Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review

• Reviews by Jack Allin
• Published:

An occasionally uneven action-adventure is ultimately whipped into one of the stronger entries in the entire Indiana Jones franchise

It’s a testament to the popularity of Indiana Jones that he’s still a beloved adventurer more than forty years after he initially burst onto the silver screen. It’s especially impressive considering there’s only ever been that one outstanding film (full disclosure: my favourite movie of all time is Raiders of the Lost Ark) and one incredible game (obviously The Fate of Atlantis), followed by a whole lot of solid but unspectacular entries since then. The latest installment in Indy’s gaming library hopes to break through that barrier to join the rarefied ranks of the greats – it’s even right there in the name. As it turns out, it may fall short of those loftiest of targets, but Indiana Jones and the Great Circle comes pretty darn close, with impressive AAA production values, a variety of gameplay styles, and more fan service than you can crack a whip at. Not all game types work as well as others, the ultimate objective is too vague for its own good, and a more-is-less approach can lead to some pacing issues at times, but overall this is a wonderfully adventurous action-adventure game for modern-day audiences that honors an iconic character who’s old enough himself now to belong in a museum.

The good thing about returning to the world of video games is that Indy can be unabashedly young again. All due respect to the brilliant Harrison Ford, but crisscrossing the globe, exploring sacred burial chambers, bashing Nazis and performing other feats of derring-do is a young(ish) person’s game. As such, The Great Circle goes back to a year after the events of Raiders… or rather, precisely TO the events of Raiders. In a fun introductory sequence sure to send shivers of nostalgic giddiness down the spines of fans, the game begins with a brief section in Peru that mimics, almost beat for beat, the opening of the original movie so many years ago. It’s a rather shameless ploy to pull players in, but boy does it work! Which is a good thing, because it takes a while to build back up to anywhere near that level of momentum once the story flashes forward a year.

An eerie scene at Marshall College sets the stage when a “giant” breaks into the ancient exhibit display one night during a thunderstorm. After a brief and predictably one-sided encounter with the intruder, Professor Henry Jones, Jr. and good old Marcus Brody are left to pick up the pieces, literally, and figure out what the visitor was after. The particular artifact in question doesn’t much matter, as it’s merely a springboard to a larger mystery that… doesn’t much matter either. I suppose there are only so many fabled legends to pursue, but unlike the quest for the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail or the lost city of Atlantis, the titular MacGuffin at the heart of this narrative is obscure at best. I won’t spoil any surprises your discoveries might yield, but suffice it to say, I never felt invested at all in the “Great Circle” myth, nor had any real sense of its power or the stakes involved, at least until it was too little, too late. The only points of consequence are that it’s aroused the attention of the Vatican, and Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists are after it, so you’d better be the one that gets there first. Which is more than enough to start you on a swashbuckling Indiana Jones adventure to uncover important cultural artifacts across the world, from the U.S. to Rome, Egypt, Iraq and more.

The key words there are “Indiana Jones adventure,” as for the most part this game really nails the look and sound, style and mood of the title character and his movies. The graphics are very good, if not the most cutting-edge for their rather beefy system requirements (though with plenty of options to suit your hardware limitations if playing on PC). You’ll legitimately feel like you’re wending your way through a humid tropical jungle, braving the scorching heat in sun-drenched Gizeh against the backdrop of the Great Pyramids, riverboating your way through murky Siamese waters, or pushing through the windy blizzards in the Himalayas’ thigh-high snow.

There’s a LOT going on in each scene, too. I couldn’t believe the number of people coming and going in each of the game’s sprawling main hubs like Vatican City, from its courtyards, catacombs and libraries to St. Peter’s Basilica and the bustling Sistine Chapel. Indy’s actions are fluid, whether whip swinging or rappelling, running, jumping, sliding or climbing as long as his (replenishable) stamina holds out, though swimming leaves something to be visually desired, even after acquiring a breathing device to stay underwater longer. Action-packed set pieces look great in motion, too, including being caught in a Japanese bombing run of a devastated Shanghai, manning a tail gun to fend off incoming enemy boats or fighter planes, and desperately seeking a life-saving foothold while trying to board a zeppelin mid-air, among many others. It’s all very, very Indiana Jones.

