Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – true to size hat. Review

Played on PC

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was announced several years ago, but until the very end it was not very clear what awaited us. Small trailers showed clips from game scenes and in-game videos, capturing only certain moments: first-person view, fist fights, shooting and riddles. But how all this will play became clear only with the release. And it’s good that it happened this way. It turned out to be very interesting to reveal the secrets of the Great Circle yourself!

Indy’s face, including the animation, is detailed. Ford’s signature antics and grins are meticulously reproduced

⇡#The great circle has closed

The opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark is the perfect way to introduce the viewer to Indiana. A fearless adventurer, ready to risk his life not for his own gain, but in the name of archaeology. The authors themselves understood this, so they recreated the hunt for the golden idol. Some scenes are reproduced one-to-one in the form of cutscenes on the engine, other events are interactive and allow you to look around through the eyes of a professor, at the same time teaching the basics of the game.

But the introduction is just a dream-memory, ending at the escape from a huge stone boulder. It’s 1937. A year has passed since the events of the first film. The game’s history begins at the professor’s alma mater, Marshall College. The night turned out to be restless: there was a thunderstorm outside the window, and someone had clearly broken into the educational institution. This someone turns out to be a giant monk. He knocks out Indy, steals one of the artifacts, and disappears into the darkness. This is where the epic of the Great Circle begins.

Dr. Jones, of course, instantly grabs the excuse to go on another adventure. Along the way, we learn that it was precisely the desire to chase the past that prevented him from building a future with Marion. The first stop on the way will be the Vatican. This is where the real face of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is revealed. It gives you the feeling of a discoverer, allowing you to explore spacious and branched locations with many secrets and secondary activities.

Wherever you want, go there. The main thing is not to catch the officer’s eye

The Vatican has a difficult political situation: the Pope is seriously ill, and the Nazis are freely located on the territory of the Holy See. To avoid unnecessary attention, you need to stay away from the soldiers, or wear a priest costume – in the second case, you lose additional health and the ability to grab a revolver at any time, but only enemy officers will be able to reveal the disguise. Taking into account the emphasis placed in the game, the pros significantly outweigh the cons.

Since the days of Wolfenstein: The New Order, MachineGames have become famous for their thoughtful level architecture, and the vast locations in the new Indiana Jones allowed the talent of the designers to run wild. Often there are many different paths to the goal: in some places you have to hide from patrol officers, in others you have to rely more on acrobatics, or you just have to look around carefully and notice an inconspicuous, very well located hole. Associations with Deus Ex and Dishonored immediately appear, but here, of course, everything is a little simpler.

The player is free to choose his own style of play – I tried to act stealthily most of the time. Moreover, the artificial intelligence of the enemies is not outstanding. Which, on the other hand, is a plus on two levels at once: firstly, it gives a share of irony to the story itself about a dashing archaeologist who deftly leads almost cartoonish fascisti by the nose; secondly, it makes it easy to adapt to the situation and change your approach on the fly. For example, we accidentally came face to face with a martinet, quickly knocked him out with a hook and dragged him around the corner. And all this is ten meters from his comrade, who whistles carefree, looking out the window. Indy made a barb, no one noticed anything, and here you are again sneaking on as a shadow.

Hit your head with a frying pan or push you out the window?

Since we’re talking about fights, the combat system turned out to be simple, but spectacular and tactile. Left and right strikes (a separate button is responsible for each hand) are linked into simple combinations. A long press will perform an uppercut. You can block and parry enemy attacks. The latter is more difficult to execute, but allows for a devastating counterattack. Don’t forget about the whip, which can be used to knock a weapon out of an enemy’s hands or pull the enemy towards you – depending on where you aim.

You can and should fight not only with your bare hands. Bottles, clubs, hammers and other utensils are scattered around the area, which fall into pieces when they come into contact with enemy skulls. The fights are well balanced: you can deal with one opponent without any problems, in general you can defeat a group of two or three opponents (although it depends on how the curve turns out), but the whole camp will already crush the daring archaeologist in a crowd. Therefore, in the camp of the enemy it is better to avoid unnecessary attention, but in cramped spaces you can give yourself free rein and punch someone in the face.

Shooting remains a last resort – when the alarm is ringing throughout the area, and there is no point in hiding. Well, or you’re just too lazy to fight – a shot will solve the problem, as in that very scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. But I have to admit that you expect a little more from a shooter authored by MachineGames. The recoil is felt well, but the reaction of enemies to hits is not enough. One headshot is often not enough to take down an enemy. It is clear that this is an assumption for the sake of balance, but given the local shortage of ammo, even a series of well-aimed headshots would not allow clearing the entire map (and this was also done so that you could not leave scorched earth behind).

The further you go, the more opportunities you have to shoot. But the choice is yours

A certain freedom of action, stealth and social interaction, an emphasis on close combat with rare shootings – if it seems to you that such a first-person action game has already been done, then you don’t think so. MachineGames was once formed by people from Starbreeze, responsible for The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay – which Indiana Jones and the Great Circle most closely resembles. And both turned out to be the best games based on films.

