Page One: Last Crusade/Fate of Atlantis
Page Two: Infernal Machine/Emperor's Tomb
Five Indy gaming fans thought it was about time they sat down and sorted out which Indiana Jones game was truly the best of the lot. Let's introduce the players...
The Tingler chaired the chat, so was mostly in charge of showing Jp-30 how to work the chat program and prodding Gabez awake. He chose Sean Patrick Flanery's Young Indy because they share the same birthday!
Jp-30 struggled a bit getting into the discussion, but once he did we could tell we were in the presence of a true Indy fan. Just not a technologically advanced one. He chose Henry Jones Senior because his grandfather looks just like him apparently.
Gabez was falling asleep at his keyboard by the end of the discussion. Guess he's just getting old these days. He chose Marcus Brody because they're both most at home in a museum.
Zaarin the trooper stayed up way later than the rest of us. He must a pure Indy fan. Or a student. He chose Arnold Toht because he wears black a lot and has a vicious-looking coathanger.
Clone2727 arrived late and dropped out halfway through. This is why we gave him the monkey.
Sooooooooo.... Last Crusade, eh? What a movie!
Some really silly bits, but still great!
What silly bits? There were no silly bits!
Clone2727 said to go on without him, so let's begin!
First, this. Enjoy. Now the mood's set, this is what we're doing: we'll do each game in turn starting with Last Crusade, and for each game there are 6 topics to discuss.
(I feel like I'm reading out the rules to Monopoly round a family table here)
We each individually give a score out of 10 for each topic, then we move on to the next topic. Each topic will have a final score out of 50 (if Clone2727 comes back in time). The game that gets the top score is crowned Best Indy Game Ever!
Until LEGO Indy comes out anyway... ;-)
Oh. I thought this was about Simon the Sorceror?
My first introduction to LucasFilm Games!
That grail music makes my knees wobbly tho'! It's a great game, but it's a bit rubbish as well. The boxing fights were good. Oh... Laws.
Yes, them. The first topic is STORY/WRITING - how engrossing is the story? How well-written is it?
Well the story was the film, and the film was the BEST THING EVER, so the story is therefore great in the adventure game as well!
Considering the story was already written in the movie, its faithful, expands here and there, but not a huge achievement considering.
Ah, it is a little different however.
Yeah there were a few good extra sub-plots. Dr. Eva's backstory would've interesting to find out. Or whatever her name was. The Nazi woman!
Elsa. You're thinking of Eva Braun. I'm got a bit of an unfair advantage here because I've just finished thoroughly studying this game for LucasArts' Secret History.
Yeah, well, Eva Braun does actually make a cameo in the game -- but because the resolution is so small it's only a few pixels. But I could definitely tell it was her. The same eyes and smile...
The story is also the cage of the game... It was made fast and had to stick to something that lasts two hours, so all the mazes make it just feel stretched out.
It IS very short. What's amazing about it is how funny it is - almost in an un-Indy way. It's more Monkey Island than Indy.
Yeah there's definitely a different type of humour.
I like how they suggest that Marcus is the one doing all the action scenes, like the tank battle and the speedboat chase.
Marcus couldn't even threaten the nazis with a pen properly!
It's a shame he's not around anymore to be in Indy IV.
It did play off the film quite well -- but they could do more with it today! They could also ruin it better today.
It would have been made into an action game with focus on the action sequences... then mindless platforum jumping in-between.
Most film to game adaptations are pretty rubbish, all polish and no substance.
Last Crusade is one of the few that is great.
Yeah. So anyway, I guess I'd say 7/10 for plot.
Anyway, yeah. I'd say 6/10. It doesn't tell it as well as it could, but the writing's still funny. Even in an un-Indy way.
hmmm.... I'd say 7/10 as well. It does retell the movie well, but loses some points for the stretching.
Ok, jp-30? (
pause) Wow, he's fallen asleep already!
lol hang on, just working on other PC! Yeah, 7 for adaptation and humour in particular.
Cool. On to MACGUFFIN QUALITY - how enticing is the goal? How useful/devastating?
What is the goal in this game?
Now this IS the same in the film.
Get the grail before the Nazis.
Yeah, hardly any surprise.
The MacGuffin is the Magical Object that drives the plot. In this case, the Holy Grail.
Isn't Elsa the MacGuffin, really? I mean 'in a way'...?
Or Indy's Dad? That's Spielberg's viewpoint.
(
Still thinking about Elsa) In a very special way... I think she was -- for me...