Character models are decent and convincingly expressive – guaranteed you’ll be itching to head-butt the smug look off the top Nazi’s face long before you get the chance to. Brody looks so little like the late Denholm Elliott that I wondered if there was a likeness issue preventing it, but critically, Indy looks authentically like a Raiders-era Ford. Which brings us to perhaps the most controversial design decision of The Great Circle: making it first person. At least, mostly first person. The bulk of the gameplay is seen directly through the eyes of its protagonist, but there are enough cutscenes and mini-cinematics that show Indy in action to continually remind you who you’re playing. Still, it’s an odd choice that I struggle to find a rationale for explaining. It’s surely what developers MachineGames were most comfortable with from their work on the Wolfenstein series, but first person works best for shooters like that, less so for platforming, brawlers and character-driven adventures like this, and there’s really no value to NOT seeing Indy in an Indiana Jones adventure.

Controlling Jones can be done with either a gamepad or keyboard/mouse on PC. Normally I choose the latter for FPS games, but there’s so little shooting or need for precision aiming that a gamepad is generally more comfortable here. You CAN play The Great Circle as a shooter, but you’ll rarely stand a chance when the bullets start flying. Whenever you encounter a bad guy, usually there’s many more where that came from and gunfire draws a crowd, so it’s a much better strategy to be sneaky. Even then, unfortunately, I found the lengthy stealth sections to be the least enjoyable segments in the game. They felt like filler and least like a real Indiana Jones adventure. It’s fun for a while to sneak up behind unsuspecting guards and dispatch them in comical if painful ways, but especially when infiltrating larger enemy compounds, the availability of improvised “weapons” is inconsistent and even the most durable won’t last long before they break. You’ll also have to pick up and hide the bodies or risk having them serve as a warning to others.

The game’s stealth system isn’t particularly intuitive either. It plays fair, in a sense, but a small circle above an opponent’s head will start to fill in if you’re (apparently) within sight, even if they’re not looking at you. Usually there’s enough time to dart behind something to get out of sight, but if not, all hell breaks loose. In the smaller, more linear segments, you can get away with alerting a handful of baddies, but caught out in the open, you’re toast, especially when there’s dogs. Automatic checkpoints are reasonably generous, but in stealth sections they typically mean bypassing some of the same enemies again in an attempt to do better. You can hold out for a while once you’ve set off an alert, but ammo is scarce, the guns are clunky, foes take several direct hits to kill, and there are too many of them to fight off wave after wave by hand.

Even if you could, melee fighting is surely the second-worst part of The Great Circle experience. You can block, parry, dodge and chuck knuckles, and even make use of your whip to startle or subdue an opponent. But it all feels so imprecise and samey before long that you’ll want to avoid it if possible. You can’t always, however, including a few inevitable boss fights, one of which I found wonderful, and one particularly frustrating. Normally I’m not one to shy away from action, but here it’s worth considering making use of the abundant difficulty options to scale down the combat and/or stealth components. I played on the default moderate setting and it’s never excessively difficult, just never particularly entertaining for long.

Finding useful disguises can help you avoid notice, but only in certain situations, and in general I was disappointed by the lack of optional ways to bypass large swathes of enemies. There’s a degree of flexibility in which way to go, but there’s no way to talk yourself out of trouble, no (or few) secret passages to use as escape routes, no… well, dare I say it: no wits or team paths instead of the fists (and sneaking) path. You even have a team, at least some of the time. You’re joined for long periods by Gina Lombardi, an Italian investigative journalist looking for her sister, a language specialist who’s being held by the Nazis. Gina’s smart, feisty and independent, and makes for a fitting foil – even a potential love interest for Indy after his (pre-game) fallout with Marion. She can also be useful in a fight or offer clues for puzzles – when the game decides she should. Other times she’s inexplicably little more than a passenger while you do all the heavy lifting. Still, she’s a welcome companion with her own thoughtful character arc, and an interesting addition to the franchise canon.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Genre:	Adventure
Presentation:	Realtime 3D
Theme:	Archeology, Cultural, Historical, Adaptation, Myth/Folklore
Perspective:	First-Person
Graphic Style:	Photorealism
Gameplay:	Action-Adventure, Puzzle, Quest
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Long (more than 10 hours)
Action:	Combat, Stealth, Timed events
Difficulty:	Medium

