Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Review

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle takes place between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. Set in 1937, after a break-in at the school in teaches in, Indiana Jones goes on to a world adventure in order to find the culprit and what he’s stolen: a prized cat mummy. His hunt will lead him on different trajectory after learning about the Great Circle and the sinister power linked to it.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a first perspective experience where players will explore various areas around the world and find off Nazis across the world. Each area is uniquely designed with their own main objectives and plethora of side-quests. Indy can run, fight (you can kick the shins of people who block too much!), jump, walk, climb and platform his way through each area. However, he does have a stamina meter than you need to be mindful of. It refills pretty quickly when at a standstill.

Our favorite fictional archeologist can also defend himself. While not as skilled as an army of Nazi soldiers, he can fight with the best of them. You can punch, dodge and parry (worry not, we’re not talking level of Dark Souls) to survive fights. However, Indy is only one man. He can fend off maybe 1-2 enemies at once, but if 3 or more charges at you, run.

And our hero has his trusty pistol and whip. While I can understand that an Indiana Jones game isn’t a shooter per se, but I’m shocked given MachineGames’ track record with the Wolfenstein games that the shooting feels off. The whip is incredibly useful and fun to use. It can be used for platforming, climbing up or down, swinging from a platform to another; however it can only be used as pre-destined sections. In combat, it can be used to disarm or temporarily stun enemies.

Our main protagonist is a resourceful one. Scattered through every level is a wide variety of items that Indy can use to defend himself or stealthily take down unknowing enemies. Items vary from brooms, shovels, hammers, pick axe; just to name a few. However, the stealth takedown works randomly. I’d sometime do the same type of approach on two different enemies, and it would have that it just alert the guard thus having quickly beat him up to avoid having to deal with reinforcements.

The game has a decent system where the enemy challenge increases progressively and is well paced. However, every enemy has something in common: they are all Terminators. Even on the lowest difficulty setting, enemies will survive headshots at point blank range. And if you unfortunately get caught when trying to sneak in where Indy is not welcomed, you are absolutely screwed as all nearby enemies will be alerted and they will hunt you down. It can be quite a challenge trying to escape.

Thankfully, to help survive the challenges, Indy can work on this skills. As you complete objectives, missions and side-quests, you’ll be rewarded with Adventures points. They work hand in hand with books that you’ll find scattered throughout adventure. Books cover a variety of subjects such as survival, fitness, packing, brawling; just to name a few. For each, you can pick up books to improve Indy’s skills such as increased health, stamina or being able to whip grab bigger enemies. Unlocking a book’s skill requires a set amount of Adventure points.

And while you can manage with minimal exploration by finding a few books here and there and collecting Adventure points through main objectives, players are also free to explore each country visited and do some sight-seeing by completing a myriad of side-quests NPCs will happily offer Indy. And also additional books and collectibles can be found; one of which is taking photos of specific items or areas or collecting artifacts. And don’t worry, this can all be done at your own pace. Mid-way through the game, you can “fast-travel” back to areas and complete any missed side-quests.

As you’d expect, the game looks drop dead gorgeous. Environments are highly detailed, lush and vastly colorful. Indiana Jones looks great; the de-aging process makes him look like his youthful self, although minor quirks where sometimes he looks dumbfounded. Along with Indy, all main characters in the story are well done. But as you’d expect, NPCs look a bit generic and nothing really sets them apart from one another. The baffling question I have is that why wasn’t this a third person game? The game will often shift to third person when Indy uses the whip or climbs up obstacles. Also offering alternative costumes as an incentive is quite useless when your game is played in first person perspective.

In terms of audio, overall, the voice over work is spot on and gives a cinematic feel to the game. The only blemish here is Troy Baker, who despite his best effort, doesn’t hold up a candle to Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones character (more on that below. Everyone else does a great job, Tony Todd is both creepy and relatable. Props to Marios Gavrilis, who as the main antagonist, Voss, does a great job of conveying the personality of what I call a silent psychopath. The soundtrack is great. Fans of the movies will recognize the score.

However there are a few annoying quirks that stops this from being perfect. The first being Troy Baker as Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones. He doesn’t sound like Indy; he sounds like Jeff Goldblum if he talked with clenched teeth. A.I. would’ve probably done a better job (and that’s coming from someone who’s not a fan of A.I.) or hell spend a few extra bucks to hire Harrison Ford and adjust his voice tone to match his younger self. While I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie, I’ve seen bits here and there, and Indy comes off as a serious character with humoristic/”goofy” tones at times for light humor, but Baker can’t convey that. Nolan North would’ve made a better choice here in lieu of Ford.

I’ll be honest, this might be nitpicking, but there two other annoying quirks. The first one being that during “downtime” sequences; between missions where you’ll progress the story, you’ll sometimes be in a cutscene, asked to find something in the room (i.e. about 10 seconds of gameplay) and then wham back into another cutscene. This feels a bit unnecessary and gives the game sometimes a weird pacing. Also instead of simply pressing X to interact with something to progress, you need to press X to interact with an item (either a doorlock or chest) and then using the left joystick to the right to turn the key or up to open the chest. It doesn’t add anything.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the best adventure games of the year. It captures the atmosphere of the movies, using Indy tricks is a blast. Whilst the game isn’t perfect, it does have a few quirks like borderline bulletproof enemies, Troy Baker, and some unnecessary brief sequences of gameplay, it doesn’t deter the whole experience. I’m not going to lie, but I believe featuring third person perspective would’ve added to the fun. Either way, don’t miss it, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is great banger to end the year on.