Solid Point and Click Gameplay
I played one of the Indiana Jones adventure games when it originally came out, and I recall getting stuck towards the end of the game. Old adventure games were notorious both in producing puzzles with absolutely ridiculous solutions, and in not advancing the plot until you could come up with that ridiculous solution. Back then, before the explosion of the Internet, the only way to move on was to either get a friend to help or call a number to get hints over the telephone. Well, my friends were idiots, and like hell I was going to pay seventy-five cents a minute just to play the game I already bought.
But when LucasArts recently released a pack of old adventure games on Steam, I couldn't help but bite. Funny, but twenty bucks today is worth less to me than seventy-five cents was back then, I guess. And I'm pretty happy that I did. What I found was a game with well-designed puzzles, a good plot, and decent voice-acting (at least for the main characters). The graphics are obviously old, but aren't so dated as to not be playable. So I'm certainly glad I went back to this one.
I should note that the good far outweighs the bad in this game. The plot is probably the strongest point. Indiana Jones is a classic American hero, and he's searching for the mysterious lost city of Atlantis. On the way, he teams up with a potential love interest, and ends up foiling a Nazi plot. The puzzles are also generally well-conceived. There were a few headscratcher moments, but generally these weren't because the developers wanted me to do something ridiculous. And with the easy access of the Internet now, I didn't mind occasionally getting a hint or two.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the game is the way the story diverges in the middle, allowing for replayability (a rarity in adventure games). At one point, you can proceed along the Fists path (where Indy does more fighting), the Wits path (where Indy solves puzzles himself), or the Team path (where Indy and the love interest tackle the mystery together). As a result, the player can play through three times to sometimes experience different puzzles, and sometimes experience different solutions to the same puzzles.
This is not to say the game is without its flaws. It's an old adventure game, so you can't just point and click on items to activate them. You have to tediously click an action word and then click on each item. Some of the conversations can be quite frustrating too. When you're trying to convince someone to do something, you may have to sit through a lot of trial and error before you come up with the appropriate combination, listening to the same conversation over and over again. But all in all, I'm certainly glad I went back to this one.
