Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game
by Michael Bonkowski (MACE)
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game" is one game I was really interested in. I have seen all the "Indiana Jones" movies and own copies of all the movies available on video tape. I even now own both of the action games released based on his adventures. I would say I am a "Indy" enthusiast.
However neither game I own, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" or "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" really give me what I want. That is: "to be in his shoes." And since adventure games, like Infocom's, are not for me, I guess this is the best I can do.
This game, from Lucasfilm Games and U.S. Gold, is outstanding in the graphic sense. A lot of the title pictures are digitized from the movie. The characters are well defined, and move smoothly. The action screen fills about two-thirds of the screen and, like the characters, is well detailed. The bottom one-third contains the life and energy meters and level title. Unlike many other games, the meters are colored bars instead of a simple number. It takes getting use to. Many times I have looked at the life or energy bar and wondered how much was left.
However, defects show. One noticeable one is that the same exact antagonist appears over and over a majority of the time. Sometimes, two and three of him at the same time! What is he, a clone? To give an idea what I mean, one time I was playing when I just killed one, I turned around and two exact duplicates were right behind me, following each other, shooting.
Another important note...never touch the other characters. It's a guaranteed way to loose a life. Just a touch will drain away your energy faster than you could believe. In addition, if you should happen to fall off one of the ropes in this game, forget trying to grab back on. You should be able to attempt to grab back on, if you are close. Meanwhile, your energy level falls with you. You can literally die in no more than a few moves at the very beginning. There is no way I know of to replenish the energy lost.
Sorta rough on the beginners.
Also, there are no other options. One game, one skill level of play. There is no way to increase or decrease the degree of difficulty.
One surprise -- being an action game, it wasn't extremely high on the frustration factor, even though I have not gotten past the first level. After getting to a certain point in the level, if you should die, you are not sent back to the beginning. You are, instead, sent to a point predetermined by the computer. Case in point -- if you cross the underground lake in the first level, the next time you die, you are sent back to a point on the shore of the lake, not to the beginning of the level. Nice touch.
The documentation is good, I guess. Lucasfilm decided to print the docs on a "newspaper" type material in a light blue ink. After playing for a while, it gets hard to read. The reasoning I was told for this printing was to prevent piracy. Which brings me to my next point.
I HATE COPY PROTECTION! Especially when it passes the absurd. I understand the right of the producer to protect the program from being stolen, but this one is bad. I would play this game more, but it scares the heck out of me every time it loads. To hear my internal drive, to coin a phrase, "act like it's trying to read track 200" bugs me no end. I wonder if the drive will need an alignment soon due to this program and others.
Overall, except for the copy-protection mainly, I would consider it a fairly good game. I don't like it as much as "Empire" or "Gunship," but it's not all that bad. But that copy-protection has to go. How about something like Microprose or Interstel have? Just "Type in a keyword from the instruction manual" idea. It would save a lot of headaches.
