Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

***Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings*** is the twelfth episode of Just Bad Games, released on December 18, 2019.

## Transcript

**Adam**: *Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings* is a game released in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii, based on the long-running *Indiana Jones* franchise.

**Shane**: An archaeological adventure franchise linked to the foundation of three classic films.

**Adam**: Wasn't there a fourth?

**Shane**: Nope! Only three.

**Adam**: Right. Well, Indy isn't just limited to movies, as the franchise entered into theme park attractions, TV shows, books, and of course, video games.

**Shane**: The scope and variety of video games that feature the iconic whip-sporting hero goes far and wide, from brilliant point-and-click quests to inventive 3-D action-adventures.

**Adam**: *Staff of Kings* was announced in 2005. A brand-new Indiana Jones game, it was expected to be released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, and people were very excited.

**Shane**: And then they waited.

**Adam**: And waited.

**Shane**: And waited.

**Adam**: As rumors began floating around that *Staff of Kings* had been cancelled, it was revealed that the development had been switched over to the less-powerful Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 2 platforms.

**Shane**: But at least the game would finally see release. And despite it not being on the most powerful hardware, you could experience Indy's adventures in all-new ways thanks to the power of Wiimote technology.

**Adam**: Oh boy!

*(Gameplay shown)*

**Shane**: Oh boy...

**Adam**: Let's look at *Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings*.

**Shane**: Indy starts his journey in Sudan, scoping out an ancient temple. After catching a glimpse of threatening German activity nearby, our brave hero quickly jumps into action.

**Adam**: And then everything slows right down. Remember when we were talking about Wiimote integration?

**Shane**: You probably have the expectation of using Indy's iconic whip, and while in other games, the whip action would be a button press, in this one, it's a wrist movement.

**Adam**: Oh, this makes sense, though. It's the Wii! Motion controls were the thing for the system, and the whip would make a perfect motion movement.

**Shane**: Oh? Oh yeah? Okay. Go pick up that torch and light it.

**Adam**: Alright, and... motion controls to spark the torch, too.

**Shane**: Yep! Now as we cross the bridge, we're attacked by a horde of spiders, and...

**Adam**: Okay, that's... more motion controls.

**Shane**: These ones aren't even specific. The game just tells you to flail your hands wildly, and it's like you're shaking maracas.

**Adam**: Indy! Watch out! Spiders!

*(Screen showing Indiana Jones and a spider shaking maracas)*

**Shane**: You get it yet? This whole game is motion controls, even when they don't need it.

**Adam**: You'll flail your hands to activate just about any action in this game.

**Shane**: Sure, that doesn't sound like such a big deal at the start, but try doing it about 5,000 times over the course of the game.

**Adam**: It starts to wear your joints down to a nub.

**Aquaman**: Ahoy!

**Shane**: A little further into the first level, we finally get into some hand-to-hand combat, a pleasant change of pace from the overused wrist flicks that weigh down the first parts of the game, right? Now, how does this work, exactly?

**Adam**: How about we let this ultra-slow, ten minute tutorial teach you?

**Indiana Jones**: To perform a right hook, move the Wii Remote sharply from right to left. Let's try out our left. Move the Nunchuk sharply forward. To perform a right hand uppercut, move the Wii Remote- Now try the left: move the Nunchuk sharply upwards to perform an uppercut-

*(The tutorial voice speeds up with each movement)*

**Shane**: By the power of Kali Ma.

**Adam**: Hey, here's an idea to punch: couldn't you just press A?

**Shane**: Instead, it's an overwhelming cluster of actual physical movements you need to perform.

**Adam**: And this combat system is complex. You'll never be able to memorize every move. The game relies on specific motions, so if you're half-heartedly flailing about, you'll accidentally activate attacks you have absolutely no intention of doing.

**Shane**: Seriously, just walk around for long enough, and breathe in real life, and that subtle motion will have Indy punch in the air.

