Video Game Music

LEGO Indiana Jones is a video game adaptation of the first three Indiana Jones feature films. It closely follows the plot and action of the movies, although portions of the story are extended for gameplay. The game is broken into distinct scenes which either involve action sequences, puzzle solving, or cutscenes. Music Supervisor Jesse Harlin decided to incorporate music into the soundtrack from the Indiana Jones films, the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and the Emperor's Tomb video game. 

The soundtrack to the game often features an unusual mix and arrangement of music to accommodate for the constant changes in gameplay. For example, quiet exploration music will be interrupted by frantic action music when enemies suddenly appear; the quiet score resumes once the enemies are defeated. The "quiet" and "action" tracks for each scene are approximately 1-3 minutes long, and often combine music from several Young Indy episodes or at least several scenes from one episode. However, many of the ambient tracks feature atmospheric sound effects such as wind, crowd murmurs, bird calls, etc. Most of the "action" scores are in pristine quality, although cut down from a full episode cue to fit the timing needs of the game. Many other "ambient" and "cut scene" files are included, but these do not provide sources of music.

At the end of the game, the credits list Young Indiana Jones as a source of music. It is worth noting that to the best of this author's knowledge, the game credits are somewhat inaccurate. As explained previously on this website, only Trenches of Hell was scored by Frederic Talgorn.

Music from The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones

• • Adventures in the Secret Service, Frederic Talgorn

  • Africa Movie of the Week, Joel McNeely

  • Attack of the Hawkmen, Joel McNeely

  • Daredevils of the Desert, Laurence Rosenthal

  • Masks of Evil, Frederic Talgorn

  • Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life, Joel McNeely

  • The Perils of Cupid, Frederic Talgorn

  • Travels with Father, Frederic Talgorn

  • Trenches of Hell, Frederic Talgorn

  • Verdun, Joel McNeely

After purchasing the Windows PC version of the game, access to these sound files is very easy to obtain - they are just sitting in an audio folder on the desktop hard drive. They are installed to C:\Program Files\LucasArts\LEGO Indiana Jones\audio\ and are in OGG format, which is easily convertible to MP3. Using an MP3 converter such as Cloud Convert, an audio editor such as Audacity, and a custom metadata program such as MP3tag, fans of the game can download the music, edit the audio, and re-title the track names to create their own personal soundtrack. Follow along with the research below.

LIJ1 Completed Track Breakdown

Following the release of two LEGO Indiana Jones games, music supervisor Jesse Harlin was hired to work on the video game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. For this brand new original story, the soundtrack incorporates remixes of music from the original Indiana Jones films (including some unreleased material from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and also the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. However, in addition to using other Indiana Jones music, Lucasarts hired composers Gordy Haab and Ray Harman to write original music for the game. A total of 15 tracks from the original score composed by Haab (10) and Harman (5) were available for download from the composer's websites during the game's launch. Since then, the full set has been uploaded on YouTube. Two interviews from 2009, with producer Matthew Vella and composer Gordy Haab, reveal the following details about the game:

GS: Who's handling the music?

Matthew Vella: When you hear the original John Williams music from the Indy films, it just gets your heart racing, so we just had to incorporate those pieces into the game. Additionally, our music supervisor, Jesse Harlin, went to the vaults and found some really great music from the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones TV series that we used as well. Finally, to bring more uniqueness to this story, composers Gordy Haab and Ray Harman created some really great original pieces that have odes to the classic John Williams music.

M4G: How much original music have you composed for Indiana Jones & The Staff of Kings and how long did the process take from writing, recording, and mixing?

Gordy Haab: I wrote 12 cues, equaling 30 minutes of music which I believe is a little more than half of the original music in the game. My assignment was to write all of the action music: the exciting chases, fights, battles, etc. I know they used music from other sources as well for other various moods, including previously unreleased material from the Indy films and the Young Indiana Jones television show.

Different platforms of the game have different soundtracks. The Nintendo DS version only includes arrangements of music from the Indiana Jones films, and the PSP version features an entirely original score composed by Noel Gabriel. Some of Noel Gabriel's score was incorporated into the PS2 version along with extra music written by Gordy Haab's assistant, Samuel Joseph Smythe, to round out the score with a few more tracks. 

In addition to the John Williams scores and original music from Gordy Haab and Ray Harman, the PS2 version of the game also includes several unreleased Young Indiana Jones tracks that were never used previously in the LEGO Indiana Jones games:

• Starting Menu

  • Main Menu - "Archduke's Palace" from The Perils of Cupid

• Sudan

  • Combat Tutorial - "Connecting the Cable" from Espionage Escapades

  • Combat Tutorial - "Hobey to the Rescue" from Attack of the Hawkmen

• San Francisco, Chinatown

  • The Star of the Orient - "The Great Wall" from Journey of Radiance 

• Panama

  • Recovery from the Shootout in the Mayan Ruin - "Plan Has Failed" from Daredevils of the Desert

  • Overlooking the Lagoon - "The Lighthorsemen Behold Beersheba" from Daredevils of the Desert

  • Shootout at the Temple of the Three Rivers - "Assault on Gaza" (extended) from Daredevils of the Desert

  • Entering the Sacred Tree Room - "It's Beersheba!" from Daredevils of the Desert

  • Knocking the Three Stone Heads - "Alexander and His Troops" from Treasure of the Peacock's Eye

  • Mayan Astronomy Puzzle - "Petty Bureaucrat With a Gun" from Oganga: The Giver and Taker of Life

• Istanbul

  • Roman Cisterns - "I Hope It is Over Quickly" from Adventures in the Secret Service

  • Third Descent Into the Catacombs - "You Look Uncomfortable" from Trenches of Hell

  • Activating the Final Statue - "Dusterstadt" from Trenches of Hell

  • Final Battle with the Nazi Agents - "First Battle With The Pirates" from Treasure of the Peacock's Eye

  • Turkish Spider Tunnel - "Edith and the Sheikh" from Tales of Innocence

• Nepal

  • Solving the Reed Basket Riddle - "Stolen Boat" from Treasure of the Peacock's Eye

  • Escaping the Staff Temple - "Thirsting for Water" from Daredevils of the Desert 

In addition to the tracks listed above, it is worth noting that the track "Bistro Guitar" from Espionage Escapades was used in the game, but does not appear in the audio files. On the contrary, an extra track, "Lenin Has Returned" from Adventures in the Secret Service can be found in the audio folder, but the track itself never actually appears in any of the levels.

Obtaining the audio game files are somewhat difficult due to the fact that the game was never released on PC. However, it is possible to access the audio folder from Staff of Kings if you own the PS2 version. The audio files are much different and disorganized compared to the previous LEGO Indiana Jones games, but the game does not have any sound effects over the score. Despite being edited down significantly for gameplay purposes, most of the tracks are available in high quality. Luckily, the Young Indy Score channel has posted all of the Young Indiana Jones music that was incorporated into the Staff of Kings game for ease of access to all fans!

SOK Completed Track Breakdown