Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – The Graphic Adventure Review (PC)

Written by Dan Gill

Writing retro reviews can be a funny old thing.  As a writer you try to judge a game on its merits, on how it plays right now.  In some cases there will obviously be some bias towards a title due to having played and enjoyed it in the past, no matter whether it was any good or not.  For example, I quite enjoy Gremlin’s C64 version of platform/shoot-em-up Future Knight, despite the fact it isn’t a particularly well designed title (and received a critical panning and little commercial success upon release), and a close friend (who shall remain nameless) enjoys 3DO’s mostly awful Army Men titles.  Still, despite all this we reviewers need to put our past selves away and play a game with fresh eyes.  With that in mind, I take on one of Ron Gilbert’s early titles for Lucasfilm Games.

Readers of my somewhat sparse and sporadic past wordblurts will know how fondly I look upon LucasArts’ point-and-click library, of which I still feel the pinnacle is The Secret of Monkey Island, a game about which many words have already been written. The same can be said of Maniac Mansion, the debut of the SCUMM engine.  However, poor old Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – The Graphic Adventure (a snappy little title if ever there was one), is often overlooked in favour of the aforementioned games, and its own sequel – the rather spiffy Fate of Atlantis.  Despite being a movie tie-in, Crusade manages to avoid the early nineties trend of only being loosely affiliated with its source material and dressed up as a platform/shooter/beat-em-up (like Wayne’s World on the Game Boy for example).  Well, The Graphic Adventure does anyway (an Action Game was also released.  It wasn’t great)

The story follows the plot of the film where Dr Jones is on the search for the Holy Grail, all the while dodging troublesome Nazis, reuniting with his father and bumping into Hitler.  The game looks pretty good for a title from 1989, losing the giant heads of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracke  and recreating the environments from the film in 16 glorious colours (although I played the CD ROM re-release which uses an eye-melting 256 colours).  Given the limitations of the time, the team did an impressive job of creating the locales.  From the university to the library, the backdrop to Indy’s search looks much nicer than anything being produced by Sierra at the time.

Of course, such things are moot should the game not play well.  Thankfully, Crusade retains the humour of its predecessors while tightening up the adventuring a little.  A point system is introduced (the Indy Quotient), which scores you on how you overcome obstacles with some puzzles having multiple solutions that affect the score you receive.  This is quite novel for a LucasArts title and adds a bit more replay value.  On the whole, puzzles are fairly logical and manage to keep the player thinking without being too obtuse.

The one aspect of the game I’m not particularly keen on is the awkward fighting system.  Using (ideally) the numpad on the keyboard allows Indy a variety of blocks and punches with which to take on opponents.  My trouble with this was that it deviated from the adventure gaming I was used to and seemed awfully fiddly and random.  On a couple of occasions fights ended up with me loading an older save to replay an entire section in order to attempt to retain health, or to avoid the fight completely.  Since this is an earlier SCUMM game it is possible to lose/die and after being downed by a single punch over and over I lost my patience and had to leave the game for a while.  Perhaps this is more a sign of how games have coddled me in recent years, or maybe indicative of how adventure game design has improved over time, be it Monkey Island’s insult sword fighting or The Walking Dead’s QTEs.  Either way, this is my only real gripe and it didn’t sully my experience too much.  It did also teach me to man up and get on with it; another trait required of retro reviewers.

So, is Crusade worth playing?  If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventures, absolutely.  It’s a game from a time that Lucasfilm was at a turning point, where they would lose the cul-de-sac trappings of adventure game design for future titles (at least for the most part), and one that shows the great writing and design the company later became renowned for.  Sure, Crusade would be improved upon by its stablemates, but it’s still worth revisiting.  And I say that on viewing it with a fresh pair of eyes rather than through the warm, fuzzy fondness often observed through the Retroscope™.  Should you choose to play this, be safe in the knowledge you’ve chosen wisely.

7/10

An Update from Gareth

My son Teddy was born December 11^th and everything seemed fine. A few days later we were admitted to Stoke Manderville Hospital with a suspected chest infection. Three days later Teddy almost died and was rushed into theatre. We were basically told he was going to die and when two of the nurses left the room crying, well that will stay with me forever.  As it turns out he had a very rare heart condition that only around five children a year are born with. Amazingly they managed to get him to hang on.

Teddy was then retrieved by the specialist Southampton PICCU unit who cover the whole of the south. We then spent 27 days in intensive care with him as they tried to get him ready for an operation. It turned out Teddy has a small left ventricle in the heart, a long narrowing and a defective Aorta. His surgery had to be brought forward as he reversed his circulation and filled his lungs with blood. An amazing consultant and doctor spent 24 hours with him keeping him balanced and he had different pulses all over his body. We were given a twenty percent chance of him coming through the operation which again he amazingly did.

After that things improved and he moved from intensive care to the ward and then eventually to Oxford Hospital. Incredibly, seven weeks later he is now at home and recovering. He will never be ‘normal’ and will have to be monitored for the rest of his life but he is like a baby should be at least for now.

The point of all this ( aside from just telling someone about it), is that two charities very much helped us through this. The first was Ronald McDonald House who provide accommodation around the hospitals for parents of sick children. Without them we would have had a four hour round trip each day to Southampton or simply slept in the car park. They helped us again at Oxford to stop our 100 mile round trip each day. The second charity is the Friends of PICCU charity which raises money for the specialist children’s unit at Southampton

What I need from you guys is some kind of gaming related fund raising ideas. I’m probably not good enough to break any world records so I was thinking maybe something more endurance based like completing Final Fantasy VII in one sitting or completing a game from each game system (I have access to most retro stuff). I’m open to ideas.

