Indiana Jones has had his ups and downs when it comes to videogames. From the early days of the Atari, where his adventures were very cryptic to the Nintendo 64, the point where he tried to steal the show from Tomb Raider, along with his escapades in the vein of Monkey Island, Dr. Jones certainly checked all the boxes. So when MachineGames, the studio behind the latest Wolfenstein titles, was put to the task of bringing our dear archeologist back to gaming, it seemed he finally had met his match.
The studio, composed of ex-Starbreeze developers known for their efforts in creating The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, one of the most immersive licensed game products ever released, far surpassing even its source material in terms of quality, had their work cut out for them. The license now, a widely loved one that’s been around since the early 1980s, had plenty of history, not to mention a hard to mimic main character. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle not only succeeds at portraying the good doctor, but is perhaps the best attempt to do so in quite a while.
The game takes cues from a host of different places and does something that will not only please fans of Indy, but anyone with a passing interest in anything that fits this bill. It’s what could be called an “immersive sim”, but that moniker doesn’t come close to encapsulating all that goes on in it. It’s dense and takes its time revelaing itself to you, and it’s all the better for it since it’s an absolute joy to explore all there is to be seen at your own pace.
There are touches of Looking Glasses’ Thief and Dishonored from Arkane in the way that Jones can stealth around and (mostly) quietly take down enemies, the puzzles and interactions with the world are akin to those in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where doors, switches, and drawers have to be pushed and pulled analogically, and of course, the action is as bombastic as the team’s previous releases.
All of that mixed in with a downright jaw-dropping presentation, with beautifully crafted locations, detailed character models, and what’s easily the most striking part of the whole shebang: Troy Baker’s dead-on voice work. It eerily matches Harrison Ford’s tone and inflections, something I was skeptical about after the first few trailers but was thankfully proved wrong! That coupled with a score that plays homages to John Williams’ iconic work, obviously including the classic theme we all know and love, the sound effects where the punches sound like flashes, making the entire thing really FEEL like the movies.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle takes place a year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The doctor and his pal Marcus witness the robbery of an artifact from the college’s museum by a mysterious giant-looking figure whose appearance was modeled after the recently departed Tony Todd, star of the Candyman films, and it now falls to the man with the fedora to find out why that happened.
His journey takes him to the Vatican, where he has to deal with Mussolini’s fascist blackshirts and meets a reporter who he partners up with. It all eventually comes down to him meeting up with his old friends, the Nazis, as it becomes known that yet another of his rivals is working with the Third Reich, trying to steal the hidden power tied to the titular Great Circle. Much like the films, it’s packed with action scenes, but what makes it special is something else entirely.
It begins with the brilliantly put together maps that make the latest Indiana Jones tale so especial, where in their scope and density you’ll get lost in, digging around for clues to the main story, as well as fiddling with side quests, explorations, artifact hunting, and lots of Nazi punching if you feel inclined not to sneak around. It’s truly an Indy experience through and through, having you investigate clues by taking pictures of the world around you, piecing them together, and often solving puzzles that all eventually boil down to the overall narrative in a surprisingly organic manner.
Many were worried about the fact that this would be mostly in first-person with the occasional zoom out to Dr. Jones when climbing up ropes or his trusty whip, but given the studio’s experience with providing in-your-face experiences in the more recent Wolfensteins, it turned out brilliantly. There’s a real body tied to your character and not simply a weightless husk like most FPSs.
It helps that you can see your shadow, and, for the most part, switching from first to third-person is brisk. With the exception of dropping down from ledges, where you have to tiptoe backwards for him to then awkwardly grab it as he falls. It’s a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things, surely, but it’s there.
Junior’s abilities can be tweaked and upgraded by finding skill books along the way, helping you build your own character to suit your gameplay needs, or if you are like me and really poke around every nook and corner, you’re going to have more than enough Adventure Points to spend buying it all. These can be acquired by interacting with the world, be it collecting items, taking photos, and completing a wide variety of objectives, some of which aren’t even tied to any of the story, like helping a nun out with a photo, or finding a brush for a flabbergasted painter.
When it comes to stealth, our hero can don a number of disguises that give him the chance to drop by unnoticed in fortified positions, and similarly to Hitman, he has to be careful not to alert specific enemy types who can tell he’s a phony, but differently from 47’s escapades, failing to be quiet in this doesn’t turn it into an impossible situation.
If all falls to combat, there are a host of options at your disposal at all times, from his trusty revolver to about any object littered around, from pans to fly swatters, guitars, and even fruits. The hand-to-hand hinges on blocking and countering, quick and dirty to deal with and move on to the next sucker in line.
Punching and shooting your way out of conflicts is by and large a viable solution. In some cases it can result in comical situations, just like in his big screen antics, such as when he has to face a burly guard only for that guy to be taken out some other inadvertent way. Indiana and the Great Circle knows not to take itself too seriously all the time, and in that, it truly succeeds at conveying the feeling that you are indeed dealing with something that’s as irreverent as its predecessors in celluloid.
I’m positively in awe with how well this one turned out. As a huge fan of the movies, growing up watching them and playing anything related that I could get my hands on, I couldn’t be happier with the final product. It does the right amount of fanservice all the while providing more than enough to everyone else to come by and enjoy it. Not enough can be said about the audiovisual part of it, it’s simply astounding.
It’s a game that’s put together by having huge, living and breathing maps to fool around in, intriguing characters to meet and truly memorable moments that make this an amazing time all throughout. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle shines light on the best aspects of Indiana Jones, and jams it all into something that’s truly a special delight and very much worth witnessing. And it certainly does belong in a museum!
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