Thankfully, if the tedious, overlong stealth sequences in open environments represent The Great Circle choosing… poorly, pretty much everything else displays a much wiser course of action. The platforming sections do less hand-holding than many games but will indicate where you can attach your whip to swing or manipulate objects, offering enough challenge without ever being frustrating. Indy is not a superman, so he has his limitations, but between his trusty whip and an ability to throw items and grab ledges you think may be just out of reach, it’s thrilling to make your way through treacherous environments, especially when natural or man-made disasters begin wreaking havoc around you. Consumables you pick up in small quantities can provide a temporary stamina boost and help restore some health – indicated by an ever-present on-screen icon in the lower left corner – when you sustain nonlethal damage in your travels. (Including during combat, but as the screen doesn’t pause while doing so, there’s really no time to heal in the midst of a fight.)

But all that’s just the action part of this action-adventure, and the adventure part is better, if still not perfect. No way around it: you need a reasonable degree of dexterity to survive this game, but there’s plenty of quieter moments that let you enjoy being an archeological expert and world-famous obtainer of rare antiquities. You’ll spend lots of time simply exploring expansive territories, with a wide variety of side quests popping up along the way, physically interacting with parts of the environment when needed. There are secret artifacts to find, medicine bottles to collect, radio frequencies to intercept, money to loot (stealing from Nazis is okay!), photos to take, even people to rescue, sometimes involving entire lengthy excursions to ancient ruins off the beaten path. Plus documents – lots and lots of documents. Too many, really, as stopping to read every time you come across one can really break up the flow, but you don’t want to ignore them either as they fill in backstory and occasionally provide clues to optional puzzles.

At times the massive hub areas themselves can feel a little daunting. You can spend many minutes just hoofing it – or NOT hoofing it; what I’d have given to be able to hop on a camel in Egypt! – through long stretches of land or water to get to your next destination, and some of the side quests are pretty blatantly padded out with backtracking. It’s truly impressive in scope, but a case of diminishing returns the farther you are from your main objective. Much of this is entirely optional, but you’re liable to get a serious case of FOMO if you don’t go exploring at least a little. A few aids are provided to move you from designated points A to B quicker, but most of these need to be earned, and they’re fairly spread out anyway. It’s not particularly user-friendly, and a more generous manner of quick travel between previously visited locations would have been much appreciated.

Completionists will have a field day chasing down every last item, but you don’t have to do any of these things if you just want to get on with the next major discovery leading you closer to the Great Circle’s big reveal. However, there’s a practical reason to be diligent as well. Most collectibles and side quests earn you Achievement Points that can be spent to unlock new abilities found in books you’ve acquired, such as increasing your satchel’s (inventory) capacity or damage inflicted in combat, adding a little roleplaying element to the experience. Some books can only be bought or traded for, so it pays to be a thief, so long as no one’s watching. Other books will highlight areas of interest on the regional map stored in your very cluttered journal, which serves as a kind of directional hint guide to the next objective whenever it’s opened. This would have been extremely helpful, except the map overlay takes up so much of the screen that it’s a nuisance to keep open for long. (You can’t even drive a boat while it’s open, which is a wise safety practice but a pain in the butt while maneuvering maze-like waterways.) The lack of a permanent (if optional) on-screen mini-map is a shocking omission in a game of this kind.

Achieving major objectives invariably involves solving puzzles, and The Great Circle has some good ones, even if Indy insists on solving the juiciest language and geographical enigmas himself. Some are pretty standard code-breaking tasks using nearby clues, while others see you repairing hydraulics to restore power, but the biggest and best of them are incorporated as ancient protection systems devised to keep people from doing exactly what you’re doing. They’re fun brainteasers that may seem familiar, but because they’re implemented as 3D environmental challenges, they really feel like organic obstacles to be overcome, not artificial roadblocks to halt progress. You’ll have to correctly align moving parts, discern patterns from indecipherable symbols, direct light beams with mirrors, and even deal with some slider variations, whose hands-on nature makes them more fun than they may sound.

