Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

Preliminary: Very impressive Look and voices for 92. Reminds me of the upcoming Humongous Entertainment games (and, indeed, related with LucasArts etc) with the voices. I don't love Indiana Jones, though, so we shall see. Hopefully it has Play alike Monkey Island II, as I suspect, and even if I don't love it as much, I have been craving and loving graphic adventures of 91 and 92. (Omg can't blieve first Putt Putt game is in late 92! I'm so close!)

Wow even the music now that I'm actually platying the game/done with the intro is super Humongous-y. It's good quality adventure game controls so far, with the mechanics intuitive (so far).

Lol unfortunately this Crate situation due to the depth aspect (something I never like in brawlers let alone adventure games) is getting really messy. "I can't reach it" over and over lol.

Impressive and nice that it has ability to skip cutscenes, something not even many later PS2 games had heh. I've always liked Atlantis themed plots, and the Atlantis animated movie, so hopefully this'll clinch me. Either way I will surely be hooked enough due to the graphic adventure hook I get a la my platforming and RPG hooks :-p

Day 2

I'm enjoying this enough, but I'm just not getting that excited drive/hook. More like a sense of obligation. The voices are impressive for the time, but that novelty wore off quickly and some are quite annoying and/or questionable. And most the cutscenes so far I would have rather skipped but I've sit through them all so far.

Ew, the combat system is meh. There is a way to sucker punch through battles, but if I'm going to play through an adventure agme with points, I need to get all the points! So I will have to take the Wits path. Neat that there are multiple paths to take and multiples ways to solve puzzles. Still, I'm just not getting into it. It doesn't feel as imaginative and enveloping as Monkey Island II did, where I felt truly a part of the world. Maybe if I enjoyed the Indiana Jones movies more..

Welp yea I burned out during the part where you're supposed to follow the dot in the sea of dots running around Algiers. Kind of a neat idea, meh execution of that, would have rather followed in the nromal gameplay screens. Either way, neat little game that's impressive for its time, but didn't hold my interest. Probly deserves a 2 but likely going to give it an honorary 3 out of respect

Look: 7.5/10 Impressive for its time. Didn't immerse me though. Loved the world map where you select where you fly to, though.

Sound: 7/10 Very clear vocals for its time. But overall, just functional

Play: 7/10 Never really hooked me but adventure games are a favorite genre.

Feel: 7/10

Attachment: 7/10

Overall: 7.1/10

Completion: To "Act Two", Had Plato's Lost Dialogues etc

Playtime: ~1 hour

Yet another point and click game that I loved back in the day. This is a review of the 2009 Steam edition

At the beginning of the game the player is given the choice of 3 distinct paths to choose which greatly influence gameplay and the puzzles you will come across. This allowed for great replayability

Basically:

1.The Team choice gives you a partner who can help you on your adventure

2.The Wits choice employs the most difficult puzzles

3.The Fists choice has more action and fighting

This game has Indiana Jones searching for the lost city of Atlantis

The graphics are terrific for the time it was made and you will get to visit many varied locations

The voice acting is well done

The storyline can hold its own against any of the Indiana Jones films. It’s that good. It's also frequently quite funny

The puzzles are creative and imo fair. Some required lots of thought, but no complaints

Probably LucasArts finest moment

I am finding this game particularly annoying in comparison to the other early 90s LucasArts titles. It feels like the next level evolution of tedious puzzles. This part early on where you're looking for Plato's book, for example, felt sooo bad to me. Just some truly absurd leaps of logic and requirements to find little hidden things with no real intuitive connection to what's going on. Another section a bit later where you're trading items back and forth between two merchants to narrow down which item one of them wants is certainly a puzzle, but not one with any entertainment value to be found whatsoever. Piloting a hot air balloon early-ish in the game also feels super awkward, cool idea but questionable execution. I am sure there are more minigames like that to come.

Those are just a few examples of the stuff early on that I found quite unappealing. I'm not a big Indiana Jones fan—maybe if I was, I wouldn't care as much about all that stuff—but I still think the story is at least fine so far. Similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that's not a very bad thing. I also like how many different locations they fit into the game, which gives it a generally great feeling of fast pace and adventure. And I like how packed it is with dialogue options. I can tell this is not a bad game when taken as a whole and in context of when it came out.

