The History of Indiana Jones Games

I'm surprised how little Indiana Jones extended Universe stuff there is out there I mean compared to Star Wars with its innumerable collection of toys games albums statues Pez dispensers dog costumes shower heads and toilet paper at least it seemed that there wasn't really much until I looked it up as it turns out they tried basically the exact same thing but it just never had the cultural penetration it's funny how there's a new Star Wars show every week nearly 50 years after the first movie came out meanwhile Indiana Jones is nearly forgotten by the Next Generation its Apocrypha for the Zuma generation not part of the official Canon of classic films as weird as it is to say ask a young person if they've seen it you'd think it's one of the most popular action movies ever I mean it is but a surprising number of kids that have never seen it maybe they wouldn't be so sensitive if they grew up seeing exploding heads and Nazi collaterals part of why Star Wars can be stretched so far and milked to death without dying is its vast array of recognizable characters and Designs Luke Skywalker Yoda Darth Vader vs just Han Solo imagine every Star Wars set featured just Han Solo not to mention it's a bit harder to sell gestapo action figures to families than it is to sell Stormtroopers same with all the cool vehicle designs the Speeders robot dogs chicken walkers vs World War II Nazi equipment you can infinitely expand Star Wars because you don't need Alec Guinness every time you make anything Star Wars you can make a new game with new characters the recountless Star Wars games that are famous on their own right just as games not just because of their connection to a Famous Brand you can't infinitely expand Indiana Jones because it's basically tied to Harrison Ford what would you like to see as Indiana Jones nobody is going to be Indiana Jones ever don't you get it no one I'm Indiana Jones so when you're gone it's gone I'm gone he's gone it's easy but he is making a new movie and a new game by machine games is dropping as well so in honor of that I'm going to review the history of Indiana Jones games I'll cover them all but I won't review every single one I can't play them all because surprisingly there are actually quite a lot of them I'll also give my take on how the game should be made character tying games can actually be incredible if they properly nail the fantasy of that character and I think Indiana Jones could make an incredible game if it Nails the right mix of action puzzles history Intrigue and mystery multiple highly successful game series have been pretty obviously based on Indiana Jones films so we actually have quite a bit to work off one thing you'll notice is that a huge number of the games actually came out around a similar time that the movies released with the first game being released in 1982 which I believe is the same year as the first Star Wars game to release as well and the year that Raiders came out they're mostly old 80s Games many of which are direct tie-ins to the movies and not their own Original Stories there are also many for those obscure consoles somebody whipped up in their garage over the weekend in the 80s with a power socket for a controller and the graphics are just two beeping transistors on the back there were games for the ZX Spectrum FM towns Game Gear blackberry didge and even a Facebook game the first game was for the Atari 2600 in 1982. it was a tie-in for Raiders of the Lost Ark took the dude like a year to program why is it so simple haha it was written in assembly like all games from back then basically imagine doing calculus in a foreign language that'd be an easy way to imagine programming a whole commercial product in assembly by the way I said it took the dude a year to program like one dude the game largely was made by just one dude it is funny to think that the reputation of some major extremely profitable movie franchise was in the hands of a single dude Howard Scott warshaw who had made one game before this is the same dude who would go on to program E.T for the Atari apparently during development to get into character he'd go around the office just cracking a [ __ ] Whip and scaring people just to piss them off I guess in terms of how the game actually plays well it certainly Nails the Indiana Jones fantasy just not in the way they expect it feels like exploring an ancient ruin with vague Direction and incomprehensible icons you truly feel like an archaeologist trying to interpret whatever the [ __ ] is happening in this ancient cartridge like any Atari 2600 game it has grating music and Incredibly simple Graphics obviously it was made at a time when standards for games were basically non-existent still it's pretty unique in that adventure games weren't really much of a thing there were only games like pong at the time so being a little dude with an inventory and everything was an entirely new experience it was Bare Bones but you can imagine the potential at the time not to mention it was a financial success and one of the most important early games in the Advent genre and you know people say indie's actions in Raiders of the Lost Ark didn't matter at all it would have had the same outcome right but that isn't true he found the ark he was there at the end to make sure it was protected and didn't end up in Nazi hands again the real pothole when you think about it is uh the fornication just think about for a moment he goes around chasing all these women and sleeping around I don't know about you but if I witnessed God obliterate like 30 dudes right in front of me I'd be pretty Keen to keep his Commandments I wouldn't want to be on his bad side I'd probably become a monk and run away into the mountains maybe it's the Fedora that blocks him from God's influence in the same year lucasfilm games was founded in a joint agreement with Atari I have to say George Lucas was pretty forward thinking he might have been greedy in a Cellar and a hack but he was Innovative I think he's done more than any person in recent history to push forward Mass entertainment as a whole lucasfilm