Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis – A Fair & Balanced Retrospective

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Features by Adventure Game Hotspot staff
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The Space Quest Historian may align himself more closely with Sierra and a certain space-faring janitor, but for his latest video retrospective, SQH turns his attention to rival LucasArts with their famous whip-cracking hero and his starring role in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

You might think there's little need for "fair & balanced" critique of the 1992 classic he calls "easily one of the best adventure games of all time," but SQH does manage to find a few foibles here and there – namely, a few wonky puzzles and tedious minigames sprinkled in. But whatever minor blemishes exist are far outweighed by the brilliance of everything else.

Where to begin? How about the voice actor for Indy, who wisely gives his own interpretation of the character rather than attempt a pale Harrison Ford imitation. There's the suitably out there story about ancient artifacts and supernatural power that thrusts Indy into a race against the Nazis to find the fabled sunken city. Sophia Hapgood makes for a wonderfully compelling companion character, and the vast majority of puzzles are just the right amount of challenging fun. There's even a points system! (Even if LucasArts disguises it as an "Indy Quotient" and makes it hard to access.)

But any analysis of this game begins and ends with the audacious branching path system – Wits, Team and Fists – that are so dramatically different that they feel almost like three separate games. It's hard enough to get ONE path right, but here LucasArts nails all three. Team gets the most out of Sophia, and is arguably the easiest and most "LucasArts-y" of the three. Fists lets you chuck knuckles (hopefully better than SQH is able) against your foes when brute force is called for, while Wits is difficult enough to effectively serve as the "hard mode." There is no wrong choice.

There's more than enough praise here to convince all three remaining people who have never played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis to finally do so ASAP, and possibly persuade the rest of us to go back for another playthrough, another path, another laugh at "squab-on-a-stick." (Thank you, ScummVM for making it so easy.)

If you love Indy, you'll love watching the Space Quest Historian's amusing and equally insightful take on the character's greatest interactive adventure. Enjoy.

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