But sadly this is the first of the LucasArts games that after a couple sittings has me not wanting to go back for any more. Hearing that later on it devolves into a bunch of mazes and backtracking, no thanks. Part of me is doubting myself because this game is so acclaimed -- Am I just tired of this crap? Maybe to some degree, but I don't think that's it. Is this game's logic and puzzle execution really worse than the other games? I don't know. All I can say is that I never had this feeling when playing those games. They were fun even when the logic made little sense. At least I could get a laugh out of it or had something else interesting me. Not so much for me in this game. I think this is best left to the true fans of this franchise who will have the patience to deal with its difficulty.

This aged really well and it's still one of the best point and click games ever, even though for some reason it never fully "clicked" for me and I feel more affection for the earlier Lucas game (The Last Crusade included). I imagine it's just a matter of timing and being in love with the games I played at the right age, in the right moment.

Anyway, the puzzles are fun, the design is amazing, the three routes are quite different, there's a good portion of randomization plus multiple solutions to puzzles, two possible endings... it's really one of the biggest game in the genre, especially compared to the competitors back then. The graphics are still beautiful, even though I kinda think the style aged a bit worse than in Monkey Island, the writing is lovely and the story is quite fascinating both in terms of themes and mysteries. Plus, it manages to hit more or less all the beats you would expect from an Indy movie.

If I have to find something not completely on point, I'd say that it's not a perfect match with the Indy vibe from the movies. The slapstick humour and the banter are perfect, but the more surreal jokes and the wordplay are really not something you get in those movies and they are clearly the Lucasarts stamp (and you could say the same about some of the more out there puzzle solutions). Plus, by separating the central part of the game in three very different routes, they kinda separated the different elements of an Indiana Jones movie and it feels like you would get a more faithful adaptation if you merged them back together: going around with Sophia, the fighting and the car chase are all things that would fit well in an Indie movie but they are in separate routes.

But honestly, this is me being a pain in the ass. And by the way, I always say that I love to see someone's personal interpretation of pre-existing material and this is an amazing personal interpretation of Indiana Jones by the Lucasarts people.

I saw this game for dirt cheap on GOG and I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, so I gave it a go. I never thought of trying the old Indy games in fear they hadn't aged well, but I was wrong.
In this world of retro-obsessed games like the Blackwell series, this game's pixel art style is still very pleasing to the eye. The mix of great voice acting & animations really makes the characters feel alive. Indy's voice actor did a great job sounding like Harrison Ford, think it was the same actor who portrayed Indy in Emperor's Tomb.

The story is up to the great standards of the old LucasArt's games. It feels very much like an extention of the Indiana Jones franchise with the alluring mystery & Indy charm. There's also a little of that LucasArt's humor peppered in, including referencing the Indiana Jones movies.

There is a few different ways to play the game; brawn, brains, and teamwork. I chose teamwork because Sophia Hapgood is my favorite Indy girl, they have the best banter. As with any old adventure game, the puzzles range from clever & understandable to inconceivable blood-boilers, thank Heavens for the Internet. Towards the end when you're in Atlantis proper the game does have some problems with obtuse puzzles and lots of backtracking. Some of it was my fault, not being trained in the art of old adventure games.

All in all, this is a great adventure game, a great LucasArts game, and a great Indiana Jones game. It surpasses the low bar of Staff of Kings and is up there with Emperor's Tomb.

El género de las aventuras gráficas (o “point & click” como les conocen algunos) era algo completamente desconocido para mi. He hecho algunos intentos en el pasado de jugar títulos como Broken Sword 2 o Phantasmagoria, pero terminan convertidos en sesiones de juego constantemente interrumpidas por viajes a GameFaqs para saber que carajos hacer a continuación

No es un secreto que las aventuras gráficas pueden ser bastante frustrantes. La lógica de los puzles de inventario a veces sobrepasa cualquier razonamiento que apliquemos mientras que aquellos que sí tienen sentido nos ponen a dudar, ante el primer fracaso, si tenemos todas las herramientas para solucionarlo, si no olvidamos algo... y si nos rendimos y miramos la solución nos sentiremos estúpidos por no haberlo resuelto sin ayuda.