You and your hormones Gabez. Anyway, how good is the Holy Grail as a MacGuffin? This is basically a discussion of the film.
It's the ultimate magical object! Eternal life!
It's BRILLIANT. Eternal life is also good.
It's like the holy grai... oh, wait.
Exactly. I never get tired of the Holy Grail anyway. Or 'Holy Graal' as with Charles Williams.
It isn't as good as the Ark of the Covenant though!
Dude. It's better than the Ark! New Testament beats the Old! That's why it's called "new", because it's better. "New" is latin for "better".
It also get plus points for George Lucas not liking it!
Hooray! I don't know, it's a bit silly. And the Grail's not even in the Bible! No, it's not (smug mode).
It so is though. If you look in my version.
Ah, the New Testament - St Gabriel Edition.
Well, what else would Jesus have drunk from? The hollowed out hoof of a donkey?
Why isn't his knife and fork magical then, too? Or his toilet? "The Holy Urinal".
No toilets back then! Just a non-burning bush behind the house. It died because if urine poisoning.
Well, the Holy Bush then.
Well his knife and folk didn't collect his blood. And neither, I should think, did the bush.
It collected his DNA though, absorbed it. The bush is like Jesus incarnate!
It was in that painting from The Da Vinci Code, so it must be true. Dan Brown wouldn't make shit up.
Ah, jp-30 makes a good point - Dan Brown used the Holy Grail too. Ergo, it's shit.
I'd say 7/10 for the Macguffin.
The grail gets a 8/10 from me!
I don't know. I'm with Gabez I think - 7/10
By the way, the game got the most hilarious copy protection of all LEC games... in the floppy version you have to translate Donovan's tablet correctly and if you mess up three times, Indy'll make a silly translation and Donovan will send him back to Barnett, and you're out of the hunt :D It's realistic as well!
And you can't choose the correct Holy Grail at the end!
Well, it's not like LucasFilm games had a choice, but as far as a movie goes, all good. A solid 8 from me, though it is a little close to the Ark in yet another biblical artifact (though it's way better than those Kidney Stones from Temple of Doom. Now THEY were lame)
Ok, cool. On to MUSIC/SOUND. Not much to say about this one here.
Good, but not enough of it! That is of course the technology. 7/10 again.
You CAN judge this one by time, it's okay. This chat is to find the Best Indy Game NOW.
No original music, and the PC version has no MT-32 soundtrack.. only adlib. FM Towns got actual clips from the movie's soundtrack though!
Someday I'm going to have to find out about these mythical FM-Towns editions...
Well, in this case that one has the best soundtrack. So...real orchestra and since it's from 1989.. 8/10!
I'm sure they could've made the dog sounded less like your speaker was about to explode.
It's pretty lacking. I'm sure they could've at least had more music. 4/10 from me. Sticking with 7 Gabez?
I can't even remember the sound/music. I was playing it on my friend's Amiga (I think) so it would have paled in comparison to other Amiga games of the time. 3/10
Simon The Sorcerer, though, gets 8!
Of course. Actually saw that in Office World the other day. All 3 Simon games. Anyway, moving along, GRAPHICS/DETAIL/ART. How nice does it look?
Depends what version, though, of course.
VGA version looks pretty nice considering it's from 1990. EGA as well. Simple though.
Indy looks less like Harrison Ford here than in the Lego version!!!
It's hard to fault the graphics. But it's hard to praise them too much as well. So 7 is a fair score I think
Looked nice enough on the Amiga. Well drawn sprites, decent backgrounds. I give... 6!
Just compare it to
Fate of Atlantis. THAT still looks nice, even though it's not much younger than LC. Nah, another 4 here. I'm brutal.
Taking its age into consideration...6!
Ok, the next one's LEVEL DESIGN/CHALLENGE. This basically means the game itself. How does it play? It's a bit haphazard really.
Finally, not a 7! I can probably agree with that, although for once not as harshly!
Last time I tried to play it I overwrote my good save with a near-zero health save and kept getting killed by the Nazis in the castle. Was this the last Lucas game where you could die? Mm, you could die in Fate of Atlantis too, eh?
Yep, you could. Fate had the suckerpunch though.
Well, and Emperor's Tomb etc too. And Castle Brunwald is f***ing irritating.
That Dr. Eva mini-game was too hard for me :~
Would you stop calling her Dr. Eva? :D And in Fate you had more a chance of avoiding a fight. I think a 4 from me too. This was the last LucasArts adventure with dead ends. Thank Christ.