games didn't start off making any lucasfilm games lucasfilm made more money licensing their brands while the Publishers than making games themselves lucasfilm games just made their own original stuff Indiana Jones in the lost kingdom was published by mindscape in 1984 for the Commodore 64. what's unique about it is that they were making an expanded universe it was its own original story if you could call it a story at the time he had a cane this time instead of a whip don't worry they were still figuring it out this was a puzzle game where you were to use your wits to figure out the solution basically you have to figure out exactly what the developers had in mind with no help they didn't give you any of that in the manual you had to pay attention to whatever obscure clues that were hidden in the audio cues or the visuals and what they meant you just had to have high ijq that is Indiana Jones quotient this looks like the beginning of a running thread that I don't think is going to end soon this IQ thing becomes a bit of a running gag info 64 magazine said this game is boring roughly anime aided and sure to disappoint Indiana Jones fans three stars the arcade game for Temple of Doom released in 1985 for Atari system one about a year after the movie it was based largely around the second half of the film opening on the slave rescue area it has soundtrack that was basically an 8-bit version of the Temple of Doom music it's just interesting to watch the progression of Technology from the most primitive of sounds to something reasonably audible it also featured Harrison Ford voice lines well maybe with some artistic license the game was developed by Atari and got a ton of ports back to the ZX spectrum and Amiga some of which were of questionable quality it got these ports because it was popular and made money I feel like any game could have just been hard and be connected to something popular and it would have made money back in the arcade days in 1987 we got revenge of the Ancients yes another original story published by mindscape this one was developed by angelsoft and it's a texted adventure for the youngins among you that means the game is played entirely through the terminal it was made for dos Mac and the Apple II that games were noted for the random elements yes RNG in already Arcane difficult to figure out games sounds like fun you've also got a villain in it named Dr plebenheim in the same Year Ron Gilbert and Gary winick from lucasfilm games work together to conceive of and release Maniac Mansion this is the game that would introduce the point-and-click adventure before this we had text adventure games like I described Ron Gilbert and Eric wilmunda I might be pronouncing incorrectly developed what would become known as the scum engine that is script creation utility for Maniac Mansion this would be incredibly important for lucasfilm games now adventure games had a list of actions at the bottom of the screen a scene comprised of pixel art and an avatar that carries out your actions in 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade released this would bring several games along with it there was among them Last Crusade the action game it opens with an interesting 8-bit rendition on the Indie theme with some interesting voicing that kind of changes the whole vibe this one came out for basically everything Game Boy Game Gear Genesis Naz McDonald's toys DVD extras pregnancy tests and Tamagotchi I love how the opening has you as kid Indie just straight up murdering those dudes on a train it had a timer on at all times and was apparently very difficult it was an action platformer Style game and it isn't really highly regarded a lot of the games from this era seem to just take existing formulas for games in this case 2D character action attempt to recreate them and just slap on a fedora weapon leather jacket there was also the Last Crusade the adventure game and this is another one that I did play I used the scum VM emulator with a steam copy of the game it was an adventure game on the scum engine and it is fondly remembered I do like how intuitive it is on the surface these games are incredibly accessible you have a list of actions to interact with the world and you get to see everything represented by a player Avatar but we shall soon see it did not capitalize on This Promise of accessibility okay the game opens in a boxing gym at Barnet College there's a cool salmon Max Easter egg I didn't know Indiana Jones was a boxing champion I think we need an entire TV series or movie explaining his entire story of him learning boxing where he's played by Alvin erinreich we need to shed light in this so absolutely no Mysteries left we can't have anything that hints a broader mystery that just exists at World building when you explain everything this game did the IQ thing as well the Indiana Jones quotient you get a score based on the options you take the only way to max out that score was by taking every possible path over multiple playthroughs this was to incentivize replayability they focus on having multiple methods to beat every scenario this is a really cool concept that I think went on to inform some of the best games of even today the game is largely centered around puzzle solving and deduction but it also has a fighting minigame which I personally think kinda sucks they may have explained it better in the manual but I don't think it's very well fleshed out limited movement and moves which would be fine if there were more unpredictable Dynamic elements at play which there aren't and it's used a lot you get in way too many of these fistfights which is kind of annoying because action really isn't their strong suit the game has some interesting puzzles it was co-developed alongside the movie so the puzzles are vaguely based on movie events for example the x marks the spot scene but because it'd be too easy they make you figure it out based on the stained glass windows on the wall and your Grail diary which is a cool feature that ties into the film The issue is that a lot of the puzzles are just too Arcane after I complete them I'm just left