Indy Timeline: 1939
There is so much to like about Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, it is hard to know where to begin. The game has a charming blend of humor, clever writing, action and adventure, all married perfectly with the Indiana Jones style and canon. Enhancing the experience throughout is the cast of new characters that capture the spirit of the movies, while adapting them to the lighter format of a colorful pixelated early 1990s Lucasarts videogame landscape. There is some cartoony slapstick here, but it is carefully and selectively applied without straying too far from grittier aspects of the Indiana Jones world. There are countless little details that the game got right – from the famous map overlay with the red line tracking Indy’s travels, to snappy one-liners and quips, to straight out whip-cracking action.
The graphics are charming, a vast improvement over the Last Crusade game from just 3 years earlier. Another major tech advancement is the inclusion of voice acting for all the characters. While this feature was not available when I originally played it on the floppy-based Amiga version years ago, I think it is a pretty solid example of voice acting in an early PC game. The Indy impersonator isn’t half bad, and it adds something to the movie quality of the game having its soundtrack complemented by diverse and colorful voice actors.
The story begins, like all the films, with the end of a quest. This time, it involves Indy tracking down a mysterious artifact in the Barnett College library – a task that soon proves more challenging than one would think. This playful opening sets the stage for the broader adventure - a Nazi spy steals Indy’s discovery and reveals the potential power of lost Atlantean artifacts. When Indy tracks down a former mentee (and lover) with knowledge of Atlantis – Miss Sophia Hapgood – a new adventure is kicked off. One that sends Indy and Sophia from New York City, through Iceland, Tikal, the Azores, Monte Carlo, Algiers, Crete and elsewhere, before finally making their way to Atlantis itself!
Many of these locales and the plot points involved recall Raiders – and there is nothing wrong with that. From the jungle sequence in Tikal to the marketplace in the Algiers, to using the surveying equipment in the Cretan ruin to discover a secret map room, to the submarine sequence on the way to Atlantis – all are arguably copy-pasted from scenes in Raiders. Others – such as the hot air balloon ride – feel as though they easily could have been a missing scene from Raiders that was left on the cutting room floor. There are many other references to the other movies as well – the lost dialogue of plato, for example, is very much this adventure’s grail diary and the lava puzzle at the end of the game recalls the “Word of God” trial from the climax of Last Crusade. For fans paying extra attention, you will notice a number of famous lines from the original trilogy repeated by different characters – ranging from more obvious references “X marks the spot!” to more subtle nods “I hate being wet!” Perhaps these are not the most original ideas, but who cares? To me, they picked the best aspects of Indy to draw from – and best yet, the game provides a chance to experience these adventures as Indiana Jones himself.
Indy’s counterpart for much of the ride is Sophia Hapgood, a spunky redhead who wears a leather jacket and can match Indy punch-for-punch with both her adventurous spirit and her witty quips. Her sass and vigor recalls Marion - both women are also every bit Indy’s equal. (Coincidentally, both women also possess medallions that are critical to the larger adventure, but I digress…). This said, Sophia is a differentiated character from Marion, especially given her background in mysticism and questionable skills as a psychic. She is a strong counterpart for Indy – bordering between an academic and a fraud. They bicker incessantly, and it is one of the game’s highlights.
Fate of Atlantis’ strong leading lady is complemented by equally strong minor characters and villains – Kerner is the prototypical “Aryan” Nazi, strong and tall with blond hair and blue eyes. Nevertheless, he is fundamentally an insecure thug and a coward. He takes orders from Dr. Ubermann, a strangelovian mad-scientist. There are lots of other supporting characters for Indy and Sophia to interact with along the way. Sternhart is a swindler and rival archeologist who competes with our heroes in reaching Atlantis. The heavyset Al Jabbar plays a “Sallah” type role in the Algerian marketplace, buying and selling trinkets from and to our protagonists. All these characters, and many others, are colorful and fit beautifully into the canon. They also possess the wry humor that Lucasarts was rightly famous for during this era. Many lines of dialogue, and their complementary animations, are laugh-out-loud funny.
So what went wrong in this game? My criticisms are pretty minor. Some of the stone puzzles are a bit annoying and more confusing than one would think. The submarine and hot air balloon are unwieldy and tricky to navigate (thankfully, both sequences are quite short). I wasn’t crazy about the maze sequence, but I preferred it to the one in the Last Crusade adventure game. Other than this I cannot come up with much.
In short, Fate of Atlantis is simply a fun adventure. There is great humor, memorable characters, exotic locales, and a touch of the supernatural. In other words – it has everything that makes Indy great. There is a strong argument to be made that this should have been the fourth Indiana Jones feature film, but I will not expound on that here. The game also has some replay value. There are three separate story paths – wits, fists, and team mode - that players can follow. I played the “team path” and strongly recommend that one for first time players as it maximizes Indy’s banter with Sophia. Overall, a must play experience for all Indy fans.
Indy Rating: 9.5/10
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