The same roots can be traced in the tactility of the new game. Both The Chronicles of Riddick and The Darkness made it possible to literally feel in the body of the protagonist – due to weight, inertia, various contextual actions and animations. Likewise, as Indiana Jones, you actively interact with the world. For example, to open a door, you need to take out a key, insert it into the keyhole and turn the handle – each operation has its own button.

⇡#An ancient secret under every stone

Don’t forget that Jones Jr. is, first and foremost, an archaeologist in search of ancient secrets. And they are here at every step. Collectibles are scattered throughout the levels: medicine vials are exchanged for upgrades in stamina and health, books unlock new skills and improve existing ones, and notes provide more context to the story, characters, and environment. Some things are simply lying on tables or hidden in dark corners; access to others will require solving some kind of puzzle.

Taking photographs of landmarks will reward you with “adventure points” required to learn skills, and short remarks about what you saw from Indy

There are a lot of mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and they are very diverse (within several archetypes). For example, selecting a code for a lock, of which you will come across dozens, always has its own peculiarity and a key to the solution. The correct combination is often encrypted in notes and environmental objects: using clues, you need to understand the date you are looking for, the sequence of clicking on books that open a secret passage behind the closet, solve a simple combinatorial problem, and so on.

Plot puzzles are more complex. Indiana, of course, will visit abandoned temples, overgrown catacombs and forgotten tombs. All of them are filled with both dangerous traps and tests of ingenuity – after all, don’t feed the ancient engineers bread, let them build some kind of clever mechanism. You will need to redirect the sun’s rays using mirrors, press buttons in a given sequence according to clues scattered throughout several halls, and solve many other cinematic-archaeological problems.

Some obstacles are overcome not by ingenuity, but by dexterity. Jones, although he doesn’t jump as dashingly as Nathan Drake, will crawl along the ledge on his hands and climb up the wall along the pipe. And the whip completely replaces the grappling hook, allowing you to jump over chasms and climb steep walls. By the way, these are the only gameplay episodes where the camera switches to a third-person view.

Enemies cannot see anything taller than themselves. For some Thief this is a death sentence, but it’s even suitable for the adventures of Indiana

Different game situations are cleverly shuffled: exploration of extensive levels is replaced by linear sections, quiet walks alternate with puzzles of varying degrees of complexity and rare moments with adrenaline action – perhaps even too rare, and not as interactive as we would like. And all of them are concentrated mainly in the second half of the passage.

By the middle, the game sags somewhat. Almost all the main mechanics appear already in the Vatican. Including segments with my partner, journalist Gina. The lady is lively and punchy, but not without sophistication and a sense of humor. Afterwards you will be thrown into Egypt, where, of course, there are beautiful views… but quite quickly you realize that structurally we have entered the second round. We study the area again, now around Giza (the same one next to the pyramids and the Sphinx), we carry out the obligatory and not-so-obligatory assignments. We collect smaller artifacts to get a lead on the location of the Main Artifact, and we will certainly open several new secret temples.

Everything is the same as in the Vatican, but in different scenery. In such a situation, the story holds the screen: we learn more about the Great Circle itself and the mysterious order of giant people. It will not do without mystical powers. In any case, the Nazis, led by a German archaeologist, believe in them. Perhaps it is Emmerich Voss who is the star of the adventures in Egypt. An eccentric professional colleague, he is both an amusingly caricatured henchman of Hitler and an erudite scoundrel obsessed with his work.

You can accidentally shoot the tail of your own plane. It runs in the family for the Joneses.

Finally, closer to the end, we will be thrown into the swampy jungle in the vicinity of the city of Sukhothai in Siam. And again – the same game loop, but movement along rivers on a motor boat and scuba diving adds variety. The concentration of bright episodes increases, and the plot picks up speed sharply and does not slow down until the credits. The story of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle fits perfectly into the series, recalling the golden years of the famous archaeologist.

* * *

I am sure there will be many fans for whom The Great Circle will be the right fourth part. It is very close in spirit to the first three films, but it also has its own personality. Just like Troy Baker, who seemed to perfectly capture the intonation of Harrison Ford with his signature grin, while also bringing a dose of drama and doubt to the character as he faces a life-changing choice: pursue the past or build the future .

Advantages:

• A great mix of adventure, hide and seek and puzzles;
• Thoughtful level design with multiple paths;
• Simple but exciting fist fight;
• Charismatic antagonist;
• The same atmosphere from the movies.

Disadvantages:

• In the middle the tempo sags slightly;
• All three large locations have an almost identical structure;
• I want to take more part in action episodes.

Graphic arts

The picture is not colorful, but bright, saturated and “dense” – there are always a lot of details in the frame, both indoors and on the streets in settlements, and even in the desert.

Sound

The iconic musical theme from John Williams and the talented performance of Troy Baker literally take you back to childhood… well, if you’re over thirty, that’s for sure.

Single player game

The interweaving of simple mechanics ultimately adds up to a varied first-person adventure. A lightweight variation of the “immersive sim”.

Estimated time of completion

The plot itself will take a maximum of ten hours, but to reveal all the secrets, it will take at least twice as long.

Collective game

Not foreseen.

General impression

A thrilling adventure with a familiar atmosphere and style, but a fresh and exciting gaming experience at the same time.

Rating: 8.5 / 10

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