feeling like how was I supposed to know that it feels like you need to be in the mind of the developers a lot of the time a lot of the solutions just seem to be like trial and error for example in Venice there's dried mud over some lever that you need to get rid of now the solution is that you have to get a glass bottle fill it with water and pour it on the lever to wash away the mud why does the water have to come from the fountain we're in Venice there's water everywhere there's puddles everywhere on the ground adventure games on the surface have this level of Freedom it seems like you have a ton of actions but the illusion is easily shattered because the designers cannot account for every possible thought the player might have why can't I just get water from the puddle because the designers said so that's the smaller issue the bigger issue is that when you click on this couple where the glass bottle is Indie even says better not bother them but aha my IQ was just too low to realize you need to click on the bottle itself and then he'll go up and bother them directly contradicting precisely what he told me earlier a lot of the puzzles just feel like clicking around the screen until you happen to click in the right place there's a lot of trial and error like you can't click on the piano player so you think you can't interact with him but in fact you can you need to interact with the ball using coins a lot of the ideas are cool you have multiple solutions to every problem but often the problems don't end up being interesting the castle Bruno's stealth and subsequent checkpoint area is boring and tedious you can pass each guard with either dialogue of the punching minigame as I establish the fighting minigame isn't Fun in addition to that your damage doesn't reset for every battle if you lost a lot of Health in one you'll stay on low Health as for the dialogue you have the exact same dialogue options for every single guard and you don't learn anything about their personalities so to pass each section using dialogue it is literally just guessing trial and error there isn't even a puzzle being solved here and this section is so long with so many levels to this building and after you've finished the castle there's even more of it in the German checkpoint missions it's cool what they are trying to do but it was early days I mean this was still the 80s there were game design lessons yet to be learned also this scene is pretty different from the film in the film the stealth in Castle brunewald lasts for about a minute until his Scottish Lord disguise is revealed Scottish Lord then I am Mickey Mouse how dare he [Music] and then the rest of the scene is an action scene and there certainly wasn't any stopping at checkpoints not matching the movie does create some pacing issues it was developed alongside the movie so I guess they were working off the script but they didn't have the movie complete to work off to understand the pacing how you were meant to experience things sections like Venice and brindwald are way over long while seemingly important scenes like the capture of Brody and the tank battle are not featured at all the second half also seems rushed the Holy Grail mission in the game seems to miss the point of the scene in the movie in the film it was meant to be the most humble cup in the room to show the nature of Christ in the game trial and error the humor also kind of undermines the dramatic moments now humor is essential to Indiana Jones a lot of it is silly I'm not saying it's a grim serious film series by any stretch of the imagination but right after Henry senior gets shot if you failed one of the tests he's just like be back in a gif or when else it dies he's just like nice going Elsa I do really like how you can get alternate endings technically every failure is just a bad ending with its own screen for example if you reach for the Grail you fall through the cracks and get your own bad ending I did love the art for it this rendering of Castle brindwald was very impressive I loved the Nazi death animations when you beat them up instead of getting Stars floating around their head they have these little SWA stickers the rapid aging animation for choosing the wrong rail was also really cool and kinda funny uh I chose this one how did you know well I kind of figured the coffee mug that says Jesus I mean oh right right pretty obvious overall I think this was cool I can see how Innovative it was just look at games at the start of the decade but going back there are some frustrations that make me question my IQ the puzzles are obtuse and the solutions occasionally obscure and nonsensical in 1990 lucasfilm games became LucasArts they also released the secret of Monkey Island in the same year this is when the graphic point-and-click adventure genre would really take off it was critically acclaimed this is still one of their most successful games and would come to define the studio in 1991 there was yet another vast Crusade game this one for the NES this was published by taito I'm surprised by just how much Indiana Jones media came out in the 90s despite there being zero movies at the time there were Comics games and the TV show although I'm not sure why people care about the time Indiana Jones was a waiter I mean for example there isn't much space in the Bible dedicated to Jesus carpentry is there we only want to know the important bits but yes Indy's popularity in the 90s shows the cultural penetration and relevance of the series this is another action platform again but it's also got a bunch of other game modes like Puzzles or racing it's basically a list of mini-games it's like Mario party if it was single player you do get to choose what order you do levels in even though it kinda doesn't make sense in the context of the story the soundtrack does go extremely hard though it's really funky with some cool remixes of John Williams music plus some completely original not even remotely Indiana Jones music it was written by Tim foelin I feel like I discovered a legitimate Hidden Gem with this one there's this one level that replicates the movement of the