It had solid gameplay, but the Lucasarts 'style' was still being tweaked. Death being the biggie. And of course the fighting and mazes that were toned town or skippable in later games. Puzzles were good though, seeing the movie didn't mean you woudl stroll right through, which can sometimes happen with movie-based adventure games. So I'll give it a 6 there too.
Ok, next, and the last topic for this game: INDY QUOTIENT/ACTION. How much do you feel like Indy? How fun is the action?
They cut out the tank and the speedboat chase!
Well, you're doing what he did in the movie, and possibly no fucking 'use the whip as a swing' puzzles, which is just lazy (see Infernal Machine, Emperor's Tomb etc)
Infernal Machine had that a lot, yeah
So, yeah, it fit Indy enough back when it came out. I agree with Gabez - 7
It had the theme tune too.
True, but there's not that much action really.
And the train chase at the start. Even though you couldn't actually interact with that.
Train chase is a cut scene :D
And Indy's quips are sometimes out of character. For example, he makes a joke when his dad gets shot.
He starts by saying "There is nothing you could possibly do to make me go and get the Grail." Dad gets shot, then: "Okay, except that."
Well it's never going to be as dramatic as in the film. Unless they used close-ups, which hadn't been invented yet.
I could see Ford delivering that in the movie, totally.
True. It's funny, but in keeping with this topic I must be brutal - 4.
Yay. Greatest intro to any game ever. Past present and future.
I know! I just played it again, forgot how great it was!
The Grail theme makes makes my knees wobby, but the Atlantis theme makes me wet myself.
You always wet yourself >:
Only twice. Today, I mean.
What do we think of Fate's STORY/WRITING? If I have to ask.
Had a feeling! Not that it isn't deserved - bloody brilliant, isn't it?
Fate.... it has three paths, a completely original story based on real non-written writings... has a few nibbles that has to be there to make the game rock so.... 10!
The story was brilliant. The paths were a nice idea, though I always felt that the two non-Team paths were sort of afterthoughts. Also 10.
It is just really really superb, although the Team path is obviously the most fun. I'm trying to find a criticism so that I can knock it down to 9 and be different, but I can't! 10 it is!
I like having Sophia along... she's a pixelly beauty!
You can discuss her in Graphics/Art in a sec!
Oh, her bum needs its own section.
For now, let's do MACGUFFIN QUALITY.
Haha. 10/10. Atlantis is fairly original and it's done in a pretty original way. I can't get bored of it.
There's no physical MacGuffin! You're just trying to find the place Atlantis sank first! But the quest is good, and Kerner is a great villain.
What do you call Sophia's bottom?
It's Atlantis! Ancient greece. Can't go wrong. The Oricalchum gets a bit tedious, but other than that, solid. 9/10
The ONLY thing I don't like about having Atlantis as the MacGuffin is that you can't pick it up, it's too big. But then they've got loads of little ones like the Stones, Orichalcum and the Statues. I'll say 9.
I'll give it a solid 10! Bummy.
Ok, MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE ACTING next.
The
only Indy game with a dynamic soundtrack! And the MT-32 has a cozy nostalgic retro quality to it that warms my innards. 10!
I played the floppy version pre-talkie. The talkie version is AWESOME. Music great. 10! Well, 10 for talkie, 9 for pre-talkie.
I started playing it pre-talkie then got the talkie to work. Agreed, it makes a big difference.
I played the non-talkie on a friend's computer for like an hour.... then bought he CD-ROM myself.
There are some lovely themes, but mostly I don't think the music is catchy enough. And the talkie... it's amazing how much better Doug Lee is here than in Infernal Machine.
Doug "Hey look, an idol!" Lee.
We're basically doing the Talkie one here, that's the one most people will find now.
(
slaps Zaarin) That's for blasphemy!
Gabez' MP3: 0/10 Bonus score!
That freaked me out. Jesus Christ... whoops. (
slaps himself)
Hee. Well I give it... 100/10!
I don't know, with the MIDI music, and the acting could have been a LITTLE bit better... I'll be very brutal and say 8/10.
I could make a rant about how all the GM conversions of the score and the digital recordings of said conversions suck and must have been done by people who have a) never heard the original or b) no ears...
This one's better!While I'm downloading that - let's start GRAPHICS/DETAILS/ART. Take it away about Sophia's physique.
Oh those tight blue jeans, the wiggle. She was hoter pixellated than in the cutscenes though.
