I've been an Indiana Jones fan since I was a kid and playing this game as a kid helped strengthen my love for the franchise.
In the year 1947, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. Aka Indiana Jones (Doug Lee) is visited by CIA Agent Sophia Hapgood (Tasia Valenza), who informs him that a Soviet research group, led by Dr. Gennadi Volodnikov (Victor Raider-Wexler), is pursuing an ancient Babylonian powerful artifact known as the cursed machine, with which they intend to conquer the world.
The game does a great job capturing the adventurous spirit of the Indiana Jones movies. The gameplay was a fascinating and effective hybrid, with its controls, targeting system, and item system is very similar to Ocarina of Time, while it had a third-person camera, exploring, and puzzle solving style much like Tomb Raider. And it worked great.
You'll explore 17 levels spanning from Kazakhstan, to Mexico, to Sudan. Throughout your travels, you'll fight enemies such as Soviet soldiers, supernatural creatures, and wild animals (including snakes) with handguns, submachine guns, and, of course, Indy's trademark whip. Sometimes, you'll even use vehicles, such as rafts, jeeps, and minecarts. Your overall objective is finding the four parts to the infernal machine. To do this, you'll traverse across each level, kill enemies, solve cleverly designed puzzles, and find the exit to advance.
The voice acting was good. Doug Lee pulled off a great Harrison Ford imitation and captured Indy's snark and archaeological brilliance quite well. Valenza and Raider-Wexler did a good job too. The soundtrack was a mixture of John Williams legendary soundtrack and original tunes. The weapon and combat sounds were crisply intense and captured the series action genre.
The level designs were the most impressive part of all. Every level was huge, explorable, and well designed. The interior sections were especially beautiful and fully detailed.
There were still flaws, though. The controls were clumsy, and Indy was terrible at jumping. The character models, although fluid in movement for the most part, looked very stiff and poorly textured at times, especially during cutscenes.
Overall, this was a fun game and great start for Indy in 3D gaming. Any fan of the franchise would have liked this.