Most of the gameplay takes place in the bright light of day, but often when you delve deep into excavated temple ruins or descend to skeleton-strewn underground burial chambers – even the area beneath the Sphinx! – you’ll need to light your own way in the dark. Indy’s amazing lighter will do in a pinch, but candles, torches and braziers will be a little more illuminating. And no Zippo, no matter how good, will be enough to ward off swarms of stinging scorpions on its own. Some trap-laden locations like the appropriately named “Chamber of Tribulations” will require you to think quickly and be fast on your feet to avoid classic hazards like fire, swinging blades and compressing wall spikes. Overall, it’s a nice variety that never overstays its welcome, and the difficulty (again, adjustable at the start of the game) feels just right even for someone as usually puzzle-deficient as me – and that’s without making use of a tiered built-in hint system I didn’t even realize existed while I played.

Besides the satisfaction of feeling smart, one of the rewards for solving a major puzzle is a triumphant musical sting, part of a soundtrack that wonderfully evokes John Williams’ enduring score. Most of the compositions here are original, but all in a similar vein as the legendary maestro’s own, ranging from rousing orchestral pieces to quiet, haunting arrangements. Sound effects will keep you fully in the moment, from the rustling of trees and rushing of streams and waterfalls among the cacophony of animal wildlife, to the instantly recognizable snap of the whip and over-bassed pows of Indy’s punches. Different surfaces require different footfalls, of course, from the clangs of metal to the crunch of snow to the padding of desert sand.

Voice-overs, too, are close to their cinematic inspiration without being a direct replication. Troy Baker assumes the mantle of Indy here, and though his voice is clearly not the same as Harrison Ford’s, it shares enough of the character’s deep, cool, growling timbre to quickly make the role his own. The other actors do a terrific job as well, often in foreign languages, including Alessandra Mastronardi as Gina. The only one I recognized was Candyman’s always-excellent Tony Todd as one of the “giants” protecting the Great Circle’s secrets, but it was a little strange to see his visual likeness used as well.

The Great Circle’s ending is a little forced, an exciting but rushed sequence that ties up loose ends but left me feeling underwhelmed about what it was all supposed to mean. Then again, even after 25 hours to reach that point, it really wasn’t the end at all. After the closing cinematic, the game drops you right back in to continue Indy’s adventures if you so desire. It’s easy to travel directly to your location of choice via the journal, and chances are there will be lots more to see and experience that you missed the first time around. I applaud the inclusion of so much optional gameplay, but personally I’d have preferred the ability to remove all non-essential quests from the main campaign the first time through, as it’s so easy to get off track that it can seriously drag down the pacing when time is supposed to be of the essence.

Final Verdict

If it seems like I’m being more critical than complimentary, that’s only because the game was thisclose to being exceptional. It’s packed with nostalgic detail that series fans will love, and yet the diversity of locations and cultures and artifacts you pursue makes it a whole new experience, all wrapped up in a slick-looking and sounding modern-day package. And it’s a darn fine gaming experience in its own right, with lots of high-flying, whip-cracking adventuring, exploring and puzzle solving to keep you plenty entertained. It’s just a shame that its combat and stealth elements get in the way, feeling less like Indiana Jones and more like an uninspired attempt to stretch out a game. Ditto some of the optional open-world diversions, which are well-intended but awkwardly implemented, making the experience more like two different games crammed together. On the whole, then, it may not reach the pinnacle of Raiders or Fate of Atlantis, but Indiana Jones and the Great Circle settles in comfortably around the level of The Last Crusade at just a tier below. Action-averse adventure diehards will want to steer clear, but for Indy fans and those who don’t mind getting their hands (and feet, and probably everything else) dirty, this game deserves a well-earned tip of the fedora.

Jack played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PC via Game Pass.