It's a dumb, short game, but it had me in absolute stitches. And isn't that, ultimately, what we all look for in a point & click game?
The puzzles are pretty hardcore and the presentation is more rudimentary compared to LucasArt's most well-known adventure games - but this one has a lot of charm and you'll enjoy following (with some detours) the events of the movie
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.
So first of all, this game is of course built on the foundation of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast; same engine, same awesome lightsaber combat, same John Williams soundtrack, etc... and so it automatically can't be a bad game, no matter how much it disappoints otherwise. For disappointment is exactly what this 3rd installment does. First of all, unlike in Jedi Outcast - 90% of the time, the first-person combat/gunplay is needless. You have the lightsaber and force powers right from the get go. And the enemies are typically beefier than the hordes of stormtroopers you faced in the first half of Jedi Outcast, making the repeater and other low-end ranged weapons - inferior options. There are a few types of enemies (such as flying ones or snipers) against which, as well as certain situations where you'll want to use a weapon other than your lightsaber, but that's the extent of it. Secondly, I've already forgotten the storyline in this game, despite replaying the single-player and finally beating it less than a year ago. Yet I still remember the Jedi Outcast storyline despite beating it over 20 years ago. What's up with that? I'm having to concentrate now to recall it. Yes, now I remember.. so you play as a nobody, with no real personality or backstory; but hey at least you can customize how they look, right? Luke and Kyle Katarn appear again in this game, but they stay mostly off to the side anyway. There is no emotional hook for the narrative, nothing to get you invested. Your friend in the game is an immature brat, and the villain comes out of nowhere and their motivations don't make sense either. Thirdly, it's just a rehash of everything we've seen already. I already mentioned it uses the same engine, with the same graphics and the same lightsaber play as Jedi Outcast. And that would be alright, as all those things didn't need changing. But it's also the same force powers. Many of the same enemies. And sometimes the same environments and textures too. Granted this game does expand the variety of different locations and mission types considerably. Some of which work well and some which don't. One of the ones that works well is the train level, which plays to the same soundtrack as the train level from the N64 title Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. Which I found to be a nice little homage, but.. that's also a rehash, is it not? Where are the original, memorable experiences that stick in your mind for years after? One caveat I'll add - multiplayer in this game was fantastic back in the day. I played it for months. That's really what was the meat of the game. Nowadays it ain't, you'll either end up in some bot servers, or a dueling server where everyone is better than you and you'll get mauled. And I have to give an overall score for how the game currently is, not how it was. Which is to say an underwhelming conclusion to the Dark Forces quadrology in single-player, and a once-glorious multiplayer that today is only a shadow of its former self.
The good: Plot, lore, dialogue, voice-acting, music, RPG mechanics (finding equipment, levelling, buying/selling, combat, stealth), pathfinding, hotkeys for most things The bad: Ally AI, clunky interface, broken combo system, sound, tutorial that doesn't explain anything, short enemy sight/awareness, exploitable enemies and combat mechanics, keeping the summon from getting killed can be a pain The ugly: Graphics My opinion is that for those who can stomach a 17-year old game with its 17-year old outdated UI and game mechanics; there's definately a lot there for you - especially the in-game lore and writting; it's a lot better and more original than what you see in something like Pillars of Eternity nowadays. However it's flaws and age do show and can't be looked past, so I can't give it a higher score than what I gave it.
Title says it all
I got into this one not all that long ago, relatively speaking. Maybe 7-8 years back. It's a great game and a great Mi-24 simulator, I'm sure outdone in the pure simulation aspects by DCS or whatever - but the missions here are interesting, the music and voice acting get you into the mood, some of the battles that go on around you are downright chaotic, and it doesn't require a huge investment of time to pick up.. you get accustomed to all the controls, get used to flying the helicopter over the course of a couple of hours, and get into some combat. Recommended.
One of the first of these Myst-style first-person adventure games, before Myst itself actually. And this was a good one I thought. It uses FMV quite competently, not just as a gimmick. And the world is quirky with some hamfisted actors.. I mean characters. Basically, you'll have a laugh and a sense of adventure throughout it.