**Adam**: But what if I forget the moves I need to perform?

**Shane**: Oh, don't worry, buddy. Back at the main menu, there's a big freakin' book that shows you all the moves that you'll need to write down and memorize to use them back in the game!

**Adam**: Oh, okay. The controls are a mess. How did they get this so wrong?

**Shane**: It really doesn't make sense. LucasArts was one of the definitive studios in video game development. They created award-winning narrative-focused experiences that felt on par with the stories of the company's famous LucasFilm division. Basically, if you saw their logo on a game, you knew it was gonna be worth your time and your money.

**Adam**: But they weren't the developer of this game, though.

**Shane**: Oh, it would appear LucasArts just published the game. The actual developer was a company called A2M.

**Adam**: A2M. A to M.

**Shane**: You know, they ended up changing their name right after this.

**Adam**: Really? I have no idea why.

**Shane**: Alright, so if we can't depend on the LucasArts narrative quality, then what do we get in this game?

**Adam**: As far as narrative, the opening level was designed to introduce the main villain-

**Indiana Jones**: Magnus Voller.

**Adam**: But we're gonna call him "Mr. Generic". He's a direct replica of Belloq, the main antagonist from the first Indiana Jones film.

**Shane**: Indy finds an idol, Mr. Generic steals the idol from Indy, Indy runs away and escapes on a plane. Hmm. That seems to be exactly what happens at the start of *Raiders of the Lost Ark*.

**Adam**: But hey, at least the plane sequence is interactive. How are the flight controls?

**Shane**: They're bad.

**Adam**: How bad?

**Shane**: Well, you know how a plane is flown with a stick?

**Adam**: Yeah.

**Shane**: And you know how the Nunchuk on the Wii controller has a stick on it?

**Adam**: Yeah.

**Shane**: Well, they totally threw you a curveball and have you awkwardly hold the Wii remote vertically in free space, and wiggle your hand around to control your plane.

**Adam**: How does that feel?

**Shane**: It feels like YOU'RE AWKWARDLY HOLDING THE WII REMOTE VERTICALLY IN FREE SPACE< AND WIGGLING YOUR HAND AROUND TO CONTROL THE PLANE.

**Adam**: Oh. Once you've completed the- (laughs)

Once you've completed the first area, you'd hope that the story would get a little more original.And it does, but any degree of story logic dives right out the window the moment we get to the next location, San Francisco's famous Chinatown in 1939.

**Shane**: Here, Indy hopes to meet up with an associate named Archie Tan, who sent him a random letter about someone named Charles Kingston- if you're confused, it's fine. So are we. The game hasn't established who Tan or Kingston are. In fact, there are no connecting beats from the last level to this one. Great! Oh no. Tan's granddaughter has been kidnapped. Somehow we care enough to give chase.

**Adam**: H-hold up! Time for another ten minute tutorial.

**Shane**: Oh, great. This one's for shooting.

**Adam**: How hard could that possibly be? It's a Wii. You aim at the screen and you fire.

**Shane**: Well, sure. You do that, but you also need to hide and move around in a fixed position while also shaking your controller violently to reload your gun.

**Adam**: That seems rough.

**Shane**: "Rough" is when the guy you're shooting at is INVINCIBLE IN THE TUTORIAL, WHICH IS TEACHING YOU HOW TO AIM AND SHOOT AT THE BAD GUYS!

**Adam**: He'll land a shot on you every time you attempt to take him out in this section.

**Shane**: So, you'll die, get respawned before a lengthy cutscene- that by the way, you can't skip- and have to repeat the tutorial again and again until you discover that-

**Adam**: You need to shoot UNMARKED BOXES to progress to the next section.

**Shane**: You just need to stumble into knowing to fire at all of them. The game tells you nothing.

**Adam**: And you'll have plenty of these shooting sequences where the object isn't to get rid of the enemies, but to do something random to progress the level. It's infuriating because you never know what the sequence is demanding you to do.

