Lego Indiana Jones 2 is the biggest mixup with the Lego games up to its point (besides Lego Rock Band). Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones 1, and Batman all had small hub areas with lined up doors to go to each episode which had 6 smaller levels inside. This instead has you choose which episode you want from the main menu basically, then you load in to the hub, but this hub is way larger than before. This is when Traveler's Tales really started experimenting with real larger hubs.
The 6 episodes you choose are the first 3 movies, redone from the first game, and then they split Crystal Skull into 3 parts to make 3 more levels. I'm not sure what was the factor into making this game, because they obviously couldn't really make it a full game with just 1 movie, so they added the old movies, BUT they can't just add the same levels again because then it probably wouldn't sell like a new game. I'm sure if this released now it would have just been a DLC expansion. Asides from that, this game is also to show off the new level creator added to the Lego franchise in this game.
This level creator is most likely why all the levels are so short (along with reusing the old movies). Each episode has 5 main story levels, 5 b-sides to those levels, and 5 bonus levels made in the level creator. The main story levels pretty much consist of 4 different types; Fight waves of enemies, Fight a boss, Demolition derby car destroying, and a normal Lego level. This game took out mini-kits, and shoved power bricks to the over world, so there isn't much reason for going back and free-playing main missions, which wouldn't really work because the levels are so short anyway, so they added small b-sides which give you a different objective in the same level. The only problems with these are since you cant free-play and just swap characters at will, you have to unlock and then find the characters you need for these b-sides on the over world, and then bring them back. This is the biggest problem with the over world in my eyes because it is tedious to walk around so damn much.
They brought back the tool system from Lego Indie 1, which I didn't enjoy very much, and kind of improved it. Now you can hold like 3 (maybe even 4) tools at the same time, you won't ever need to do that, but you can.
Overall this game is a neat experiment in the Lego franchise, but it still doesn't hold a candle to it's best.
The 6 episodes you choose are the first 3 movies, redone from the first game, and then they split Crystal Skull into 3 parts to make 3 more levels. I'm not sure what was the factor into making this game, because they obviously couldn't really make it a full game with just 1 movie, so they added the old movies, BUT they can't just add the same levels again because then it probably wouldn't sell like a new game. I'm sure if this released now it would have just been a DLC expansion. Asides from that, this game is also to show off the new level creator added to the Lego franchise in this game.
This level creator is most likely why all the levels are so short (along with reusing the old movies). Each episode has 5 main story levels, 5 b-sides to those levels, and 5 bonus levels made in the level creator. The main story levels pretty much consist of 4 different types; Fight waves of enemies, Fight a boss, Demolition derby car destroying, and a normal Lego level. This game took out mini-kits, and shoved power bricks to the over world, so there isn't much reason for going back and free-playing main missions, which wouldn't really work because the levels are so short anyway, so they added small b-sides which give you a different objective in the same level. The only problems with these are since you cant free-play and just swap characters at will, you have to unlock and then find the characters you need for these b-sides on the over world, and then bring them back. This is the biggest problem with the over world in my eyes because it is tedious to walk around so damn much.
They brought back the tool system from Lego Indie 1, which I didn't enjoy very much, and kind of improved it. Now you can hold like 3 (maybe even 4) tools at the same time, you won't ever need to do that, but you can.
Overall this game is a neat experiment in the Lego franchise, but it still doesn't hold a candle to it's best.