Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb

 It belongs in my game list!

Lara Croft is a very influential member in the pantheon of gaming. Not the first female protagonist by any stretch of the imagination (I believe that goes to Samus, though I may be wrong) and I don't believe she is the second either. (Zelda from Zelda's Adventure predates her by at least 5 years, although that game was hot trash so we may choose not to count that as an entry.) But still she blazed a path forward for adventure games, presentation and grand globetrotting adventure. I don't know if there was a game which sold the premise of seeing the unseen sights around the our planet's furthest reaches quite as well as Tomb Raider did for it's time. But for all of it's influential medals, Tomb Raider is itself a facsimile. A shadow of a property so famous that it has readily eclipsed the genre it was meant to pay homage to and instead evolved into a roaring, rearing revolution all of it's own. (George Lucas had a habit of being part of projects like that, huh. Just not with 'Strange Magic'. Poor 'Strange Magic'.) Of course, I'm talking about Indiana Jones.

All this time we've known that Lara was at least partly Indiana Jones gender-swapped fan fiction, but in the way we like to in the gaming universe, we accepted her fully as our version of the popular hero. The movies had Indie, we had Lara, an equal split. (Until Nathan Drake showed up to tilt the balance once more, but he's getting a heavily miscast movie in a few months anyway. The balance will correct itself.) But what if I told you that, somewhere along the way, unbeknownst to the annals of time, this delicate cold war slipped further towards the gaming camp with the release of an Indiana Jones game? No, I'm not talking about the crappy 'adventure' titles which were nothing more than reskinned Star Wars bargain bucket time wasters, I mean a real game. One with an original storyline, gameplay, graphics and no legal way to play it in this age because PS2 era game preservation is a myth? Well then I'd be no doubt talking about 'Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb'. (Because I haven't played 'The Infernal Machine'. Oh, I guess there's 'LEGO Indiana Jones' too)

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Indiana Jones movies and they still all hold a solid place in my nostalgia even if I perhaps haven't seen them too recently. Don't know if that umbilical link is enough to drag me to the theatres for yet another Jones outing, but it's enough that I'll at least watch some reviews to see if it's trash or not when it does come out. But back in the infantile years, oh boy I was all about the broad chinned, handsome, Nazi-bashing, 'archaeologist', who may or may not have had a fling with one of his students. (Pretty sure you get your teacher's licence revoked for that, bud.) As such it was only fitting that when an Indiana Jones game fell out of the pits of Lucasarts, I would be just as all over that game as I would be for the latest Army Men game, or a new Crash Bandicoot. Actually, in truth I think I may have received the game in one of those 'borrow but never return' type deals that used to be possible back in the physical age, but considering that the lender in such a case would have been my older Brother, I'm going to claim recollection-ambivalence on that.

Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb was everything that I wanted the original Tomb Raiders to be. (So, crucially, not overtly frustrating) It was a unique story that delved into scouring the tombs of ancient China in search of a way to snatch a dangerous artefact or some such. There was globetrotting adventures, plenty of platforming pitfalls, boss puzzle rooms, genuine tension-filled scenes, and a perfect rendition of the Indiana Jones theme itself. (A theme I cannot, for stupid private reasons, hear repeated for extended periods in my own time. I cannot justify why.) What's more, the game had a sort of greatest-hits approach to borrowing concepts from the three films and turning them into games. From shooting at Nazi planes to making it through corridors of swinging death blades, you can tell that the people on this project were the sort who loved the films and really just wanted to 'play' them. Only we still lived in an age of middling artistic respect back then, so they made something different and unique instead of some awful adaptation.

One detail about the game I always remember and laud is the robust feeling of the combat mechanics, not so much the shooting (2004 wasn't the year we figured all of that out yet) but the crunchy punching moments. I'm sure that rose tinted veils have utterly blurred my perception on this, but I remember finding it really satisfying to get into the big hand-to-hand brawls with thugs atop ancient sandstone ruins, or decking a courtyard full of grey uniforms just outside a Nazi castle. (I may be conflating memories with Wolfenstein, but I'm almost certain there was a Nazi castle level) Seeing as how important a bout of fisticuffs was to the Indie character, nailing that was a big step to getting a game feeling right, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised how well a studio as provenly competent as Lucasarts was at nailing the basics. (So thanks for taking that away from the industry, Disney.)

