Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb

"Worthy of the Indiana Jones name"

Lara Croft may try as she might, both in films and gaming, but she’ll never take the mantle from the original death-defying archeologist, Indiana Jones. The whip-toting adventurer has been missing in action for the past several years, but thankfully with the “Emperor’s Tomb”, Lucas Arts gets Indiana Jones right. The result is a roller-coaster of a game filled with all the action and booby-traps we’d expect from Dr. Jones.

The “Emperor’s Tomb” follows Indy’s travels in 1935 to track down a Chinese artifact that has the ability to control the human mind. Along the way he encounters all the danger and tumbling boulders that have made him such a famous character in history. If you’ve played any of the “Tomb Raider” games, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect within the “Emperor’s Tomb”. Except here the pointless dull puzzles have been removed, and I absolutely love the fact that the game is now just pure adventure. Instead of coming to a halt every five minutes to scrounge through a strategy guide, your times here will be spent whip-swinging across pitfalls, and making death-defying jumps while also dispatching plenty of Nazi’s and bandits while you’re at it.

The usual platform gameplay is here, along with a healthy dose of hand-to-hand combat and gun battles. Indy has quite the arsenal of weaponry, from his traditional whip, revolvers, machine guns, chairs, table legs, shovels and machetes. The fighting system may not be incredibly deep, but does manage to be very entertaining for what is offered. This is primarily because it is designed by the same makers of Xbox’s very entertaining “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, which also displayed the same great gameplay psychics. The levels are nicely designed and, are broken up into perfectly balanced portions so you’ll never have one that seemingly drags on forever.

So what’s the problem? You are unable to save your game anywhere in the levels, nor are you given any checkpoints to restart from. So if you missed that crucial jump by pressing a button a little too soon, you’re going to have to restart at the beginning of the level. This might not be such a problem had some of the later levels not depended so much on instant death jumps. Aside from that minor gripe, however, any fans of the Indiana Jones trilogy or adventure games in general should be most pleased with the results. “The Emperor’s Tomb” is an engaging, nicely crafted gaming experience and perhaps the start of a great new franchise for Lucas Arts.

Pros:
+ Excellent level designs
+ Perfectly fitting Indiana action
+ Plenty of weapons
+ Clever traps and puzzles

Cons:
- Some cheap deaths
- Shallow fighting engine
- Lame rail-shooting areas

Overall- 8.5

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/31/03, Updated 07/31/03