Para ejemplo un botón, un puzle en el juego que nos ocupa hoy me hizo robar una salchicha a un soldado Nazi, busqué un esqueleto para quitarle la caja toráxica, puse la salchicha dentro de ella y la use para atrapar un cangrejo con el que poder alimentar a un pulpo para q me dejara pasar al otro lado de un canal de agua.

Si, esto es lo común en las aventuras gráficas.

Pero hablemos específicamente de Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis; juego que adquirí en una de las infames rebajas de Steam por menos de 3.000 pesos y que finalmente decidí jugar por una necesidad repentina de historias sobre civilizaciones perdidas y secretos desenterrados (las misma necesidad que me hace volver siempre a los Tomb Raider, Uncharted y hasta a los Zelda). En ese sentido no me decepcionó en absoluto, pues pude vivir una divertida aventura que me llevó desde Nueva York hasta Algeria y desde Grecia hasta la misma Atlantis, descubriendo secretos arqueológicos y misterios sobrenaturales en una carrera contra los Nazis (además, hoy en día resulta más satisfactorio que nunca arruinar los planes de los Nazis, así sea en una obra ficticia).

Me encantó que, a pesar de no ser el guión de una superproducción hollywoodense, se puso suficiente esfuerzo en crear la mitología de la Atlántida, basándose tanto en los trabajos de Platón como en los más conocidos mitos propagados por la pseudociencia. Cuando finalmente llegamos al mítico continente nos encontramos con una combinación visual de civilizaciones antiguas con elementos realmente alienígenas y bizarros que crean un efecto único, sobre todo en combinación con el bello arte en pixeles.

¡Y vaya arte! Me enamoré desde el primer momento de esos vistosos y coloridos escenarios así como de los diseños de personajes y su animación. Ese es Indiana Jones sin duda alguna, reconocible en su icónico atuendo.

Por un tiempo cumplí mi propósito de no mirar guías y resolver todo a punta de astucia como haría el mismo Indy... y entonces me rendí a las pocas horas de juego. Fue a causa de un acertijo en el que gasté demasiado tiempo por no darme cuenta que no tenía un item, uno que nunca hubiera encontrado si no hubiera buscado ayuda ya que se trataba de un chicle pegado bajo una mesa que no se ve a simple vista y se debe posicionar el cursor en un píxel específico para poder localizarlo.

Y esto es algo tristemente común no solo en este sino en el género en sí: cacerías de pixel, combinaciones ilógicas de objetos y hasta lugares secretos que es necesario encontrar para avanzar. Y peor que buscar estas soluciones es tener que buscar ayuda para superar eventos que no son acertijos, como la forma de controlar un globo o un submarino, ya que Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis por alguna razón tiene cortas secciones que alteran por completo el funcionamiento del juego y lo hacen de la forma más burda posible. ¿Por qué carajos debo guiar el globo en sentido contrario a las manecillas del reloj si quiero perder altura? Es tan aleatorio e innecesariamente complicado que llega a desesperar.

Esto me hace pensar mucho en la forma en que jugamos hoy en día. Aun en los videojuegos más difíciles estamos acostumbrados a tener opciones para no atascarnos; sean tutoriales, grindeo, otras rutas o multijugador. Pero he aquí a un juego que literalmente puede detener tu avance si olvidaste dar click en una parte específica de una pantalla o si no seleccionaste la opción correcta en una larga conversación. Somos impacientes y tenemos a Internet con todas las respuestas siempre al alcance de nuestros dedos. ¿Qué hacían los jugadores de los años 80’s y 90’s? Si mi memoria no me falla estábamos muchas veces a merced de las guías de las revistas o de la memoria de una amistad que ya hubiera pasado el juego (y que previamente encontró ayuda en otro lugar).

¿Será que los desarrolladores de verdad pretendían que estuviéramos horas fracasando hasta que por un milagro de la razón o un golpe de suerte encontráramos la solución?

