Graphically "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings" is a very odd duck. There are moments where the game looks ashamedly last generation. Then there are times, especially with textures, that the title seems to flirt with greatness but never quite reach it. The game stays smooth with the framerate most of the time which is a plus. There is a lot of use of bloom lighting which helps hide some of the rough edges in the game. One point of the graphics and storyline needs to be addressed though. The enemies of the game are the classic germans. Which should be read as Nazi, but they don't say that. This wouldn't be to much of a problem but, all of the swastikas in the game are replaced with the iron cross. This is not only stupid but it is censoring history. the enemies and vehicles still have a red band with a white circle, but now a iron cross in the middle. There is no good reasoning for this either, you can walk into a movie theatre right now and all over the open hallways posters for Quentin Tarantinos upcoming film "Inglorious Bastards" with bloody swastikas all over them. Apparently a "T" rated game might have more sensitive players then an open public hallway. The real question is, who is Lucasarts trying not to offend? By replacing swastikas with a more socially acceptable and used iron cross they may end up offending more people then had they been historically accurate to begin with.

The music of the title makes heavy use of all of the Indina Jones films rich background of themes by the legendary John Williams. It will even use music from "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" when it fits the scene. There are new compisitions though, as the title does go to places the films never did. The new compostions are well done and help the mood of the game and areas never seen on film. One of the first things you will notice is that after more then 20 years of Indiana Jones games, they finally found someone who sounds like Harrison Ford. Every prior Indiana Jones game always snapped you out of the experience the moment Dr. Jones began to speek. The other impersonator for Henry Jones Sr. does a fine job as well. The rest of the cast is new and well done as well. Your definitely getting a near perfect audio experience with "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings".

Indiana Jones has inspired many filmakers with movies and many developers with video games. "Tomb Raider", "Resident Evil", even "The Legend of Zelda" developers have all referenced Indiana Jones films as inspiration. This has sadly rarely if ever translated to outstanding video games actually starring the titular character. "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings" unfortunetly does not break this mold and doesn't even seem to attempt it. The title seems fairly comfortable in running through the usual paces of games that came before it. The only real difference here is the pacing and slight attempt at variety in the game. You can not use your pistol at any given moment for example. You can only use it during scripted shoot out scenes where you have infinite ammo. There are also plenty of times where the game will thrust you into the drivers seat of a vehicle, or sometimes the back of an animal in a cinematic chase scene. This does help the game feel more exciting and even more movie like, but is almost to often and random. When you are on foot, the controls seem to mimic the Wii version of "The Godfather: Blackhand Edition". Your fists are mapped to the nunchuck and remote. What is added of course in the whip which can be unslung by holding the B trigger. Simply whipping enemies only goes so far, and is better for knocking weapons out of their hands. The whip is mainly good for grabbing an enemies throat, gut, or feet and knocking them down or dragging them towards you to get them in a grab position. Besides all of this, the game makes use of the enviroment around you by featuring lots of destructable objects and lots of makeshift weapons. Cue sticks, pool balls, knight helmets, chairs, just about anything you could grab could be used as a weapon. It almost gives the game a "Dead Rising" flavor to the combat, except here enemies can and will use the envirmental weapons against you as well. The game is a bit lighter on puzzles then the last two console titles, and the levels not quite as long. This makes for a faster pace and more movie like feel to the whole package. The Story of course is about the Staff of Moses, but of course there is other items and treasure along the way. While the story itself isn't to bad, it does feel sometimes like the developers thought up cool locations first and then tried to fit staff of moses into it. You will travel around the globe more in this game then any other Indiana Jones movie and sometimes it seems to be happening to fast to make sense.