(Serious Whiplashing) Indiana Jones And The Great Circle
You know, I never thought the day would come when a game developer would even work on an Indiana Jones IP. The film series has debauched every new opportunity to recreate the journey Spielberg has decades ago. Yet, MachineGames somehow delivered once more.
Where it delivers the most on is letting Indiana Jones flourish with so many options to enter restricted areas, and do his business. It's a stealth game, an RPG, a brawler, and an action title. Parts Deus Ex, parts Uncharted, Thief, and many more. The Great Circle in extension is also an amazing addition to the series lore. Including personality, and adventurous rigor.
I can't say I'm fully satisfied with the state of the game. First playing it, hard crashed my PC, I had to reinstall my graphics drivers fresh, and then the update came. No FSR, no option to enable ray-tracing for my AMD card, and dear god, it runs like absolute trash at times.
What an introduction, taking it back to where it all started from his first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Recapturing the look, feel, and then somehow I was looking around for traps to disable, like it was testing my patience and awareness. Didn't stop from there.
Every aspect of it, including the part where he adjusts the weight of the bag to replace it with the idol, the mechanical aspects of it, putting me in control is definitely a big immersion factor. Even an on the rail section of running from the boulder itself, I had to use my brain while the creative suspense takes over, as if I didn't do something quick, the boulder would crush me.
The first hour is important, as it goes from that scene to Indie waking up in his office in Connecticut, overhearing loud noises and footsteps before coming across a giant intruder. The brawling mechanic is introduced, the brute hits in all direction.
This imbues an urgency for me to observe and hit my enemies back properly. Strong attacks break his block, while blocking and parrying maintains composure, as the stamina bar depletes. Like this whole song and dance is based around how Indie fights his enemies, he gets tired, but soon he takes hits, he comes back hitting a lot harder, and eventually winning. He didn't this time.
Foresight is only limited from the player's perview, there are indications and tips given, but waking up, I have to work with Marcus in cleaning the mess in the university. Good investigation skills, and reviewing papers before finding out my lead to the Vatican. Indie can also climb stuff, using his lasso, shimming through pipes, and just walking around edges without alerting the guard. Active palpable tension, while giving the tools and means to adapt.
I've said part Deus Ex, and this because it feels like Mankind Divided, with how interactive the environments are, as well as how dynamic the enemy A.I. is as, despite small limitations. I do get a pistol, I could just shoot enemies down, heck there's even dogs I had to avoid.
With the assumption that this would have easily been Disneyfied, MachineGames gave great options to do things most developers wouldn't even allow. I mean, it's called Indiana Jones for a reason, for the love of god, let him shoot the guard dog (I don't condone animal abuse). Brawling with enemies feels spectacular, you get that wham sound in every hit, and ragged doll physics in work.
How can I forget the writing and dialogue? Yes, LucasFilms worked on this alongside, but it takes special passion and dedication to properly bring an IP such as this to new life. I've listened to conversations from guards, I've looked into pamphlets, papers, cards, tickets, etc. Something simple as opening a chest, has some story depth behind it.
Of course, I couldn't get enough time to finish all that, since the world around me works fast like clockwork. But the rush of finding loot, coins, earning adventure points, and what I get to do with those? Buy and unlock cool stuff. Abilities simply from reading guides.
Let's get it out of the way, it's an Indie sim, a damn good at that too. Every part of the level evokes the charm, but also provides activities. I'll stumble across someone who needs help, gives me a quest, I'll find a basement fighting club, must find a disguise to get inside.
The loots are around, but either they're far away, noncombatant enemies might alert guards or guards might see through my disguise. Yeah, I'm Agent 47 now. I don't know what else is there? Maybe a dialogue prompt will come out of the blue, and I'll give a quippy retort as Indie does. Also, just how seamlessly Troy Baker voices Indie is a whole other thing.
People have goods to provide, but they cost money. So I go around, and collect some. Then I find more stuff to do, there's a quest where I save a British kid from the fascists in the Vatican who gives out a location of an excavation. This isn't some side quest, either. There are cutscenes, unique dialogues, and it's not even part of the main-game mission.
Solving puzzles to open lockers, and boxes do provide some challenges, but most come off pretty easy to solve. Like, no-brainers, pretty much. Still, the added information and me having to learn astrology over again, maybe that made my time worth it.
Every thing provides choices in how I approach their mission structure. I could stealth my way, only knock out a few guards, maybe just leave everything intact, knock everyone down. Indie isn't invincible, but he is resourceful and assertive. There's also another reason I like it.
Remember games like Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay or The Darkness? These are the guys that made those games. They inject depth, personality, and working game design into every single-player they've worked on. Their pedigree also on the Wolfenstein series is much shown here as well. I just never thought they'd go so much further, and yet they did.
Any lucky person who has a powerful build can run this game superbly, anyone on the budget end has to deal with a couple of problems; especially AMD GPU owners. The fact that FSR hasn't arrived yet, infuriates me. Not even FG. I can't simply say it runs terrible, but before patch, it refused to run at all. Also, this one will eat your VRAM if you're not careful. Of course, it's on Game Pass. That's one other reason to play it, and I do hope people do. What an amazing achievement.
