Screenshots :.
Indy: Fate of Atlantis
PC
Matt
19-08-2009
"Da da da daaaa, da da da"
"Not quite Covent Garden, eh?"
So it's round 2 in my Lucas Arts classic point-and-click revival. As we all know by now I am the biggest Monkey Island fanboy the planet has ever known, yet every time I sat down with fellows from my age group I found myself constantly informed that it's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis that I should have nailed my colours to. The recent Steam re-release of pretty much everything point-and-click gave me the chance to make up my own mind, thankfully, so I dipped in.
Having completed it, I am now confident that even if I had played Indy at the time of release then good ol' Monkey Island 2 would still sit atop my adventure perch. There are many reasons for this, some purely to do with how Guybrush appeals to me more as a character than Indy, some more to do with how Fate of Atlantis actually plays. It's not that I detested FoA at all, don't get me wrong; it's merely that there were elements that I found uncomfortable.
The story itself was fine and pretty interesting throughout, with Indy going off on a slighty comedic adventure to find the lost city of Atlantis and encountering the classic Indy bad guys in the shape of some particularly maniacal Nazis who are after the secrets it holds for themselves. It's a rich franchise to dip into as it is with the couple of films released at that point proving well enough, so you can't fault it for that.
Another thing you can't fault the game for is that it offers multiple ways to play, each of which throws different puzzles and situations at you. It's fair to say that you could quite happily play through the thing a few times and enjoy a pretty unique experience, so that's a big advantage that it holds over similar LucasArts pointys from the same era.
What doesn't sit well is how often the game stretches the logic paths, leaving you clicking around like a madman trying to find out what the heck you have to do. In particular the final section of the game is maddening, with not only a long, tiring trek through a labyrinth separated by repetitive button smashing fights against guards, but (something that really annoys me) a large conversation tree through which there is only one proper way to succeed, with the others causing you to die and have to try again. Ugh.
Perhaps in one way Indy has fallen foul of something that Monkey Island never could, which is that I cannot view it with rose-tinted glasses having never played it at the time. In other ways though it still does frustrating things that Guybrush's adventure didn't do, with the reliance on trial-and-error seeming much, much higher. An enjoyable game with some good puzzles and a great license it might be, but I suppose I've just discovered that I like inept pirates more than adventuring archaeologists.
Having completed it, I am now confident that even if I had played Indy at the time of release then good ol' Monkey Island 2 would still sit atop my adventure perch. There are many reasons for this, some purely to do with how Guybrush appeals to me more as a character than Indy, some more to do with how Fate of Atlantis actually plays. It's not that I detested FoA at all, don't get me wrong; it's merely that there were elements that I found uncomfortable.
The story itself was fine and pretty interesting throughout, with Indy going off on a slighty comedic adventure to find the lost city of Atlantis and encountering the classic Indy bad guys in the shape of some particularly maniacal Nazis who are after the secrets it holds for themselves. It's a rich franchise to dip into as it is with the couple of films released at that point proving well enough, so you can't fault it for that.
Another thing you can't fault the game for is that it offers multiple ways to play, each of which throws different puzzles and situations at you. It's fair to say that you could quite happily play through the thing a few times and enjoy a pretty unique experience, so that's a big advantage that it holds over similar LucasArts pointys from the same era.
What doesn't sit well is how often the game stretches the logic paths, leaving you clicking around like a madman trying to find out what the heck you have to do. In particular the final section of the game is maddening, with not only a long, tiring trek through a labyrinth separated by repetitive button smashing fights against guards, but (something that really annoys me) a large conversation tree through which there is only one proper way to succeed, with the others causing you to die and have to try again. Ugh.
Perhaps in one way Indy has fallen foul of something that Monkey Island never could, which is that I cannot view it with rose-tinted glasses having never played it at the time. In other ways though it still does frustrating things that Guybrush's adventure didn't do, with the reliance on trial-and-error seeming much, much higher. An enjoyable game with some good puzzles and a great license it might be, but I suppose I've just discovered that I like inept pirates more than adventuring archaeologists.
7/10