Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is an Action-Adventure game developed by Artificial Mind and Movement, published by LucasArts and released in 2009 for the Wii, Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS while the Playstation Portable version was made by Amaze Entertainment. Players take control of Indiana Jones in a quest to find the fabled Staff of Moses, and, predictably, prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis.
The various versions notably have different levels and somewhat altered plot.
Plagued by constant delays during development, the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions that were developed internally at Lucasarts were eventually canceled.
This game provides examples of:
- Braving the Blizzard: One level takes place on a mountain in the midst of a snowstorm, where Indiana can freeze to death if the player doesn't keep him warm.
- Call-Back: In the PSP version, the collectables for the final levels is "Orichalcum" that the nazis have collected from Atlantis as well as parts of the Mirror of Dreams from Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The title, in keeping with Indiana Jones tradition.
- Clothing Damage: Indy's clothing gets burnt after the fight with the fire breather.
- Collection Sidequest: Picking up "Artifacts" (represented in the game with a Hat just like Indy's) unlocks extras in the menu.
- Counter-Attack: Successfully dodging a melee attack allows you to counter-attack for bonus damage.
- Embedded Precursor: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is an unlockable feature in the Wii version.
- Everything Fades: Knocked-out enemies immediately fade out.
- Expy: Maggie O'Malley is sort of a cross between Marion and Elsa. She's generically spunky, but she also turns out to be a spy, but in this case it's for the British, so she stays a good guy after the reveal.
- Finishing Move: Indy can perform one to knock out an enemy after successfully roping them in with a whip (different moves appear depending on whether you pulled them in by the neck, waist or feet), or after grappling them, when he can smash them into a range of environmental objects.
- From Bad to Worse: In the first level, after a burning a few webs to get within a cave complex in Sudan, Indy comes across an old rope bridge with a bunch of webs around it. Once he gets halfway through, swarms of spiders flood onto the bridge from both directions. The only thing he has to repel the spiders with is a torch, which predictably ignites the bridge. Luckily, he just about manages to run across most of the burning bridge before its central section collapses, and then grabs the ledge and climbs upwards the rest of the way.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: By default, the melee combat a matter of landing left and right hooks and uppercuts.
- Grapple Move: Indy can grapple with the enemies and land highly damaging punches before they manage to break free, or simply push or smash them into the objects or other enemies. In his own words: "Fair? No. Effective? Yes!"
- He Knows About Timed Hits: The melee combat tutorial is fully narrated in-character by Indiana Jones himself.
- No Swastikas: Not only are swastikas censored, the game apparently can't even say the word "Nazi" and substitutes it with "German".
- Offscreen Start Bonus: In the very first level, where going backwards to a cave mouth Jones must have come from in the cutscene and climbing a ledge lets you collect a hat, which is one of the "Artifacts" unlocking extras.
- Press X to Not Die: To escape many quick time events, one must shake the hell out of the Wii remotes to flee.
- Ragnarök Proofing: All over the shop. Even in the first level, lightning two vats of oil at the entrance to the ancient Sudanese temple activates some hidden mechanism that opens the stone door. Somehow, the oil hasn't dried, and all of those gears are in perfect working condition, in spite of the centuries since they were actually used.
- Remember the New Guy?: Magnus Völler is established as an old academic rival of Indy's and one of the Nazi's most important archeologists...yet he's never been mentioned before now and didn't appear in Raiders or Last Crusade. Bob McGregor's unreleased novelization justifies this. In the case of academia, Völler was expelled from the University of Chicago after the 1922 prologue (and similarly to Belloq, Indy dislikes Völler and talking about him). In the case of the films, Völler was still rising through the Nazi ranks during the Ark and Holy Grail operations (and Völler was angry that what should've been a German archeological oversight got outsourced out to non-Germans like Belloq and Donovan). The Grail Quest's failure and Donovan's death are explicitly cited as the in-story catalyst for Völler's promotion prior to the game.
- Shovel Strike: Indy can pick up shovels and swing them at the Germans, or even throw them a good distance. Every successful hit also comes complete with a cartoonish sound. Having said that, they can pick up shovels if they get to them first as well.
- Utility Weapon: While this is a game about Indiana Jones, the whip is first used to destroy some rickety wooden obstacles in your way, and to swing your way across the gaps, or even pull at objects like bookcases to collapse them right on top of the unsuspecting enemies. During the actual melee combat, it's used to pull the enemies close (potentially allowing to instantly knock them out with a follow-up attack) and to disarm them; up close, however, actually beating them down is generally a matter of Good Old Fisticuffs, or even picking up other objects.
- You Have to Burn the Web: This is done with a torch within the first few minutes of the game. Funnily, a huge swarm of tiny bats instantly emerges and flies past you once you do that to get inside a huge cave mouth, even though there's no way a spider would have had the time to weave such a huge web undisturbed if so many bats were nesting there. Alternatively, there's no way they wouldn't have gotten entangled in it once it got finished.
