Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

"Doo doo doo doo! Just wait til you hear that 58 times......"

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine has to be one of the best licensed games I've ever played.
This game is luckily not just a hack-rush cash-in platformer that so many movie games are. This game is a clever 3-D platformer with a strong puzzle influence contained within it. I was stuck for months on the ninth level.
So let's go the game's attributes:

STORY:
Okay, this one is pretty confusing the first time through. You control Indiana Jones. On the first level, he's doing his normal archeological adventures when all of a sudden his psychic girlfriend pops up in a helicopter. She tells him that somethin' funny is going on in Babylon, and she shows you a picture of some fat Russian guy that's supposed to have all the information on what's going on.
Indy goes to Babylon to find a whole bunch o' Commies, which, of course, you kill by the dozens. Pretty cruel, but that's what Indy does best. So you find this fat Russian dude who keeps talking about the human genocide and whatnot, and it can happen through the four Infernal Machine parts. So, of course, it's Indy's job to travel around the world and retrieve the four machine parts before the Russian guy can. That's all I can tell you without spoiling the plot.

GRAPHICS:
For 1999, these are actually pretty impressive visuals. Indy animates nicely in a full 3-D world, there's almost never any choppiness, and the explosions look nice. These are all around excellent graphics.

SOUND:
Indy 'n' friends all speak with crystal-clear voices, and the acting is superb. However, besides the voices, things begin to fall apart. The gun noises and explosions sound utterly horrid, so to speak.

MUSIC:
The game's soft spot. Honestly, practically the only music in the entire game is the first few notes of the Indy fanfare, which really gets on your nerves after awhile. And any time you do something Indy-like, it blares the same notes over and over again.
Indy swings across a canyon: 'Doo doo doo doo!'
Indy shoots a bad guy: 'Doo doo doo doo!'
Indy escapes an expoding temple: 'Doo doo doo doo!'
No wonder hearing the theme song nowadays gives me the runs.

GAMEPLAY:
This game is an awesome mix of shooter, platformer and puzzle games. It just fits together so nicely. Some of the puzzles are pretty vague, with few clues of what to do. It took me a full two months to get past level nine because of one room. But, let's look on the bright side: each level also has a definite theme. Platformer, puzzle, or shooter. Few are mixtures of all three. There are eleven weapons for you to use, countless other equip items, such as your machine parts, and dozens of moves for you to memorize. At first it's pretty overwhelming, but it goes straight uphill from there.

LENGTHCHALLENGE:
This game is actually pretty long-there are sixteen absolutely humongous levels for you to beat, and one secret level. Near the end of 5 of the levels, you have to fight a boss. For some reason, the first one seems to be the hardest and then they get easier and easier. Weird. There's also a shop that you can visit in between levels, to stock up on health items and whatnot. This game is pretty difficult the first time through, but a total cakewalk the second time.

REPLAY VALUE:
After you beat all the levels, you can go back to find all 10 treasures within each level, which is a pretty fair challenge, but not much after that. Not one of the game's strong points.

OVERALL:
I quite enjoyed this game, and anyone who's looking for a good, brainbusting puzzleplatformershooter hybrid will not be disappointed. Buy it if it sounds good to you.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Indy freaks, get this NOW.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/02, Updated 07/20/02