En fin, la satisfacción que se siente por resolver los puzles sin ayuda es increíble y somos recompensados con nuevos escenarios y desarrollo de esta buena historia que no está tan lejos de la trilogía original en calidad. Incluso sus defectos (algunos personajes poco trabajados, recurrencia en los clichés del género y clásico machismo velado del protagonista) son los mismos que pueden achacarse a los filmes. ¡Ah! Y no puedo olvidar mencionar el gran trabajo actoral que hacen quienes ponen las voces a los personajes principales. Puede que el protagonista no suene exactamente como Harrison Ford, pero llena al personaje con su mismo carisma. Lastimosamente no puedo decir lo mismo de todos los personajes secundarios, hay soldados Nazi que suenan como si estuvieran hablando en una reunión de la oficina.

No puedo recomendar abiertamente Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Si, es un gran juego que todos los fanáticos de Indiana Jones deberían probar así nunca lo terminen... pero es que sus políticas de diseño están tan alejadas de lo que estamos acostumbrados hoy en día que pueden resultar completamente incomprensibles para algunos. Eso sí, si deciden que quieren aventurarse a ello, seré el primero en pasarles el látigo y el sombrero.

So... I beat a Nazi soldier so I can take a sausage from him. Then I found an skeleton and took his rib cage. I put the sausage in the rib cage and put it in the water so a crab got trapped inside. Then I took the crab and feed it to an octopus so I could reach the other side of a canal.

THIS. FUCKING. GAME.

(Note: My reviews will always attempt to remain as spoiler free as possible.)

What is this game?
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a point-and-click adventure game released in 1992 by LucasArts. You take on the role of famed archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones as you attempt to locate the lost city of Atlantis before Nazi agents do. You can go it alone or team up with psychic and former colleague, Sophia Hapgood.

Things I loved.
I originally played this back when it was first out so I probably have a little nostalgia blindness but I absolutely love this game. The main plotline is wonderful and I think we can all agree that a story like this is what we wanted from a new Indiana Jones movie. Indy once again faces off against Nazi agents to stop them from obtaining an Atlantean metal/power source powerful enough to create weapons of mass death and destruction. After the opening events of the game you start out in New York but get to visit places all over the world like Iceland and Monte Carlo as you search for the lost city of Atlantis. The stakes in the game start off pretty high but increase appropriately as the story progresses and the ending payoff feels very satisfying and earned! It contains all the adventure, humor, charm, and fun of the movies we love.

The characters of the game are wonderful. Aside from Indy who is written very well and in character, we meet Sophia Hapgood who worked with Indy on a dig in Iceland. She’s got a lot of sass and personality and feels like way more than “just another love interest” for Indy. Kerner, your Nazi nemesis, and Ubermann the mad Nazi scientist, are wonderful villains you love to hate. Really, the whole cast is great and adds to the ambiance and immersion of the story.

Obviously this is an older game with older style graphics but they’re not so old that it’s hard to tell what things are. I personally love this stage of the pixelated graphic style so for me I think the animations, backgrounds, imagery, and graphics are absolutely lovely.

When I originally played this game there was no voice acting so during this playthrough I was initially surprised to hear the characters talking- also skeptical that the quality would be good. But my initial reservations were unwarranted, the actors did a wonderful job. The voices were endearing, fun, and fit the characters well. Much like the graphics, the music is of an older style but I think it’s great. And the game opens right up with the classic Indiana Jones theme we all love. The sound effects are fine as well although every now and again they borderline on annoying (like the forest sounds in Tikal).

There are multiple paths you can follow in this game- Team, Wits, and Fist- and sometimes even multiple ways to solve various puzzles within each path which makes for excellent replayability.

Things I Found Frustrating.
The actual game controls are pretty straightforward and easy to navigate. There’s a table of commands like “Pick Up” and “Use” on the bottom left side of the screen and your Inventory is on the bottom right. That said, I personally had some issues. On many occasions I would click on a command(or THINK I clicked on it) and then go to interact with something only to find out the command didn't register so I'd have to go click it a second or however many times until I did it right. BUT that could just be my equipment. Or sometimes I'd get the command to register and then I'd misclick. Either way it was a nuisance to have to go back to the table and click what I needed more than once.

