Indiana Jones® and the Fate of Atlantis™

This game has it all: exploration, exotic locations, fights (if you choose) and jokes - and Sophia :) You can choose between three ways to play the game, with each having its own variations of the locations and puzzles: more action (with lots of fights but less puzzles), more puzzles or more interaction with Sophia (read: more fun and jokes). The story is outstanding. The graphics are a bit dated (read: pixelated), but still good - you see the love to detail as it benefits from every scene being hand drawn. It just fits all together. The soundtrack is typical Indiana Jones. The puzzles are never unfair and it's not pixel hunting. It even starts with possibly the most innovative intro ever! The plot has Dr Jones looking for the greatest prize conceivable within the realms of archaeology: the lost city of Atlantis. This quest will take you to various locations around the world that involve a great mix of dialogue, fist fighting, and puzzle solving. What's more, the game has three paths to choose from: team path for those who prefer a more balanced game, fists path for those who prefer action, and wits path for those who enjoy a more cerebral approach. Each of these paths are excellently designed, lots of fun, and lend the game amazing replay value. The graphics are great and the music is beautiful.

What this game does well is atmosphere. It's got the Indiana Jones characters, the villains, the setting, the music, the voice-overs, the adventure. And here it's absolutely flawless. As a point & click adventure game, it of course has a different structure to a movie but basically someone could adapt it to the big screen, and it will feel authentic. I've played quite a few Indiana Jones games but out of all of them this is the real McCoy. Don't skip on it if you have any interest at all in the franchise. Where it falls down a little is the plot itself, and the pacing. It just takes a long time to get going, and even then while the premise of Atlantis and so on is engaging, everything is just kind of predictable. Maybe it's because I'm taking the 'team' path in my first playthrough, instead of the 'fists' path where there might be more surprises and more of those Indiana Jones movie action scenes which spice things up. The puzzles also do not strike me as anything too original. A lot of the time it boils down to pixel hunting in a low-res game. But still, they make sense and none of them have stumped me for too long a while thus far. I think there's a good balance in their difficulty at least.

This game remains the best adventure game ever made, and one of the best games of all time, period. This GOG release finally gives us the best possible version for modern computers. Unlike the Steam version, which reduced much of the game's amazing soundtrack to clicks and blips, GOG's version runs on Scumm VM and allows for some customization of the way the sound is emulated- and even if you never bother messing with that, the default sound is much closer to the original than Steam's version. If you haven't ever played the game before, I envy you, because you are in for an amazing experience. Get it NOW. You will not be sorry.

I have played and continue to go back and play this game because it is so good, the story is still so riveting, and it will forever be my favorite Adventure DOS game from my childhood, next to Sam and Max Hit The Road, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, and the Monkey Island series. I also believe every single one of those deserves a movie or a Netflix adaptation. Especially Fate of Atlantis, however.

It didn't matter if I played it when I was 12 years old or just recently, nearly 3 decades later. Really one of the bests games ever.