A few ideas I've had some far include:

1. Playing awful games for a marathon.
2. Picking a system and say 100 games, every time you die you change game and see if you can last 24 hours ect.
3. Playing normal games with the bath mat (but that excludes a lot of retro systems).
4. some kind of Street Fighter marathon.

A Letter from Gareth

Hi all, it’s been an great ride for Retro 101 and one I hoped would continue for a long time into the future. We’ve had great support from both readers and developers and the site has been growing nicely. My first child was born on Friday the 11^th of December and it soon became clear that everything was not as it should be.

My child is now very very sick with a rare and critical heart condition only seen in five children every year. As a result I can no longer act as Head Editor of Retro 101. One - because I don’t have the time and two - because at the minute it just isn’t that important.

My aim was always to create a fun site where people could think about retro games and newer games that brought back some good memories. I like to think the site did that to the best that it could.

I’d like to thank everyone for all their support and encouragement and I hope we will be back at some point. For now my life exists one day at a time down at the Southampton intensive care unit hospital accommodation and every day I’m here is another day my son is as well. At the minute that’s all that matters.

It’s been emotional.

Gareth

Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- Review (PC)

 Written by Natalie Houghton

After what seems like almost an eternity, Guilty Gear is back with a bang and now smashing its way straight onto PC.

Fan favourites, Ryu & Ken… sorry! I mean Sol Badguy & Ky Kiske make their return, accompanied by a variety of other characters whose golas are interesting to say the least. Bedman, a mysterious assassin whose motivations are, funnily enough, completely unknown careers semi-unconsciously around the screen whilst strapped to a mechanical bed-like contraption which is fitted with all kinds of standard BDSM materials such as whips, spikes and chains. Elphelt whose only mission in life is to become a bride – her way of attempting achieve this is to pop champagne corks in the face of her adversaries, hit them over the head with a bunch of roses and then harass them into proposing to her. Then there’s Sin (the son of Ky), who is apparently not even 5yrs old, despite clearly looking like he’s around 18… I’m not quite sure what any fan girls might make of that. It’s certainly not boring.

The series looks absolutely stunning – a serious contender for the best looking anime styled fighter ever – staying true to its 2D roots, it has made the transition to a 3D cel-shaded fighter incredibly smoothly. The whole game runs at 1080p and 60fps (apart from a few character introductions which are deliberately slowed down a bit for the effect). At the core, it still plays like a 2D side scroller. There are 5 main attacking buttons – punch, kick, slash and heavy slash. Dust attacks also return for Xrd Sign – if they connect these allow you to instantly shoot your opponent up into the air, allowing a crazy barrage of attacks to be unleashed upon them in mid-air.

The colouring and special effects are volcanic, almost exploding off the screen themselves. In order to execute some of these impressive moves you’ll have to get training, sitting down and learning what is a very technical fighter which requires some very specific button presses. If like me, you’re absolutely useless at this kind of thing then there is a slightly comical tutorial mode where Sol schools Shin (he IS only 5yrs old, remember?), that can help to ease newbies into the fray. HINT: Use the analogue sticks – it’s a lot easier!

There’s also a challenge mode that tasks you with completing a series of more increasingly difficult moves for each character. Mission mode is slightly different and pits you against potential scenarios that you might experience in battle so that you can try out tactics against each attack allowing you to hone your skills even further.

The learning curve is quite steep, the moves, spectacular combos and all of the systems in play such as Roman cancels, the Blitz Shield, Danger Time and Instant Kills are all covered in the tutorial, however it will take some time before you’re used to all of this and can use them all to your advantage. Arcade mode is then where you can put everything that you’ve learnt into practice. There are a standard 8 opponents per arcade mode session with interspersed cut scenes every couple of fights, these are quite brief though and often contain a lot of unfamiliar terminology relating to Guilty Gear Lore. The plot is quite simple. a being named Ramlethal Valentine has declared war on the world and the cast rush to investigate exactly what this means, needless to say that Arcade mode doesn’t give a definitive answer.

Once you’ve completed arcade mode, if you want to know what happens to the story after that and are happy with sitting through what is essentially a 12 episode anime then feel free to start the story mode. Get your fizzy drinks and popcorn at the ready, this shares no similarities with the Persona 4 Ultimax or BlazBlue story modes as it is essentially a 5hr movie broken up into chapters for easier viewing. Unfortunately, the story is linear in nature and there aren’t any branching paths. If you like anime or are really into the Guilty Gear lore / story then you may like this, otherwise it may not be your cup of tea.

The usual training & gallery modes make a return, although I noticed that even if you spend hours practicing specific moves in the training mode listening to the same music over and over, it doesn’t get boring. The slightly heavy metal guitar riddled soundtrack suits the tone of the game well. The M.O.M (Mansion of Millionaires) mode is the surprise mode of the bunch, it’s essentially a massive brawl for coins where you can battle various characters spread out across a hexagonal grid and buy buffs and upgrades in a sort of RPG style way. The odds are seriously stacked against you here, forget easy mode, this is where things get real and there shall be no mercy as you struggle to keep in play against enemies with triple your health, bombs bouncing all around the screen, it’s an absolute nightmare but raucous fun nonetheless. Last but not least and also if you dare, there is an Online mode that has both ranked and casual battles which from my experience works pretty well if you can find a room with a free slot.

Overall, Guilty Gear is a fast paced, tremendously awesome sounding, deliciously luscious looking beat ‘em up for the PC, let’s hope that the next one arrives pretty soon. Heaven or Hell… it doesn’t matter, all I know is that it’s time to rock!

8/10