Don't get me wrong. I like "LEGO Indiana Jones" -- my girlfriend and I are currently working through the "Temple of Doom" section -- but it's a deeply flawed game.

What "Indiana Jones" proved is that the LEGO formula doesn't work perfectly with every universe. There aren't enough action sequences or memorable characters in the Indy franchise to make a LEGO game about it nearly as pleasurable as the "Star Wars" installments.

That's not a problem for "LEGO Batman." My recent 20 minutes of playtime with the latest LEGO game avoided every pitfall "Indiana Jones" fell in.

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Though "Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures" is released in stores today, we here at Multiplayer have been able to play the Xbox 360 version of the game for the past week.

And as fans of the "Lego Star Wars" games, we had a few questions about LucasArts' and Traveller's Tales' new blockbuster game.

For one, we wondered how difficult and different it was to translate "Indiana Jones" into a Lego game. After all, "Star Wars" is a vast science-fiction universe rich in diverse settings, vehicles and characters. The world of "Indiana Jones" is much smaller and based more in reality -- his vehicles are cars (no Millennium Falcon), his weapon is a whip (not a lightsaber), and his enemies are Nazis (not the Sith). Read more...

Since the last entry..

*I got to the bottom of my new-game stack and reached into my old-games-I-need-to-mess-around-with pile. In there I found "Silent Hill 4," "Rogue Galaxy," and "Final Fantasy XII" all for the PS2.

I tried them each but don't plan on finishing any of them unless any reader of this diary can change my mind.

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Since the last entry, I...

*Finished "Trauma Center: New Blood" in absurd fashion. I reached the final surgery and failed at it multiple times. I decided the game was too hard. I put the game on my game shelf, resigned that it would join "Final Fantasy X" and "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" as games that contain final encounters that I couldn't overcome. A day later, I couldn't deal with leaving the game unfinished, so I took it back off the shelf, consulted GameFAQs to deduce a better strategy. And I beat it.

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Last week, an "Iron Man" game came out aligned with the theatrical release of the "Iron Man" movie.

The movie did fine despite "GTA IV" pulling in $500 million dollars, but not much has been said about the game (though it seems that people are renting it).

Would the "Iron Man" game have generated more buzz away from its movie release but also away from the release of "GTA IV"?

Other movie games planned for this summer are sticking with the standard practice of coming out with the film. The "Speed Racer" movie and game are out this week, next week is "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" and later on this summer "Kung Fu Panda," "The Incredible Hulk," "Wall-E"... well, you get the idea. Summer blockbusters typically come with video games in tow.

However, this got us thinking about the new "Batman" movie. In summer 2005, "Batman Begins" had a game published by EA and developed by Eurocom that was released day and date with the film. Then the movie sequel "Dark Knight" was officially announced in August 2006 and hits theaters on July 18. Yet so far, we haven't heard anything about a "Batman" game for July.

Last May, IGN reported a rumor that EA tapped Pandemic Studios to create a new Batman title based on the "Dark Knight" movie. Not much else was known. On April 2, 2008, IGN confirmed the rumor but the information was then immediately taken down. Multiplayer reached out to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, but representatives would not comment on the status of the game.

Also, "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," which enters theaters on May 22 does not have a scheduled movie-based game. We asked Lucasarts why there isn't a "Crystal Skull" game but received no response before press time. In 2005, an "Indiana Jones" game for next-gen consoles was announced, but no release date has been given. Meanwhile, "LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures" hits retail on June 3, but does not include the storyline from "Crystal Skull."

Maybe the people behind the "Dark Knight" and the "Indiana Jones" games (as well as 2006's "Superman Returns" game) know something we don't.

Could licensed games benefit by not coming out day and date with the film?

Are movie-based games still relevant to gamers when the it comes out much later than the film, and perhaps tied to a DVD release?

Or does the game really miss out by not being released with the movie?

It's been a week of highs and lows here on the MTV Multiplayer blog's coverage of "LEGO Indiana Jones."

There have been triumphs and defeats.

And now, LucasArts, determined to make things right again has offered us a nice exclusive. Or, really, an evil exclusive.

Click below to see a full shot of the game's very own version of Mola Ram, the bad guy from "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom."

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What the LEGO people and I had last Saturday was a failure to communicate.

My notes about "LEGO Indiana Jones" and my recollection of my interview with two LucasArts people who showed me the game indicated that the Indy game would support four-player co-op. That's why I wrote that it did.

But on Wednesday I found out that the actual design plans for the game do not call for four-player co-op. That feature is not planned for the game.

A producer for the game has confirmed that. "'LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures' will feature the user friendly drop-in/drop-out two-player cooperative feature that players have come to know and love," the game's producer, Shawn Storc, said to me in an e-mail provided by LucasArts public relations. "However, we are not expanding this feature to a higher player count. I certainly do apologize for any confusion that has arisen; we must have been in a LEGO induced haze at the Collector’s Party."

How could things have gone so wrong?

I'm told that the game will allow up to four character on the screen, but apparently only a maximum of two players can ever control the game and the characters on screen at once.

Multiplayer readers, I take great pride in the accuracy of my work. I would not have reported it as fact if I didn't think I had it 100% solid, in this case from an official demonstration of the game. But, unfortunately, that was not the case.

UPDATE, 2/1: The following story erroneously reports that "LEGO Indiana Jones" has four-player co-op. This error arose from a miscommunication about the game's features during an official demonstration that led to an inaccurate impression of the game. For more details, see this follow-up post. We regret the error.

I spent an hour this past Saturday exploring a room full of LEGOs, and getting a quick demo of "LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures."

The meeting was at the Times Square Westin hotel where my last game demo was a week-early marathon with "Halo 3." It was in a conference room where LEGO toys and LEGO statues stood (see some pictures below).

And amid all the toys, two LucasArts producers has a level to show in the LEGO "Indy" game. So I sat down to watch a yellow-headed LEGO Indy try to retrieve the idol and outrun a boulder. I was being shown the first scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," as re-done by developer Traveller's Tales.

But I couldn't just watch. I asked questions and learned about some other stuff too. Read on…

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