sea in a ship perhaps they didn't realize that the level would also recreate the sickness in 1992 we got Fate of Atlantis another original story game from LucasArts it was was written by the designers Hal barwood and Noah feldstein this game is incredibly highly regarded more so than even the Last Crusade game it's remembered as one of the best of the point-and-click adventure genre there was a comic based on the story of the game this one was actually voice acted of course it wasn't by Harrison Ford I don't think the developers had a solid gold super yacht to sell in order to afford Mr Ford they had somebody doing an impression it was decent and you get used to it after a while but you can tell it's not him it's not like Batman or James Bond who can be voiced by different people and retain the character Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford the game had its own soundtrack with variations on the John Williams themes alongside mostly original music none of the themes really strike as hard as Williams music does but I can't fault it for that because very little music does it all but don't get me wrong the soundtrack is pretty good the game feels like it addresses a lot of the problems with the Last Crusade game for example the fighting this time around it actually feels like a choice and you aren't constantly thrown into it it's pretty rare it actually depends on the path you choose as well yes there are three paths through the game that you can choose it was actually really Innovative and the paths are actually different with different dialogue and different puzzles you almost get a different game the puzzles are also better than the Last Crusade game this one on the submarine makes you feel really clever for solving it but there are still some occasions where you feel like you had to be in the mind of the designer to figure out what was intended for example there's one where you pick up some gum to climb up a coal shoot I'm sorry but how does that even remotely make sense I guess it's a sticky substance but that's certainly not the first thing I'd consider for climbing up a slide a good example for the puzzles is this Red Fez guy in Algeria you see him in the crowd and it's clear that he stands out that he's going to be important somehow you keep trying to speak to this other guy's boss he keeps saying he'll go back to his boss but then returns saying you can't meet him the thing is his dialogue is a bit vague and being a video game his behavior is something I can imagine being confused for a bug what you're meant to do is get the Red Fez off the guy who's wearing it and give it to the other guy for when he speaks to the boss giving the other guy the Red Fez lets you follow him through the crowds and allows you to meet his boss it's a clever idea but just a few things cause frustration there's also a lot of the classic just click everywhere on screen until you find what you want like this bronze gear the story is a cool concept and works in the setting of Indiana Jones but I wouldn't say it's at the level of a film early on in the game you meet Sophia hapgood who is the love interest for this game she's a psychic and you see her powers straight away when she summons the spirit of some Pagan God and gives her directions to find the next thing I'm not so sure about this part in the Indiana Jones films it tries to Grand you in the world Raiders doesn't show you much at all that could be extrude is Paranormal until the very end where they use it for massive impact you see in Raiders you wonder what the payoff is going to be the scene even shows bellock and the Nazis opening the ark and being disappointed with what they find it's just sand Spielberg knew how to build up tension and he knew mystery was Central to the story if you reveal the supernatural stuff this early on it just kills any sense of tension the thing about Indiana Jones is that it feels like it could be real they end on this giant Warehouse where the ark is just one tiny box out of thousands of potential artifacts being hidden and yeah the Nazis really did look for ancient religious artifacts in real life as well the arc also makes sense as the object for the movie because it likely existed the Bible describes its proportions so specifically that experts tend to believe it likely was real in fate of Atlantis you're looking for the Lost dialogue of Plato Plato only used Atlantis as an example of a city that fell to its own human decadence it wasn't even really presented as real and the idea that Plato's lost dialogue would describe Atlantis and how to find it as opposed to I don't know a philosophical critique is a bit of a reach Atlantis is interesting as an idea although I'm not sure about tying it to some lost Plato dialogue it makes it less compelling Crystal Skull is kind of like that as well the skulls weren't really something with historical basis in fact they were actually all found to be forgeries and yes it's one thing that crystal skulls are a forgery but it's even more of a jump to somehow link them to aliens speaking of fate of Atlantis kind of preempted some of the ideas that had been seen in Crystal Skull like these ancient civilizations actually being aliens with super advanced technology again that kind of kills the mystery when you make it just a computer the ending scene spoilers where you stand in the center of this Podium to receive these powers and become a demigod is reminiscent of the end of Crystal Skull I think the strength length of the classic Indiana Jones stories is that they knew where the line was there were ridiculous moments of course but it at least seems physically possible though highly unlikely to survive a fall in a life raft it only seems physically possible same with Landing a minecart on the other side of a gap in Crystal Skull I think they crossed the line nuking a fridge and surviving this hard Landing is just too ridiculous the waterfall scene felt like they took the raft scene that was already pushing the line and tried to one-up it pushing it too far with the Absurd fall that they survive these movies they're meant to kind