It was all about the wiggle.
If you look at her while wearing that pink thing, she's still wearing her regular clothes in the close-up. Bummer :(
I think she's got a bit of fat arse.
I think that you're a bit of a fat arse.
You need to change your monitor geometry setting then.
I find the characters to be too low res to really make out anything... a face of 6 pixels isn't really much. The background art is excellent though.
Who's looking at her face?
Again, true. The rest of the art is quite nice too. I would so love to see this game hi-res looking like
Curse of Monkey Island.
That would be interesting. Not sure it would work with Indiana Jones, but high resolution 2D would be good.
Just cleaned up a bit though. We can dream. Here and now, I'll say 7/10.
Upping the res to 640x400 would have been great.
I guess the best comparison would be Sierra's games.... 8/10. Lose two points for unclear character sprites.
Gabriel Knight from the same year has the smaller items in it rendered in twice as high res as the rest of the game to make them clear.
(
At this point in the proceedings, a miracle happens)
Wow, that really did take a long time!
Uhhhh.... did I miss much? :P
We're up to FOA. You missed Last Crusade!
Again, I'm sorry guys. No Last Crusade! And all it's many pathed glory!
I'll take some quick scores from you afterwards.
I need to duck out for 20 mins shortly to get 3 year old son to Kindergarten. I'll catch up when I get back.
I'm just ducking down the road - I suspect you'll still be on Infernal Machine when I get back.
Probably. Graphics/Detail/Art Clone2727? Feel free to judge it by today's standards.
I hate judging by today's standards, because everyone thinks it has to be in 3D. Well, I say 10 just because it's great.
Not necessarily, 2D still looks great. Now then, we can all move on to LEVEL DESIGN/CHALLENGE? And actually discuss it?
3 paths? All different and great? All the freakishly brilliant design of any LucasArts adventure times three? Wow!
Challenge.... point wise it's the hardest of all LEC adventures because it requires you to win some really difficult fights.
As I touched on earlier, a bit too much reliance on Oricalchum beads, but otherwise excellent. In hindsight the submarine puzzle (toilet plunger) was a bit silly, but at the time I enjoyed it. 8/10, lost points for the damn beads.
I think they should have changed that.
I liked that there were different ways to tackle it, especially since I was bad at fighting :P 10.
Beating Arnold is impossible if you're not willing to try a million times.
Don't you just set the robot on him or something?
No, that was the guard by Sophia. You send the boulder after Arnold.
Yeah, but you also get points for beating him. Have to do it both ways to get all 1000 points. You need all 1000 points to really "complete" it :)
I never bothered with the Indy points.
Neither did I, I just wanted to win ;)
Well, one way of winning is to get all 1000 :)
Nah, just get rid of Ubermann :P
I don't really think I gave the non-Team paths a decent play. I'm sure I went through them, but the whole endgame was identical, wasn't it?
Yeah. Fists is a bit dull.
I didn't realise that there were different paths until pretty recently!
I always liked the Team path best.
But then having the option is great. Really removes all point from
The Action Game's existence.
Team was the 'default' as far as i'm concerned. anyway, away for 20 mins... back soon!
Fists got really easy puzzles, but it's got some differences, like the outpost is on Thera instead of the desert dig site.
I think I'll give it... 9/10. Just because I can't imagine what possessed them to try three paths. Must have given them so many headaches.
Same, 9. Lose one point for the IQ stuff.
Okay, lastly - INDY QUOTIENT/ACTION. I think it stumbles a little here with the action.
I didn't like that you could just throw a sucker punch. I mean, I liked it (because I'm bad at the fighting), but it took away the action.
Driving cars in Monte Carlo, the sub, camel... or was it a dromedary?
The car thing is rubbish.
It was a camel I think, but that wasn't really action. I give it a 7.
The whole fighting thing is mostly identical to
Last Crusade, except now you can also control it with the mouse and you're just clicking like mad.
8 for the stupid controls :D
I think 7 too. You DO feel like Indy, but the Action's not good enough. Lucky the rest of the game is superb.
I like that you couldn't just make crazy U-turns with the car, and had to think of a way to drive to crash into the Nazis.
7/10. I agree, some of the action is lame. The hot air balloon is good, the car chase less so. Again, it's a technology thing -- but we're judging these in our times.
Nah, I think it still could've been better. Just the limits of the SCUMM engine at the time.
The story is also the cage of the game... It was made fast and had to stick to something that lasts two hours, so all the mazes make it just feel stretched out.
