The rumours have become much more concrete though, and Spielberg, Lucas and Ford have at least admitted it will exist. When we reviewed The Infernal Machine nearly four years ago, we included some of the speculation going on at the time about a fourth Indy movie, and still nothing has happened. Indy, Where Four Art Thou?įorget The Mediocre Games, When Is The Next Film Out? It's the only way to explain how The Collective (responsible for a solid DS9 title and Buffy on the Xbox) could do no better with such a great licence. Well, how would you know to push a lever if you didn't get an icon in the top right corner? One can only assume this was a rush job, an attempt to get to the shelves before the next Lara. It's all part of the misplaced simplicity, which includes symbols telling you what to do whenever you come across an object you can interact with. The combat looks good but isn't particularly enjoyable to execute.
At least most levels are mercifully (even ridiculously) short. There is no way of saving (except by completing a level), so if you fall to your death you have to start again. It's so unintuitive and annoying I tried playing with a pad for a while, but the complete lack of camera control made that even worse. But, in a stroke of complete idiocy, the mouse is used only to move the camera not Indy himself, and pressing down for example will make him run towards the camera rather than walk backwards. At first I was delighted to see mouse support and a default WASD keyboard layout. And when you're spending so much time delicately judging jumps, it's a fatal flaw. It's not a particularly hard game, but it does have an awful control system. I mentioned frustration just now, and not without reason. We've seen the same uninspired thinking with some James Bond and Star Wars games, leading me to think you might as well buy the soundtracks to any of these, stick them on your hi-fi and sommersault over your sofa for a more effective use of the licences. So what if every level consists of hopping from one ledge to another, pushing a lever and beating up a few Nazis? So what if the actor sounds nothing like Ford and his lines are rubbish? So what if poor design has you grinding your molars with frustration every step of the way? All you need is a few notes of the John Williams score and you're sorted. The Emperor's Tomb is a firm believer that by playing the instantly recognisable and uplifting theme tune every few minutes it doesn't really need to do much else to put you in Harrison Ford's shoes. On the other, you have to admire their cojones at dispensing with all subtlety and admitting straight up that they're trying to rip you off. On the one hand, their condescension and belief in our utter stupidity should have us up in arms. They so desperately wanted to put across that this is Indy doing a Lara Croft, that they included the word "tomb". You can get all the information you need from the title. What really gets me about The Emperor's Tomb is the half-arsed way it's been put together. Publishers want to appeal to the lowest common denominator but this is also true of cinema, television, music and even books. It's easy to blame it all on consoles, but also short-sighted. All In The TitleĪt this rate we'll be playing the gaming equivalent of the primordial soup pretty soon, with specially designed controller pads that won't require the use of opposable thumbs and gameplay targeting solely the deepest, reptilian parts of your brain. Fast forward to 2003 (or should that be backwards?) and we're presented with an experience so empty, banal and simplistic you can only sink your head into your hands in despair.
Seven years later The Infernal Machine tried to emulate the success of Tomb Raider while still acknowledging that Indy is an intelligent archaeology professor who can deal with puzzles as much as physical obstacles. They had clever puzzles, bags of charm and captured the spirit of the films perfectly. In 1989 the brilliant point 'n' click was released, followed in 1992 by the even better Fate Of Atlantis. The latest Indy adventure-and I use the term in its widest, most devalued sense - is a perfect example of how games are devolving.