of start in the normal World which exists as a backdrop for crazy or mysterious events that occur the characters in fate of Atlantis are a bit 2D there's a bit of development with Sofia but the villains are pretty cliche the voice acting for the Nazi scientist is hilarious how else do you explain the bundles I don't think any of that stuff is bad per se the Nazis were always a bit one-dimensional I mean bellock certainly fed an archetype but he had a bit of depth I also want to say I really like the art for this game there's this really cool effect when you climb up this waterfall for example some of the environments did look incredible they were oozing with atmosphere so yeah the art was pretty consistent throughout the whole experience in playing all these adventure games I'm reminded of an article by Ron Gilbert himself it's called Why adventure games suck he says that adventure games are hard to play when puzzles are arbitrary and unconnected when they're solved by chance or by repetitive sessions of an activity with minor variation now the indie games are among the best examples of the genre but they still fall into this trap again my IQ may just be too low for it he prescribes some solutions to make adventure games better like make the end objective clear give a hook for finding the solution present the problem before the solution puzzles should further the story give the player multiple solutions to or problem it seems that modern games could still learn so much from this adventure games are dead but there are other genres where I think hard puzzles are necessary they make the game interesting I want to think I don't like how modern games have either cut difficult puzzles or just spoil them within 15 seconds of arriving in the area but I don't want them to be arbitrary I don't want them to be entirely obscure I think we need a middle ground to give some decent hints but nothing that reveals all Portal 2 is a good puzzle game because every time I complete a puzzle I just feel like hmm that makes sense I also just want to mention as a side note in the same article he mentioned something he calls Hollywood Envy a great number of people in this business secretly and not so secretly wish they were making movies not riding video games knock it off if you really want to make movies then go to film school and leave the game designing to people who want to make games [ __ ] awesome we also got an isometric action game based on the fate of Atlantis in the same year it was published by LucasArts for dos amstrad Commodore 64 and so on by most metrics it wasn't really as good and isn't as highly regarded it is interesting though that fate of Atlantis was almost treated like a movie of its own with comics and other games based on it I believe fate of Atlantis went on to be one of lucasart's most successful adventure games young Indiana Jones Chronicles was yet another side-scrawler game released for the NES this was published by jaliko it's generally regarded as yet another average 2D indie game let's just say without capping on God ikana midfam this one is yet another that seems from the reviews is just painfully average it's fine as a game but it isn't regarded as a classic also still not sure why they thought young Indiana Jones was the best story to tell which brings us to the Ubisoft last crusad game it was released in 1993 yes yet another other Last Crusade game yet another painfully average to bad action platformer indie game they pumped out so many of these it seemed like it was built for the Game Boy and the game boy version would release next year in 1994. they don't even have cool graphics or art to lift them up make them stand out they are just so mediocre I feel like Indie deserves better also in 1994 was Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures it is yet another 2D action platformer game this one was apparently very good however it was effectively a collection of the best moments from every Indiana Jones film it was published for the Super Nintendo by JVC and developed by Factor 5. I'm just glad to see something that actually does Justice to the films something made with care that isn't pushed out to cynically cash in on a brand I know licensed tie-in games have a poor reputation certainly in the 90s but it does reflect on the creators it shows how much regard they have for their own creations whether they care for it or just see it as Revenue at the same time though they were pumping so many out it's inevitable that at least one would be good and now we're back to the bad games again in the same year was instruments of chaos starring young Indiana Jones for the Genesis published by Sega this is regarded as perhaps the worst it's yet another action platformer game that was quite difficult and unforgiving you're meant to be young Indie who's finding the parts of some super weapon during World War one that's a neat idea but why do I need to be young why can't I just be uh Indie Indiana Jones and his desktop Adventures came out in 1996 for mac and windows published by LucasArts this is like an RPG Maker game top down jrpg style it uses procedural generation for its levels and had a whole inventory system it didn't have an incredible reception it was intended as a more casual experience and was kind of maligned for it it was considered dumbed down the quest system is on almost like those radiant quests from Skyrim it was meant to be a game you'd play at work there were crystal skulls in this game as one of the collectible items showing the idea had been bouncing around for a while there's a mission where you collects c-3po's head there's an ending where you get abducted by aliens it's interesting that this game was poorly reviewed at release but has come to be slightly more positively regarded with time in 1999 The Infernal machine released for Windows there was also an N64 version this is basically a Tomb Raider clone with an Indiana Jones skin instead of the big triangle boobs you get Indies polygonal bulge and I guess to spoil it it's probably my favorite of all the games I played it's a bit of a pain to get running and the