Name: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Platform: PC
Year Released: 1992



The point-and-click adventure was a prominent genre in the late 1980s and 1990s, and LucasArts was the publisher most associated with these types of games. Their groundbreaking and innovative SCUMM engine went on to be used in point-and-click games for years, and they were well known for humorous and engaging plotlines, well-written dialogue, and clever puzzles. While most of the classic LucasArts adventure games featured original stories and characters (Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders), they also made two with an extremely popular licensed figure: Indiana Jones. The first LucasArts Indy game, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was released in 1989, the same year as the movie. For their next game in the franchise, the LucasArts team decided to come up with a completely original Indiana Jones story, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.


Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis takes place in 1939, and has Indiana searching for the legendary island with the help of archaeologist-turned-psychic (and love interest) Sophia Hapgood. Of course, the Nazis are also looking for Atlantis so that they can harness its power to win World War II. The search takes Indy all over the world, although the exact path he follows is determined by his actions earlier in the game. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis has three different directions the player can take: Wits, Fists, and Team. In the Wits path, there is a heavy focus on strategy and puzzle-solving, while the Fists path has Indy mostly fighting his way to Atlantis. The Team option, however, allows Sophia to tag along with Indiana (otherwise they would separate and meet up again later in the game). The three options lead to dramatically different gameplay, meaning that the player can only truly see everything by playing it through three times.

The Indiana Jones adventure games were different from the typical LucasArts formula in that they used an I.Q. (Indy Quotient) system that kept track of how well the player was doing. In Fate of Atlantis, the maximum I.Q. of 1000 can only be achieved by playing through all three paths. Unlike many games in the genre, it is possible for Indy to be killed, which ends the game; the player’s decisions can also get Sophia killed, which leads to a worse ending and less I.Q. points. Because of this, the player should probably keep several save files and save his progress consistently; there’s nothing worse than losing a fight to a Nazi hours into the game and having to start all over. This can be frustrating, but you’re usually aware of impending danger, which gives you a chance to save should you make a poor decision.

Other than the annoyance of sudden death or getting stuck on a tricky puzzle, there’s really very little to complain about. The graphics are a bit archaic, but that’s forgivable for a game from 1992. Unlike Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis is voice-acted, and Doug Lee does a fairly decent job as Indy. The game is clever and well written, it’s humorous and filled with inside jokes (like a Lou Gehrig-signed baseball that actually says “Ron Gilbert” upon further inspection), and it’s pretty much everything you would want out of both an Indiana Jones game and a LucasArts point-and-click adventure. The use of death might be a turnoff to gamers more familiar with the Day of the Tentacle style of adventuring (as in, you never die, and can’t do anything to permanently mess up your game, which incidentally was a huge change from its predecessor, Maniac Mansion). However, I found it a refreshing addition that added another level of challenge to the game.

It may seem ridiculous to give a 17-year-old PC game a perfect score, but Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis succeeded on so many levels. It bested other games in the same genre by having multiple playthroughs and a ton of replay value, and was superior to most licensed games in that it was actually worthy of the Indiana Jones name. Most importantly, the game holds up after all these years, and both new and old fans of the archaeologist could find this game enjoyable. If you still have your old CD-ROM version lying around, you can play it on a modern PC or MAC (legally!) with the help of the ScummVM engine; otherwise, you will be able to unlock it in the Wii version of the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. Let’s hope LucasArts follows suit and starts to make other old adventure games more easily accessible.

 

 

[Image source 1][2, 3]

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