Another thing about this game, and many older games, you HAVE to utilize the manual. There is nothing in the main game that is going to explain to you how to save, use the various keyboard commands, or explain any more complicated gameplay functions. Aside from the save menu there was nothing else that I ultimately NEEDED to know to play but there was a lot of helpful hints and explanations in the manual that I wish I had seen in the beginning.

For the most part progression through the story is very straightforward, but for my playthrough I hit a couple of snags and roadblocks.

• Every "vehicle" you have to drive in this game is awful and not a little confusing. I played the Team Path so I only had to deal with the hot-air balloon, the submarine, and another vehicle near the end that I'll leave vague to avoid spoilers, but apparently the Fist and Wits path have others. They're manageable but figuring them out even with the manual takes some time. (...I'm still not really sure how to drive the submarine.)

• There are a number of doors that you open using the various stones with symbols on them that you collect during the game. The sunstone, etc. (I thought originally this was done with the manual as part of the copy protection but maybe it was only done at the beginning.) Regardless, you have to read the Plato's Dialogue book you collect in the game to figure out what configuration the stone(s) need to be in to open a given door. I was very frustrated with this. The way the "hints" in the book read I was lead to different conclusions than what the actual answers were. You can figure them out, but it's more of a headache than it should be.

• From what I’ve researched quite a few things in this game are randomized. For example, the name of the museum collection will be random every game. Another example, if you choose the Team Path, when you go to Monte Carlo to talk to Trottier (his initial conversation is random), then before he’ll let Sophia begin the séance he’ll ask her how many fingers he’s holding up. The answer is randomized. You just have to replay the conversation or save beforehand and keep reloading until you choose correctly. Since there’s no way to know which answers are random without looking it up, it can be frustrating and halt progression thinking that you’ve missed something.

• Trying to get out of the labyrinth on Crete was frustrating because there was a specific dialogue that tells you what you need but otherwise what you needed to do was a little unclear. Same with traversing the final area and dealing with the obstacle to get to the underground river. A lot of that seemed circumstantial and/or just odd conclusions to draw.

Other Things To Note.
I had some resolution issues with my game. I'm not sure if this was a problem specific to me, but the first time I opened the game I had to use Alt-Enter to get out of Full Screen. (I purchased the game on Steam and there is no .conf or .ini file or in-game way to adjust the resolution or go into windowed mode that I can find.) After that every time loaded the game no matter if it was full screen or windowed, it automatically changed the resolution of my computer to be significantly smaller than my regular resolution. I had to manually go into my computer settings and change it back every time I started up the game. In this way I was able to work around the issue but it was pretty annoying and I still can't figure out how to fix it.

Another issue for me because I apparently don't know how my own keyboard works, was my Function keys weren't working so I had to plug in a separate keyboard to access the menu save/load commands. I found out there is a F-Lock key that I needed to press in order to activate my Function keys so this would not be an issue if I played again.

Overall Assessment.
At the time of this review you can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on the sites below for the listed price:

Steam: $5.99 | GoG: $5.99

In my opinion, this is completely reasonable.

As far as rating, my heart wanted me to give this game 5 stars but my head decided to only to give it 4 (This has been changed to 5 see edit note at end of review). I really love the game but there are a lot of frustrating points that maybe could have been clarified better. And the randomized parts are borderline unfair in my opinion. But that aside, I think this game is wonderful and 100% worth playing. It's just a good time with Indy and I'd play it multiple times just for its charm alone, but replayability is further assisted by the different paths and puzzle solutions making for different experiences each time you play. If you like Indiana Jones and point-and-click adventure games, this is probably a game you'll want to look into!

For anyone interested I previously streamed Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. You can find the videos here:

• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/261471960
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/261476667

My Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/piratesavvy

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/piratesavvy

This is my first game review ever, I hope you enjoyed it. I plan to do more as I complete games on my stream. Happy Gaming!
- piratesavvy

6/5 Edit: I decided to change my rating from 4 to 5 stars. After working on reviews for other games I think one of the most important factors to consider is overall enjoyment and that should probably carry more weight. Certainly all of the above critiques still stand true for the game but ultimately none of them should warrant the loss of an entire star.