version sold on Steam where I bought it is kind of busted if you try to go 16x9 it messes up the hard which you need a separate fix for I think how well maintained these old releases are does reflect on the respect or lack thereof that these Publishers have for their own properties the most powerful weapon in the game is the SMG it's so powerful that it instantly crashes the game it doesn't help that you have an unskippable intro plus the unskippable opening cutscene every time you crash the story in this game isn't too in-depth much of it is spent in search of the four ancient macguffins used to power The Infernal machine a machine containing the ancient Babylonian God Marduk you have the same love interest as fate of Atlantis Sophia hapgood she's not really developed much here though it is interesting how the expanded media is creating its own Universe the voice actor for this is doing a better Indie impression in my opinion the villain is some fat short bald Soviet scientist who is somehow able to outrun you easily and yes the enemies are Soviets this game pushes even further in the Crystal Skull direction also spoilers although it's really spoiled in the first level of the game the ancient god is actually some ancient computer brought by aliens I guess it's kind of cool but also kind of Crystal Scully I already ranted about the whole mystery thing earlier making the end goal some ancient computer kind of undermines it for me personally not to mention how early they reveal all the supernatural stuff the gameplay is actually quite good but I think there is a huge hump to overcome that'd make it difficult for modern Gamers Indie feels weak mostly on account of having a slow turning Circle and the game having clunky movement Indie is really slow at climbing Ledges and doing most actions once you figure it out though it works for this game at least it's a tactical kind of combat but the Turning circle thing gets frustrating the controls for this game are the biggest shortcoming easily it has those old platformer tank controls it's really easy to oversteer Indy it's really hard to control your jumps it's really easy to point in the wrong direction this was an undoubtedly frustrating part of the game it's perhaps my biggest Point again against it and probably the biggest roadblock for anybody trying to get into it in the current year there's this one section inside a volcano where you have to keep jumping on these sinking platforms and it's super tedious because these controls were not made for precision platforming another thing that might wave some people is yet again the Arcane and obtuse puzzles for example there's this really cool open Island level possibly the best in the game but there's a part of this level where you've got to open up some underwater door now every other stone door like this is opened by a button but not this one no you've got a pry it open using a propeller from a crashed World War II plane now it already Breaks the Rules in that opening the store is unlike opening every other door in the game but it also makes no sense that it's an airplane propeller sure a crashed plane is a point of interest but wouldn't something like a Jack or a crowbar make more sense you know tools actually used to pry things open that you could realistically find inside a plane most of the puzzles in this game were pretty good though and speaking in general about the level design it is overall pretty good the aforementioned iron level was great there was another in an Olmec Valley where you solved puzzles related to pushing blocks they spice it up with vehicle levels there's one where you drive a jeep that was pretty fun but also very Jank it's funny to think that this was only two years before Halo there was an awesome hidden level where you would return to the idle temple in Peru and it has a bunch of cool fan service you get chased by a boulder again I like this pyramid level in sedan though the level was a bit labyrinthine it was easy to get lost the game was really long as well I have about 38 hours in it on Steam minus idling about 30 hours to beat the game overall I do recommend this game there was also a version of The Infernal machine released in 2001 for the Game Boy Color it basically recreated the levels and environments from the PC version of the game in their top down action game it's simpler with simpler switch-based puzzles looking online it seems the general impression of this game is it's alright the interesting thing about infernal machine is that the ancient computer angle was actually going to tie into the alien angle which was canceled because of the fourth film obviously featuring aliens being in development at the time the emperor's tomb released in 2003 this one is focused on China this one required some fixes as well not as many as infernal machine though I felt relieved by the controls as soon as I started playing they felt so smooth coming off infernal machine they're pretty standard for early 2000s action games think of the Spider-Man games for example the combat was similar as well light attacks heavy attacks pickup objects use gear such as guns although the gear is streamlined from infernal machine which this game broadly does take after in fact this game is in many ways just a more streamlined version of infernal machine it isn't as long it's more focused with less Arcane puzzles but I think it's too streamlined some of the puzzles aren't very challenging there was this one where Satan emerges from the ground and legitimately freaked me out but the puzzle was just matching some pictures it didn't require exploring the level to solve I think the ideal area would be somewhere between these two games by 2003 I think they were simplifying the game too much except for the save system which is quite punishing the levels are split up into multiple small parts when you die you get sent back to the start of the area the level design is also just weird it's so reliant on swimming sections even where it makes absolutely no sense like this huge pool under some ancient Turkish mosque where there are sharks and there are these cracks