GameLog Page

Please sign in or sign up!

...blogs for gamers

Find a GameLog

... by game	... by platform

[ advanced search ]

HOME	GAMES	LOGS	MEMBERS			ABOUT	HELP

dkirschner's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PC)

[June 12, 2025 04:51:43 PM]

Epic epic epic! I had zero expectations for this, having never heard of it until sometime after it came out and seeing that it got really good reviews. If you like Uncharted, you have to play Indiana Jones. Or if you like Indiana Jones movies. It's very authentic. It's by MachineGames, who has been doing the (mostly) excellent Wolfenstein games. They're sticking with the Nazi antagonist theme. This has Wolfenstein DNA, it feels like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, and it also feels like (unexpectedly) an immersive sim like Dishonored or Thief or something. It's REALLY good. I’m going to rattle off a handful of things I liked and then note a few rough patches.

(1) Story. Solid. I was invested. It’s a typical treasure hunt mystery “go to x places to get the x items” thing, but well done. The voice acting is top notch from all the leads, and even from side characters and random Nazis. The Harrison Ford likeness was cool to see. Characters were well written, good dialogue, good banter between Indy and Gina. An excellent bad guy, a Nazi archaeologist named Voss. He’s sufficiently patriotic and out of his mind for power, arrogant, cruel, and manipulative.

(2) Environments and level design. Outstanding. There aren’t a ton of areas that you’ll visit, but there is a lot of variety. Some areas are like semi-open world maps, while others are more linear. The semi-open world maps are full of places to explore, secrets to find. Discovery is organic. You’ll be infiltrating a Nazi camp and come across a “mystery” (the game’s category of puzzles, often finding and deciphering codes to open safes or locate a tomb or something). You might start the mystery by reading a note. Or, you might come across a piece of information from a note or an NPC or something that starts “fieldwork” (the game’s term for side quests). Fieldwork can be involved and is the side content that is most worth doing. There is usually a story component, often new characters, good puzzles, a great trippy sequence after Indy touches a poisonous frog, and so on. You can take or leave all the side stuff though. Some of it is well hidden, and I imagine it would take a good long while to find all the secrets in this game. Side content gives rewards you with money, adventure points (experience), and items. I purchased every skill I had access to by the end of the game, had a ton of points left, and had plenty of side content left to do. So, you won't be starving for experience. Also, the pacing is on point. There is a good mix of puzzles, exploration, combat, and cut scenes. You’re always moving forward toward some goal or another, even if it’s self-directed goals like “I’m going to clear out this Nazi camp” or “I’m going to stop at all these islands and see what’s on them.” The platforming is fun too, which usually goes along with the puzzling.

(3) Melee. Something that felt unique about this game is the melee focus. Indy famously punches Nazis, so that’s what he does in the game. There are melee weapons scattered all over the place, everyday items like pots and pans, guitars, pickaxes (lots of excavation equipment), clubs, hair brushes, brooms, etc. Near the end of the game I found a violin and bow and made sure to clobber enemies with them. You can block and throw a charged punch too, as well as parry and counter-attack. You can also employ your signature whip to disarm enemies. Especially as you go further in the game, enemies will have guns, which you are also welcome to pick up and use as clubs, or you can shoot them. Enemies tend to match your combat style though, so if you use your fists, they probably will too, or they’ll pick up a nearby weapon (and often will throw things at you). If you open fire though, if they have guns, they’ll shoot back. Plus, enemies from all over the place nearby will converge on your location. Shooting someone often meant death a minute later.

Some things that felt broken:

(1) Dogs. Patrol dogs are annoying. I couldn’t figure out how to stop them from attacking me. The game says that if you whip them, they flee, and that they’re also scared of gunshots. I would whip them and they would completely ignore it, latching onto my arm anyway. I would shoot them, and it seems that the game has a “no animal violence” thing because bullets simply don’t do anything to the dogs. The game also says that you can mash left and right click to get the dog off you, but it didn’t work. So, every time a dog saw me, there was nothing I could do but let it attack me! Then, once it attacked, a whip crack would keep it away.

(2) Dropping items. You can drop items by pressing “Q” and you will drop whatever you’re holding if you press “tab” to open your bag or “2” to take out your camera or lighter. This was very annoying early on, though less so as you learn the rules by which Indy drops things. It was also less annoying as I realized that it was just being realistic. Indy has two hands. He can’t use a camera and steer a boat at the same time, can’t climb a ladder and hold a gun, can’t bandage himself and hold a map, etc. BUT, what didn’t get any less annoying is that way too often the dropped item will “disappear.” You can’t see it on the ground. Sometimes this was because you’d drop it and it would “bounce” away. Other times, it just resets to its original location. And one time, I couldn’t complete a mystery puzzle because I dropped an item in a pit, but I couldn’t get it back out of the pit because Indy can’t hold his whip with both hands and carry an item at the same time. Actually, thinking back to this now, I probably could have thrown the item up and out of the pit. At that time, I didn’t know I could throw things. This is because…

(3) Not much explanation for UI. The game tells you surprisingly little in terms of how to play and what things mean. This was neat for “figuring it out,” but, like I said, I didn’t know how to throw items until later in the game! And I had to look up what the various bars meant (hint: the white bars are health, the blue ones you get by eating food are “bonus” health, and when you eat fruit, you get extra yellow bars which is like reserve stamina). There is an in-game manual that doesn’t have this stuff in it. It’s weird. The game also doesn’t explain how to go back to previous areas of the game until AFTER you do it. And there’s a scary “you will lose unsaved progress” when you click to go back to a previous area, so I didn’t do it at first, and eventually looked it up.

I would play a sequel in an instant. Hopefully MachineGames is making another! Or they could make another Wolfenstein game. At this point, I'll play whatever they make, especially if it's about killing Nazis, which they seem to be the best at making games about.