Indiana Jones® and the Emperor's Tomb™

This is a fun game, and I believe it is worthwhile. That said, some of the gameplay mechanics aren't great. Mouse sensitivity needs to be turned all the way down, and it still lets the camera squirrel around a bit too much. Also the side to side running is a weird combination of strafe and turn that takes some getting used to. Most problematic though, is the whip controls don't always sense when you can swing, so sometimes you have to go back and forth on the edge of a ledge a few times before you get the right angle. One other important note (but not a problem) is that the camera does NOT control ascent and descent in water, as it seems. If you are on the surface of the water, space bar dives. If you are under the water space bar propels you forward. Steering is NOT done with the mouse, but with WSAD like in airplane games. Once your body is angled in the direction you want to go, you can hit space bar to propel. The level design is interesting, but not always intuitive. Indy generally doesn't jump down off of things, because it hurts him... but then certain maps require you to make a long jump that also goes down farther than you would think you should. But with experimentation, it's fine. The design is engaging enough to overlook that small flaw. The graphics are good enough, but I recommend playing on a small-ish screen, as the camera can be a little nauseating. The sound design and ambiance are excellent. Either they got Harrison to do the voice acting, or they got a top notch impersonator. On balance, I'd recommend this game, especially if you have any nostalgia for it. If you don't have specific nostalgia, this game may feel a little more middling, but still worth a play through.

Poor Indy. You didn't deserve such a mediocre game! There was so much potential in this game, but some terrible choices made the game hard to enjoy. - no free saving! Not even checkpoints. If you die, you'll have to play through the entire level again. And yes, that will happen, since the hard enemies (even one-hit=kill ones) come at the end of the level. - poor controls. Awkward console controls that have been ported badly to the PC. Indy feels like a geriatric version of Lara. - what the hell happened to Indy's stamina? Whenever he takes more than two steps, he starts wheezing as if he had just run a marathon. That is a minor annoyance, but it is totally out of character. Now the good: it's Indy and you get to explore mysteries and fight bad guys with him. And bad controls... with better controls and the option to save the game, this game could have been great. But as it is, it just stands as an example that even a big name and a good concept can be ruined by game-design sins.

This game is not my thing. Moving forward and advancement within the game was far too tedious for this gamer. Having said that, I have to give a rating of at least 3 stars. It's obviously a beautiful, and very well thought out game. It has excellent graphics and sound. It worked perfectly on my Windows 7, 64 bit computer. I personally found that controlling Indy with my keyboard to be clumsy, and non-rewarding. Just not my thing.

Having loved anything Indiana Jones related, I was looking forward to playing this game. Who wouldn't want to watch an "unaired" Indiana Jones adventure, let alone experience it first hand. But sadly, Emperor's Tomb feels more like the 1st attempt of a fledgeling studio at a 3D game. Emperor's Tomb feels so basic & on a budget, you might as well be playing Tomb Raider 1. Problem is, that game was released 6 years prior to this one, yet nothing much changed. Controls are so bad, they'd often get you killed, level design is repetitious and leaves no room for exploration, progression is linear - & if you stray from the path designated for you, the difficulty will immediately rise, & the camera is so bad, it rarely shows you what you want to look at. Combat is easy enough but repetitive, partly due to you being forced to fight hand to hand, & partly due to the enemies just standing there, waiting for you to attack them. After a while I felt like I was playing Mortal Kombat with an Indy skin. Granted, you can use a lot of things as weapons to attack the enemy, but they're as useless as can be. Hacking away at a baddie using a machete, I might as well have tickled him with a feather. Granted, you can use guns, but the aiming takes its cues from Trespasser. Meaning you flail your arm around while the camera shows you everything but the bad guy, while he keeps moving around waiting for you to pull the trigger. More often than not the bad guy would get bored & finally attack me before I landed a single shot. It doesn't help that the enemies of each section seem to only have two skins to choose from. In fact, entering one area I encountered three bad guys, all of which looked exactly the same. And the look of the levels is just as uninspired - every level you play seems just like the previous one, & the lack of checkpoints means you'll get to experience them over & over again. They're so basic, I felt like I wasn't playing an Indy game, but rather a game with Indy in it.

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb was probably the second Indiana Jones game I played when I was a kid. After Playing Infernal Machine and loving the puzzles to solve I thought Emperor's Tomb would be the same concept. Not really, but still an entertaining game to play. hand to hand combat is fun and being able to pick up objects to throw at enemies. The platform jumping and puzzles to solve are sort of fun. The story was a little cheesy but at least there was one. My biggest problem with this game has to be camera controls ( use the mouse to move it and control Indiana underwater) and how there is no save button. Not being able to record your progress is probably my biggest issue with the game. Sometimes there are levels that are really long and you might die on a jump near the end of the level then have to start back at the beginning. I love Indiana Jones and have been a fan since I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was 10 years old. I love playing Indiana Jones games like Fate of Alantis and Infernal Machine (love/hate game) but with the saving being a huge issue I have to give it 3/5.