that look like black metal band logos that you have to place these explosives on yes you're meant to be an archaeologist who cares about stuff belonging to museums and history who wants to defend history but also blows up all this ancient architecture including some huge ancient Greek statue Indy doesn't really do his due diligence in any of these games in most of them you basically loot ancient artifacts for money in infernal machine you use that money to buy ammo and weapons the writing is pretty goofy look Hans or Klaus or whatever your name is I don't know what you're talking about the characters are so stereotypical there's this one mission in a castle with Nazis and one said something along the lines of I could really go through the strudel right now or there being a love interest who is a Chinese professor and part-time ninja she accompanies the main villain who is the most typical Fu Manchu Chinese mustache stereotype the voice acting for these characters isn't amazing the Indie impression isn't as good as infernal machine in my opinion spoilers in the final boss battle he summons a huge Dragon to kill you speaking of this game is probably the worst Defender when it comes to On Demand the mystery and has all this Supernatural and mythical stuff like in the aforementioned level in a Turkish mosque you fight a huge Kraken at the end there are upsides though the combat and platforming is fun moments all throughout I certainly wouldn't say it's a bad game by any means but it feels like a downgrade from infernal machine there are silly moments like this on a rail section where you're being dragged by a guy in a cart and somehow outrunning vehicles and just drags on way too long even comparing the visuals infernal machine had a simple readable and distinct blocky visual presentation Emperor's tomb just came out in an ugly time in gaming when mesh and texture quality was transitioning to HD but next-gen consoles were yet to release from 2002 to 2005 a lot of games had kind of ugly messy looking characters case in point overall Emperor's tomb is still a decent game I I'd recommend it it might be a bit easier to get into than infernal machine but infernal machine is the better game the next game to release was Lego Indiana Jones after a time Jump to 2008. this is the game most people asked me about when I was making this video I remember getting this game in the same case as the Kung Fu Panda game along with Need for Speed Pro Street and 2 Rock 2008 for the Xbox 360. I 100 completed this game back in the day I got the reigning Lego studs falling from the sky and everything when you get a Lego game you kinda know what to expect I like how they tied the puzzles into the movie characters like there would be some huge pit of snakes and Indiana couldn't go near it Lego Indiana Jones was basically just a recreation of the original Three movies it was before they used voice lines so all the characters were just grunting relying on a lot of physical comedy when you think about it Lego games are kind of an infinite money machine just get some popular property making few puzzles and simple levels and there you go the assets wouldn't be too hard to make just use the same basic Lego man with the new texture ah I'm not complaining though it's brilliant it's fun that they had so much fan service and cool Easter eggs it was fun to be able to play as virtually any character you want plus the co-op was really well designed player 2 could just hop in at any point during gameplay one thing I will say is how easy they were in retrospect with Lego Indiana Jones being one of the easiest there wasn't really a penalty for dying other than losing some money the puzzles were never super challenging you might say well it's a kids game I never got that answer I never understood it because kids are some of the best at games they've literally all day to play a game with no responsibilities I remember beating Jack 2 so many times as a kid and then growing up to learn that apparently it was supposed to be a very difficult game there was also a browser game which is basically just a timing minigame like that Chrome Dino game there was a mobile Lego Indiana Jones as well a pretty simple side-scrolling platformer mobile games sucked then I mean they suck now but 2008 was around the release of the iPhone so they were just figuring out the mobile gaming Market there was a DS version which was just a simpler version of the console Port also in 2008 was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the Blackberry yeah again it was a simplistic kind of scuff 2D platformer it was obviously released as a time to the film at least I can't say crystal skull deserves better the staff of kings came out in 2009 the last major original story game the main platform was the Wii it was originally intended as a next-gen game on the 316 PS3 it was gonna have Euphoria physics you know the one like from GTA 4 but the development was kind of troubled so they could only do the Wii the Wii version of this game also kind of sucked this might be controversial to say but I think the Wii kinda sucked basically everyone had one that was just sitting in their living room seeing Zero use since we Sports came out the wagland gimmick became annoying when used in actual games most of which wouldn't really work with those controls this is a perfect example of the failings of the wagland gimmick staff of Kings Way over uses it for everything it was often vague what motion you were even meant to make the ending scene was also really goofy just look at this I do have to say though the staff of Moses was a good pick for an artifact and the idea of a Chase through the parted Red Sea is a really cool concept there was also a port for the DS and the PSP the PSP version was much better it actually looked quite good for the PSP it also cut a lot of the annoying or nonsensical horse crap not having a wagland gimmick helps it had decent combat and puzzles and a revised story it still wasn't amazing according to most refuse the DS Port was average as well the 3D action never really worked for DS honestly Nintendo are the