**Shane**: Like this sequence here. Take a look at everything. Look at all these enemies that are coming at you. You can spend hours shooting at them surviving, but it won't progress the level. You have to shoot one thing. Take a look around. What could it possibly be? If you guessed this weird little gray barrel in the center, you'd be correct!

**Adam**: Never mind. Right now, we need to save the granddaughter of the man that brought you to Chinatown. She's about to be electrocuted.

**Shane**: Hey Indy! Do your thing!

**Indiana Jones**: Quickly, girl. I'm here to save you. Go across the-

*(Indy fails and gets electrocuted)*

**Shane**: Motion controls. Why did it have to be motion controls? I hate motion controls!

**Adam**: Anyway, rescue the girl, and she takes you to her grandpa's store, where you look for the Jade Sphere: a mystical orb that will help Indy along his journey.

**Shane**: You explore a hidden passage to a secret basement, where there's a-

**Adam**: Roller coaster?

**Shane**: In a giant cave?

**Adam**: With huge pirate ships?

**Shane**: Secretly hidden under his store?

**Adam**: In San Francisco?

**Shane**: Did he put those ships there?

**Adam**: Hey, better question: why is the Jade Sphere, the precious artifact Indy's chasing, plopped in with a bunch of dusty cannonballs on a ship?

**Shane**: The enemies have loaded a cannonball into a cannon, and are about to fire at Indy, because they think he knows the location of the Jade Sphere.

**Adam**: I'll reiterate: the enemies loaded the cannon with the cannonball to intimidate Indy because they don't know where the Jade Sphere is.

**Shane**: It's right there! Just look left!

**Adam**: My left or your left?

**Shane**: IT DOESN'T MATTER, LOOK BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT, YOU'LL FIND IT EVENTUALLY!

**Shane and Adam**: Success.

**Shane**: We have the sphere.

**Adam**: Next, we run into Mr. Generic and a handful of exploding cars, and then it's time for some hastily crammed-in exposition that explains that the Kingston person that was mentioned earlier was Indy and Mr. Generic's old mentor. Oh, and also the Jade Sphere is from Panama.

**Shane**: So, we're off to Panama, or as we like to call it,

**Shane and Adam**: The Magical Land of Glitches.

**Shane**: Where you'll find-

**Adam**: Panamanian natives floating in the air.

**Shane**: Villagers that can walk through solid rock.

**Adam**: Attacks that break and whip enemies clear across the screen.

**Shane**: Tree roots that pierce Indy and stick straight out of his back, but he stays alive.

**Adam**: Broken loading sequences that keep jumping to loading screens.

**Shane**: Ledges you can fall from that lock up the game.

**Adam**: Broken flame textures.

**Shane**: Puzzle escape sequences that work one time-

**Adam**: But sometimes, they just don't.

**Indiana Jones**: Uh, what?

**Shane**: Eventually, we get to a room with a bunch of spheres.

**Adam**: We insert the Jade Sphere into a mechanism in the middle of the room, and we get a notebook left by Kingston referring to the Staff of Kings, the cane that Moses used to part the Red Sea. The notes point to Istanbul.

**Shane**: So we're off to Istanbul, or as we like to call it,

**Shane and Adam**: The Magical Land of Glitches 2: Constantinople's Revenge!

**Adam**: Look, there are just so many glitches in this game, and many of these crypts and dungeons, they start to feel like retreads after a while.

**Shane**: When you're not solving similar puzzles, you're desperately trying to stay alive by using the same awkward and frustrating motion controls in the same-

**Adam**: Are we seriously gonna talk about motion controls again?

**Shane**: I mean, we sorta have to! There's no avoiding it! Motion controls ARE the game.

**Adam**: Gotta use motion controls to pull yourself up onto ledges.

**Shane**: Gotta use motion controls to open doors.

**Adam**: Gotta use motion controls to pick up a rock?

**Shane**: These walls can crush Indy. Better use motion controls to stuff this random skull I found in this gear. Okay, hold on, let me try that again- uh, let's- hmm. Hmm. I HATE MOTION CONTROLS!

