Long time readers know that I only write reviews for things that are either really bad or really great. While I've enjoyed a lot of games this year, the recently released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a huge standout. It is stylistically inspired by the original trilogy, very story driven and mostly fun to play. The ending is epic and satisfying, and exactly what you expect out of an Indy movie.
First off, despite being published by Bethesda, it is not like the RPG's that they're known for. I'm not sure how much they influenced the studio, Machine Games (which appears to be Sweedish). It does lean on some of the conventions you'd find in Fallout or Starfield, like unlocking level-ups, and having a ton of side quests available, but it is not an RPG. It doesn't have any of the shooter components either, because you can't shoot your way out of things. In the few combat situations required, there are patterns you have to find so you can beat the bad guy with punches and whip cracks. There's a lot of sneaking around, and when you've reached a specific point, you encounter one of the many puzzles in the game. One similarity is that the producer is also the guy who did Fallout and Starfield.
Puzzle solving is a huge part of the game. Most of the puzzles are not super hard, but they are satisfying to solve. Some of it is the usual, take object, put object here, pull this lever, while other parts are just trying to figure out how to cross a chasm. All of these are set up in beautiful environments that are either real places or heavily inspired by real places. For example, Vatican City is actually a couple of parts of the real thing joined together, but you can absolutely spot the real-life buildings on a map. They also go to the Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq, which is real (but does not likely contain what's in the game!). Nothing is half-assed, and while there are duplicate objects to an extent, there are no repeat rooms. Did ancient civilizations really build all kinds of puzzles to hide things, with traps? No, but that's kinda the basis of the Indy universe.
Humans are starting to get very real in games. Teeth and eyes are still a little weird, but not to the point of being freakish like they were even a few years ago. Interestingly, the principles are all modeled after the actual voice actors. My first clue was recognizing Tony Todd, who is a very large man you've seen in a million things and likely heard in other games. (He unfortunately died just last month, and was only 69.) But then I wondered in a close up of the female lead, how does the designer decide where to put a mole on the neck of a character? Turns out, the actress has one, so that's how they decide. They even got Harrison Ford's scar right, though I imagine they had to figure that out from reference footage since he's at least 40 years older now.
The other striking thing to me was that there is very deliberate cinemaphotography going on in the cut scenes, and even in smaller transitions as you do stuff. The virtual camera work and lighting is not random or by accident. I seem to recall at least one rack focus, and a particularly great scene where Indy is talking to a bad guy through a partition, and as the guy walks away, they switch to an overhead shot that just looks great.
The controls and game play are mostly straight forward. There aren't many infuriating "OMG what do I do?" moments. When you're unsure about where to go, there are probably visual cues, like flowers or a streak of paint across a surface. There was one spot where I had to look up a solution, because I kept dying over and over inside of 20 seconds, and that was annoying. That also might be me, because coming out of a cut scene, I just want to keep moving the story forward, not look for some pattern that will keep me alive. There were a few points where I was walking around in disguise and some rando figures out who I am, with a dozen fascists or Nazis shooting me. Again, you're not going to spend a lot of time shooting or fighting, but once you understand how to block and read characters as they attempt to throw a punch, you'll figure it out.
My favorite action is the boat scene in Thailand (well, Siam at the time). You're fleeing fascists and Nazis again, and you've got a stack of ammo to shoot them. Things get nuts, and at one point the boat gets airborne and catches a guy on the front of the boat. In the video below, the player shoots him too quickly, but when I played, he made the most hilarious face before falling off. And yes, there is a Wilhelm Scream in the game.
I finished the main story, and now I'm going back to do the side quests. As it turns out, there are a ton of places that seemed curious to me earlier, but I didn't have the right things to even enter these places. I've found that there are in-game guides that you can buy with experience, to find all of the quests and items, but that seems like a thing of last resort. The quests are better than I expected, because even the characters in those are pretty well drawn.
My favorite thing though is that the game is filled with Indy-isms and conventions from the movie, right down to the last fedora gag. The dialog feels like the movies. The humor feels like the movies. Troy Baker sounds like he could be Harrison Ford. Nothing is phoned-in. It's a rare game where it feels like a movie but is still uniquely a game. The closest I can compare to is The Last of Us, which was actually a series based on the game, and pretty faithfully. This feels like a feature that could have been released between Raiders and Temple of Doom. I loved it.
Also, kudos to Microsoft for making this a day-one game on Game Pass. Best money you can spend on video games.
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