Ah Legos. While the bricks may have expanded to encompass stranger and more interesting shapes over the years, and brought many pop culture brands such as Star Wars, Batman and now Indiana Jones into the fold, in the end, they're still the same bunch of bricks you played with as a kid. The same can be said for the Lego series of games that started with the Star Wars prequels, branched into the Star Wars original trilogy and now try to recreate the first three Indiana Jones movies via plastic bricks and easily dismembered enemies. Lego Indiana Jones has all of the easy combat, fun exploration and puzzles of it's Star Wars siblings, but sticks so close to the formula that it ends up feeling like more of a retread than an entirely new property.

If you've never played a Lego game, the concept is pretty simple. Take three movies, in this case Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and turn them into platforming, action games created entirely out of Lego bricks. You play the game as Indiana Jones, the stalwart hero of all three movies, and are partnered up with different characters from the movie, all with different abilities.

Sallah, Indy's pal from Raiders has a shovel which can be used to dig up additional items. Marion, Indy's love interest from Raiders, has the ability to switch places with a monkey that can traverse vines to get up to those hard to reach places, Short Round, from Temple of Doom can enter in smaller tunnels, and Indy's dad, Henry Jones Sr. from The Last Crusade, can use his umbrella to slide down zip lines. As everything in the game is made from Legos, most things are destructible, yielding studs, the game's currency, or piles of bricks that can be used to build switches, fans and other tools to help get from one end of the level to the other.

It's not all building though as Indy will occasionally have to fight the various enemies from the three movies. Indy has a whip at his disposal, handy for disarming opponents, or spinning them around so that they can be defeated with one punch. Indy can also pick up other weapons, or just rely on his fists when things get hairy.

The combat is fairly simple with most enemies going down in just a couple of hits, and any that do stick around to give Indy and his pals trouble, don't stick around long due to Indy's infinite number of lives. Yes, that's right, your characters can spring back to life whenever they're taken out, with only a small financial penalty to mark their passing. This makes the game a lot more accessible to younger players, but also lessens the challenge for those who have been around the gaming block a few times.

At the beginning, each of the movies is available to play only in Story mode, in which Indy is paired up with one or two characters based on who would be appropriate at that point in the film. You're always given teammates that can get you through the level, but never who you need to find everything in the level, which is where the Freeplay mode comes in. During Freeplay mode, accessible upon completing the level in Story mode, you get a stable of characters, all of which can be used to get you past whatever vines, special doors or partially buried doohickeys you might find.

Given that the story mode might give you access to only half of what the level offers, Freeplay is where it's at to see the whole Lego Indy universe. Freeplay mode is also essential for finding all of the artifacts and red bricks. The former unlocks recreations of story specific items to view back in the hub of Barnett College, and the latter unlocks the ability to purchase extras like mini games and stud multipliers.

As you play through in story mode, you'll unlock plenty of characters from the Indiana Jones movies, from well known characters like Rene Belloq to your more pedestrian Thuggee swordsmen. Additional characters can be purchased at Barnett College with the studs found throughout the game lying on the ground, or liberated from whatever items you decided to smash open. With all of the artifacts to find, as well as extras and unlockable characters to purchase, completionists will be able to spend a lot of time with the game before they can consider it finished. Those of you looking to see how the movies are done, and nothing more, can probably get through the game in about six hours.

The movies are all well adapted and use clever platforming levels and vehicle sections to help keep things moving. You'll ride a raft down a mountain, drive a German motorcycle and fly a biplane as well as visit various jungles, jump from vehicle to vehicle in two German army caravans and smash up the streets of Cairo and a Shanghai nightclub alike.