**Adam**: Waggle aside, the controls work against you in other instances, like here: our hero eventually ends up in the Himalayas. So, we're trekking in Nepal, and for some reason, we don't have rudimentary camera controls anymore. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't HIDDEN PITS of death!

**Shane**: By the way, Indy doesn't really have many death animations. If he dies, there's a quick and often confusing cut directly to a loading screen. How are you supposed to understand a failure when you don't see exactly how you failed, or the end result of that failure? It's bonkers!

**Adam**: About the only time that you do know what happened to Indy is when he freezes to death on top of a cold, cold mountain.

**Shane**: Oh, but don't worry about that. There are tons of minigames to get him through this mountaineering adventure, all of which make use of-

**Adam**: Don't say it.

**Shane**: Motion controls! You waggle to stay warm, to grab onto things and stabilize yourself, and even to flee from a vicious white tiger.

**Adam**: Quick! Indy! Shake what your mama gave ya!

*(Screen showing Indiana Jones and the tiger shaking maracas)*

**Shane**: Once you make it to the top of the mountain, surprise surprise, the enemy is already there, and they start a fire fight immediately.

**Adam**: It's here that we run into the most infuriating and sudden quick time motion controlled sequence IN THE WHOLE DANG GAME.

**Shane**: Oh, that wasn't any silly editing on our part, friends. We're as confused as you are. There's nothing that signifies you've failed the instance except a loading screen.

**Adam**: And then when you go to replay the sequence, guess what? The checkpoint is behind a massive multi-minute cutscene that is unskippable.

**Shane**: You'll fail multiple times believing that you're simply not performing the motion controls correctly.

**Adam**: Cause as best as we could tell, this one sequence has a fault in its motion control detection that forces you to nearly break the controllers by flinging them as fast as humanly possible. Oh, okay. Hold up. This is getting silly. Can we like, skip forward a bit or something?

**Shane**: Okay, let's see. Uh, we beat some people with a shovel.

**Adam**: Right.

**Shane**: Uh, find Moses' staff that he used to part the Red Sea, uh, Mr. Generic steals the staff and runs away as I probably imagine, and uh, Indy speeds down frigid rapids in a basket shooting icicles and dry-humping a statue of Baby Moses.

Yeah, there's an escape sequence where you use-

**Adam**: Uh, let me guess: motion controls?

**Shane**: Yep, to help Indy speed down a river while riding a statue of Baby Moses in a basket, as a reference to the legendary Bible story. It's got terrible controls as you might imagine, but adding to the frustration is having to stop, aim, and shoot at obstacles while also keeping the motion controls kinda working all at the same time.

**Adam**: You'll fail a lot, but if you make it through, you jump onto a zeppelin, where you'll find yourself using a crane to swing a grand piano into enemies. Can't make this stuff up, folks!

**Shane**: And of course, through all this, you use motion controls. The just keep getting worse and worse as the game progresses. They include a visual guide for instances like this, and it's completely obtuse.

**Adam**: After all of this, you make your way to the flight deck to confront you nemesis, Mr. Generic.

**Shane**: There are other people here as well, like Kingston, Indy and Mr. Generic's old mentor. Finally, after vaguely hearing the connection between the mentor and the students, we will definitively learn more about what happened with their relationship at the beginning that made everything so-

**Adam**: -And he's dead.

**Shane**: Oh, okay. Speaking of disposable characters, we didn't mention that Indy's been sort of travelling with a sidekick, kind of this whole time. At one point, you ride an elephant together. Uh, please play along and act like any of these people actually matter to you.

**Adam**: Oh no, look! Mr. Generic has decided to use the Staff of Kings to- part the waters in a zeppelin, I guess.

**Shane**: Yeah, this scene doesn't actually work. He holds up the staff, and suddenly everyone on the zeppelin finds themselves on the seafloor for no reason.