only people who can make games for Nintendo consoles also in 2009 another phone game Indiana Jones and the lost puzzles this was a tile-based match 3 puzzle game this was the period in Mobile gaming where they're trying things out to see what worked and I guess companies like THQ were using whatever properties they could access to make these games it wasn't a poorly reviewed game actually it just doesn't seem to really match the Indiana Jones fantasy it could have the skin of basically any game over it Lego Indiana Jones 2 was the last game for 2009. there were versions for console DS PSP PC and so on by most metrics it was a downgrade it had sections for the original story but most of the game was dedicated to Crystal Skull it missed some of the most important areas like the Peru Temple it also had a lot of levels that were very short and didn't really develop much they were basically just one room it was largely a retread where there were new things those things weren't as good as the predecessor the last Indiana Jones game was in 2011. unfortunately we're not ending on a high note as it was a Zynga Facebook game Indiana Jones Adventure World because the first thing I think of when I think of Indiana Jones is Farmville again just throwing this license around at things you think will be profitable Facebook games were meant for bored stay-at-home mothers they were meant to be casual the complete opposite of Adventure and excitement I'm honestly just surprised at how much shovelware they've thrown out there with the Indiana Jones name attached I guess I'm not too surprised considering licensed games are often [ __ ] but Indiana Jones is Almost the perfect setting for a game I think George Lucas said something like that as Georgia said there's no better character suited for video games than Indiana Jones I mean we have Tomb Raider and Uncharted two highly popular successful and lucrative action series perhaps the biggest action Platformers and their obvious almost directly influenced by Indiana Jones it seems that actual developers who would have done well with the license struggled to get access to it while [ __ ] Zynga got to use the license for a Facebook game it's no wonder there hasn't been a new game in over 10 years which isn't necessarily bad not everything needs to be a franchise that's not to be too pessimistic there were some good games Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures the Last Crusade and fate of Atlantis the infernal machine which I highly recommend Emperor's tomb was decent in Lego Indiana Jones was fun of course the story isn't over because next year the dial of Destiny releases and bethesda's Indiana Jones might as well they did say in 2021 that it wasn't very very early development it will be developed by machine games they do have the experience with Nazi fighting games there is some overlap with the exaggerated Nazi villains and castles and such I do hope they don't include their fetishes in their own fighting and none of the general Swedish weirdness that permeated Wolfenstein II and Young Blood to be honest they already have a pretty strong template for a third person action adventure just look at Uncharted and Tomb Raider Uncharted hazards infamously fun grapplehook which is such an obvious parallel to the whip I hope they're more open-ended with the use of the whip than previous Indie Games the other games only had predefined spots to attach the whip let us attach it to vehicles and enemies and objects one thing I think it absolutely needs is a greater focus on the puzzles there are plenty of other games that do good action but the puzzles are almost as if not more important than the combat in Indiana Jones and don't do them like puzzles in modern movie games don't have Indie spoil the solution out loud make them challenging not Arcane or nonsensical like some of the older games but make them require thoughts reading investigation take a look at games like the infernal machine listen to Ron Gilbert's advice make the end objective clear give a hook for finding a solution present the problem before the solution all that stuff make them require a high IQ but not too high make all the puzzles connected and relevant some people also might unlike this suggestion but I think an open world would work traveling around some huge map that you're slowly uncovering feels like the epitome of Adventure or perhaps just a handful of very large Maps don't reveal the mystery too early make it fun of course but not too goofy don't do aliens I'm hoping machine games does really well with this game another wish list item would be Harrison Ford voicing it I know it's unrealistic but AAA games are much bigger with way bigger budgets so maybe I also hope Indy 5 is good the leaks do sound like [ __ ] it does seem like there may be time travel which I'm unsure about it seems that Indiana Jones is a character that Harrison Ford actually cares about unlike Han Solo James Mangold is a good director I like Ford vs Ferrari apparently Logan was great I'm just concerned he'll try to do some deconstruction or something which itself has become a boring Hollywood Trope so anyway I did this video all for what what was the prize illumination please like And subscribe thanks for watching and goodbye and don't worry we have top men working on the next shredded Nerd video top men I would like to thank my current active patrons will Matty lazy the crazy glorious bees Maritime stake85 Delirious fool topkek red and Adam safranco

Channel: ShreddedNerd

Views: 123,963

Keywords: analysis, gaming commentary, video essay, 2 years later, years later, doom review, game review, game history, game design, doom fans, review, shredded nerd, 343, haze, ps3, halo clone, indy, indiana jones, last crusade, temple of doom, raiders of the lost ark, kingdom of the crystal skull, dial of destiny, indiana jones and the dial of destiny, indiana jones game, infernal machine, emperors tomb, staff of kings, Indiana jones 5, indiana Jones 5 trailer, george lucas, indiana

Id: lH6BEWcLGM8

Length: 47min 51sec (2871 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023