Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is the second of LucasArts ‘ point and click graphical adventure games based on the Indiana Jones franchise, was released in 1992, and is regarded by many adventure game fans as one of the finest examples of the genre ever made. It’s currently available in a 4-game pack on Steam featuring also The Dig , Loom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (although it’s available as an individual title from Steam and presumably elsewhere). Now reviewing games this old can be quite a challenging task; with games such as Last Crusade I have nostalgia telling me what to write, whereas with a game such as Fate of Atlantis, which I’d never quite got round to playing before, my view is tainted by what I expect from a more modern adventure game. Either way it makes reviewing the game objectively, purely on its own merits, rather difficult. Some of the criticisms I have of this game are also present in other games I regard as adventure classics, such as Zak McKraken and indeed Last Crusade, but perhaps because of the nostalgia factor with those games I am a little more forgiving towards them. Anyway, musings on the nature of reviewing retro adventure games aside, I did enjoy playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It’s not based on any of the films, but rather on a plot revolving around – you guessed it – the whereabouts of the mythical lost city of Atlantis. Fear not, for there are also the other aspects you would expect in an Indy title – a beautiful female companion and of course nasty Nazis trying to use Atlantan technology to take over the world. The plot is nicely developed apart from at the beginning of the game; I found the frequent travelling between 3 locations seemed a little aimless (not to mention expensive, though as far as I remember that’s never bothered anyone in an adventure game apart from Zak), and the plot took a little while to get going properly as a result. The intro sequence has you stumbling through the museum’s stores constantly getting yourself nearly killed, then a short cut scene introducing a couple of the main characters, and then we get into the game proper. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis features a 9 verb interface, with the game screen on top, bottom left houses the verbs (Open, Close, Pick Up, Talk To, Look etc), with the inventory to the right of that. I guess people who’ve never been exposed to this type of interface might take a while to get used to it – people who’ve been adventure game fans since the late 80s and early 90s grew up with this stuff so it’s second nature to them. One particularly nice aspect of the interface is that when you are in certain situations, some of the verbs change – for instance, if you’re somewhere dark, Look turns into Touch. Your journeys will take you all over the world and I guess it’s not giving too much to say that you end up in the city of Atlantis itself. There are a host of characters to talk to on the way, and many puzzles to solve – some involving inventory, dialogues and timing. I would rate Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as a difficult adventure game; occasionally I felt it was unfairly so (only in that some of the puzzle solutions relied on you having spotted and making sense of some very obscure visual clues). There was also quite a lot of wondering around large locations, and if you missed one object in a 40-room complex, you couldn’t progress past a certain point (hint – in the outer layers of Atlantis, many of the statues have a HEAD that shows up as a separate hotspot! I lost count of how many times not realising that held up my progress). I’ll be completely honest, I don’t think I would ever have completed this game without a little help from a walkthrough – I hate using the things, but I hate being stuck at the same point in a game for hours or even days / weeks even more than that. (I guess I’m just unobservant…) Despite the difficulty of certain areas, overall the game is very enjoyable, and because the atmosphere is so good I would have thought that even newcomers to the genre would enjoy it a lot. The graphics are obviously very simple by the standards of modern gaming, but still there’s a level of detail and artistry in the backgrounds that you have to admire, as well as some very detailed animations. The music is pretty good too by chip tune standards, the sound effects are okay, and the game is fully voiced. Now the quality of the voice acting is generally good, but there’s a fairly major problem – not only is Indy himself not voiced by Harrison Ford, but he’s voiced by someone who sounds nothing like Harrison Ford. It took me a while to get used to this, but after a while it ceased to be a problem as I was drawn into the game itself. As earlier mentioned, some of the problems with this game – in particular the huge maze-like location at one point – can equally be levelled at other LucasArts adventure games from what is commonly called the “Golden Age of Adventure Gaming”. So rating it down for these problems almost seems unfair; however I can’t quite bring myself to rate this 5 stars, it’s definitely well worth 4 though. You’ll frequently find it in lists of people’s all-time favourite adventure games, and despite some bits that I found annoying or frustrating I can see why. If I’d played it two decades back when it was first released, I’d perhaps still view it as one of the very best myself. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Screenshots PC Game Reviews and News
Read this article:
PC Adventure Game Review – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Recent Comments