**Adam**: Ah, so the zeppelin crashed to the ground, right?

**Shane**: Nope, it's still up there.

**Adam**: Alright! Good! We now have a chase sequence through the parted ocean to catch up with the fleeing villain and his magic stick.

**Shane**: But this isn't just any chase sequence.

**Adam**: It's a chase sequence utilizing the worst motion controls ever implemented for driving on a motorcycle.

**Shane**: Look at this diagram. You have to hold your hands in the 10 and 2 positions midair, and hopefully move your hands together in a way that the Wii could actually register the movement.

**Adam**: Spoiler: it can't.

**Shane**: This awful layout is so hard because if you happen to lose control and hit the sides of the path of the water around you, it will instantly kill you.

**Adam**: But if you're lucky enough to beat the sequence, you're met with probably the most bizarre cutscene in the entire game.

**Shane**: Indy catches up with Mr. Generic, grabs the Staff of Kings, pulls it away from him, and he lets go.

**Adam**: Suddenly, Indy stares at Mr. Generic. Mr. Generic stares back. I think this is supposed to be a freeze frame moment of realization between these two characters.

**Shane**: Right, but the scene doesn't slow down or freeze. Look at the water in the background. It's still moving at its normal pace. Mr. Generic is right now hovering in free space long enough for you to question your purchasing decision.

**Adam**: And then he's gone, pulled into the parted sea.

**Shane**: The game ends with Indy and his sometimes sidekick embracing on the shores of a beach as the Staff of Kings turns into a snake and slithers off.

**Adam**: What can we say? So much of the story really didn't work for us. One can only wonder what could've been with a version of this game that spent less time on motion controlled sequences, and more time with the characters and story.

**Shane**: What if I told you there was a better version of this game? One that was completely overlooked by everyone?

**Adam**: What?

**Shane**: Enter *Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings* on the PSP.

**Adam**: The PSP?

**Shane**: This version drops all of the complex motion controls, featuring simple combat mechanics with an upgrade system. And get this: everything in the Wii release that doesn't make sense is fully explained with more scenes, better writing, and completely different dialogue. In fact, whole characters that just appear in the Wii version are far more fleshed out on the PSP release.

**Adam**: Ah, but it still has all those nonsensical things, right? Like the famous underground pirate ships at San Francisco?

**Shane**: No! Surprisingly, every bizarre level choice from the Wii release doesn't show up in the PSP version. The PSP release **is** the definitive version of this game!

**Adam**: Incredible. What most people would consider a throwaway portable version is leagues better than the original. it was developed by a different team. A team that seemingly cared about a game working, and the story actually being fleshed out properly. Imagine what it was like for gamers to pick this up originally.

*(A cartoon man picks up the Wii version and dies after seeing the gameplay)*

**Knight**: You chose poorly! It's all about the PSP, my dudes!

**Shane**: Look, we don't want to totally knock this game. The graphics for the Wii are pretty nice, and because this is a licensed game, we get to hear all that wonderful music from the films. Heck, even the voice acting sounds pretty decent, despite none of the original film's cast being involved.

**Adam**: Oh, and as a special bonus hidden in this game, you'll find the full version of *Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis*, one of the greatest LucasArts games ever made, which I would personally consider a reason to actually buy *Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings* on the Wii.

**Shane**: So all in all, what can we say about this game? Well, for its time, it had wonderful graphics, a fantastic story spanning the far reaches of the world, rich and well-designed puzzles, an amazing cast, all while staying true to roots of Indiana Jones.

**Adam**: Huh. I'm surprised you have such a glowing opinion of the Wii version of *Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings*.

**Shane**: Uh, what? Sorry. No, I thought we were talking about *Fate of Atlantis* again.

**Adam**: Oh, no. What do you think about *Indiana Jones and the Staff of*-

**Shane**: **IT'S JUST BAD.**

**Shane**: Well yes, sure, you do do that, but you also-

**Adam**: You said doo-doo!