurer at heart then you’re going to want to explore everywhere rather than going to specific places. The developers realise this which is way you can postpone the main quest at any point in the game which is brilliant!

The next sub section focuses on guilds, which are like groups. There are 4 guilds in the game: The fighter’s guild, the mages guild, the thieves’ guild and the dark brotherhood. To join the fighter’s or mages guild you can simply go to a guild house in one of the towns and ask to join. The thieves’ guild requires a different approach in which you must go around asking about “Grey Fox”. The Dark Brotherhood requires you to kill someone and then go to sleep. It is possible to become head of all 4 guilds and obviously as you rise in status you receive bonuses from the respective guild.
There are also freeform and miscellaneous quests. These are in each town and sometimes in the countryside. They require you to do certain things and you get rewards for completing them … usually.

Another important aspect of the game is levelling up. As you progress through the game you level up and choose to improve 3 attributes. As you level up some of your enemies level up also. So for example if you were to do a quest in the mages guild in which you had to kill someone important that person may be three levels above you. It wouldn’t matter whether you are a low level 2 or a high level 26 that person would always be three levels above you. This is a good idea because it saves the game from being boring. If you got to a high level and then could go around killing people with one hit it would be a bit boring, so this way it keeps challenging you.

One thing I would definitely recommend if you were to buy this game is to get the walkthrough also. Although it may cost £10 or something it is definitely worth it. This is one of the few games in which you nearly 100% need the walkthrough to complete everything, unless you want to go on the internet and search for stuff you get stuck on (however the internet isn’t always right!). If you get the walkthrough you get a detailed list of all the weapons, armour, spells and details on every single quest in the game as well as maps for everywhere. On top of that the walkthrough also covers the Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansion packs! At the beginning of the game you need to select a class and race to do with what you want to be. For example if you want to mainly fight, use magic, sneak around or a combination of them such as a battlemage. It can be quite frustrating thinking about the one to choose because it will have an impact on the rest of the game – and it can be extremely annoying if you pick a person and then after hours of playing you realise that actually you wanted to be a mage instead of a fighter. The strategy guide can come in really handy here as it give a detailed list of all the races and classes available and tells you which one you should use depending on your opinion.

Overall this is one of the best RPG games out there despite its age, if you haven’t played before get it now with the strategy guide! I would give a rating of 96%!

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The concept of the game is based around the World War II period and you will be fighting a lot of Japanese fighters. The main story is split in to two parts. The first part is focusing on the Marine Raiders which are the Americans in which you face the Japanese at the end of the Second World War The second part of the story is you playing as the Red Army which are the Russians. In this story you face against Nazi Germany set in the same time period as the previous story.

That however is what is in the single player mode. Another mode which I will mention first is that of co-op mode which is offline. The difference between multiplayer mode and co-op mode is that you play multiplayer mode with people on different consoles, while on co-op mode you play with people on the same console. So in co-op mode you and your friends can play through missions or other types of games which are really fun. There’s capture the flag, free for all and team death match just to name a few. However one bad thing about this game which I was really let down with is the same thing that I was disappointed with on Call of Duty 4. The fact that there is no online co-op mode. So if you want to play online with your friends its one player only which is too bad, if this was an option then this game could score maximum points.

The multiplayer mode is also really good in the game but like I pointed out earlier is a let down because there is no co-op online mode. In multiplayer mode you can do pretty much all the stuff you can do in co-op mode except that it’s online with other people instead of people on your console. My experience of multiplayer mode is okay but in my opinion it’s not brilliant. To be honest in some cases I found co-op mode being better. It’s good to get a microphone so you can talk to other people online which is cool … if it worked brilliantly. Unfortunately for me it did not, not because I can’t install anything or it was faulty because it wasn’t. The problem is Call of Duty is quite a noisy game and so when you’re concentrating hard on the game and you can faintly hear the other players talking … even when your headphones are turned right up. A brilliant game that uses online speaking greatly has to be Halo 3. The words other people speak are so clear you can hear them fine. I wish I could say the same for this game.

I’d like to point out that although many places point out there is online co-op mode it is not that which I am talking about. They are talking about 4 players on different consoles playing online which is what I have said about as multiplayer. The 4 player co-op mode I am talking about is actually 4 people on the same console playing online together with other people on different consoles in a match.

I would also like to say that the Playstation 2 version is slightly different from the other versions in the fact that it also features an additional story line which involves you taking control of the British.

Overall I think that this is still a brilliant game it’s just a shame about the co-op. 9.4 rating!

This game features all of the previous 3 Indiana Jones films, and of course like the previous 3 lego games this game adds a sense of comedy to the 3 films. You can control a number of characters which are all made out of lego! The main character of course being Indiana Jones himself.

With the 3 films in the game all of them are split into 6 chapters. In each chapter you have to progress the end while along the way finding Lego Studs, Artifact Pieces, Parcels and various other equipment ranging from guns to spades. The Lego Studs are just the same as in the other games where silver studs are worth 10 studs, gold studs are worth 100 studs, blue studs are worth 1,000 studs and purple studs are worth 10,000 studs. You must find a certain number of studs to get “True Adventurer” in each level. Artifact Pieces are just like Lego Canisters/Minikits in the previous games. There are 10 in each level which you have to find and some will be in hard-to-reach places where only certain characters can get to. Parcels on the other hand and much rarer than artifact pieces and are similar to the red power bricks in other games. There is only 1 in each level, once found you then have to find a post-box to mail it back to Barnett College.

There are over 80 characters in Lego Indiana Jones and most of them have some type of special ability, of course some have none. There are a total of 9 types of special abilities, which I will go into in another review. However I will tell you all 9 of them. They are: The Academic Ability, The Enemy Disguise Ability, The Excavate Ability, The Explosion Ability, The Glass-Shattering Ability, The Repair Ability, The Super Jump Ability, The Tiny Size Ability and the Thuggee Chant Ability.

However unfortunately some characters also have fears. These fears will stop the character from advancing any further. Indiana Jones for example has a fear of snakes. So when ever he comes across a snake (which you will) he stops dead and won’t get any closer. You have to get another character to hit the snake before you can advance any further, unless you want to leave Indiana Jones there on his own. Other characters have fears of spiders etc.

The game play in Indiana Jones is very fulfilling and very enjoyable. This is the type of game where it is quite difficult to get bored (unless you have a small attention span). Each area is unique to each other so you will never find yourself in the same area twice (unless you play in the same area for free play).

Just like the previous lego games you first have to do story mode for each chapter. Then after you have done story mode for that chapter you can advance to free play, In free play you will be able to go back and get things you missed as you can also play as any character you wish. There are no more limitations and there is likely to be many artifact pieces that you have missed along your journey, you must collect them to get 100% in the game.

I think that overall this is a well balanced game and that a score of 8.9 should be awarded to it.

For more reviews on Lego Indiana Jones visit Test Freaks