Of course there are the problem moments that any game nearing it's twentieth birthday is going to have on modern audiences, just because that's the way that we can mark the evolution of the industry. (Unless we're talking about Snake Eater. That game will continue to be quality ahead of it's age in a hundred years when it's picked from the ruins of our doomed civilisation by the knobbly grey digits of Alpha Centurians!) And of course I'm talking about the game's attempt to mimic the famous boulder scene from the first movie. Yes, they do it. And yes, it's literally just a copy and paste from those awful Crash Bandicoot chase levels where the camera is fixed in some unhelpful angle and the player is forced to run away and make precise jumps whilst lacking actionable depth perception. Of all the many practices we've lost over the years, this gimmick of action adventure games is one who's passing I loudly celebrate. May it never return to our lands- and of course 'Crash 4: It's about time' has five of them...

What remains a shame is that we never had the chance to have any more Indie games, especially when this one alone proved how good such games could have been. I know I joked about stepping on Lara's boot toes, but I really think there was space for more historical, pulpy, action games about everyone's favourite academic in the gaming space. Heck, if anyone proved that it was Naughty Dog with the aforementioned Uncharted games, which charitably did exactly the same thing that Indiana Jones does with the only real twist being- it's modern now. Seriously, the characters of Nathan Drake and Indiana Jones are almost identical and the only shift might be that Drake is generally more rounded out in who he becomes, but that's more of a narrative style choice. Indiana is designed to be this iconic, almost mythical figure that can't really change else he'll stop being him, whilst Drake is designed to be at least a little bit of a breathing character, so human adaptation comes more naturally. 

Over the years there have been talks of some new Indiana Jones game, there was even one which made it to the advertising stage in the time of the Nintendo Wii, and in fact that game actually released. It was called 'The Staff of Kings'. Unfortunately, in one of the most bizarre occurrences I think I've ever heard of in the gaming world, that advertised game for the PS3 and 360 was never finished, but the ports for the lower gen versions of the game technically were. So you can play the inferior, unfinished lower gen versions of the game but not the prime version that was meant to show all the cutting edge tech like environmental reaction and destruction. How weird. Now, with another Indie game being worked on by Bethesda of all people, we can rest in the knowledge that maybe a good Indiana Jones title might come to the people who have been deprived since 2004. Unless... unless I lied to you earlier, and in 2018 Lucasarts reached into their vaults and pulled the Emperor's Tomb out to sell on GOG and Steam! Hell yeah, you can buy it now for a pittance and I would absolutely recommend it! (Thank Lucas for small miracles...)

Lucasarts is back?

 I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.

Disney. How do you face up to a corporate giant as powerful and unscrupulous as 'family friendly' as them? These are the sorts of people who will brutally crush anybody they could perceive as a mild hinderance, but they get away with it all either due to that faux happy face and welcoming arms, or just the sheer fact that they own every single property you used to love as a child so there's no defying them. By their word, storied studios will die without a second thought, and under their dark necrotic magiks studios can be resurrected against all the holy laws of man. Thus was true this week past when these literal studio murderers reached into their graveyards to drag out Lucasarts' battered and slain body, and after their Frankenstein-esque experiments, the thing was reborn as this unrecognisable monster known only as 'Lucasfilm Games'. Wait, Lucasfilm games? Seriously? What, you guys weren't allowed to call it Lucasarts again? Did you get pulled up 5 seconds before the announcement and couldn't fit in a brainstorming session? What the heck is a 'film game'? We making nothing but David Cage sequels here, or what's going on?

But yes, barring the absolutely atrocious name, Lucasarts are been reborn under the Disney banner a mere... 9 years after her murder. Oh and yes, before ya'll start; I know that under all technicalities the Lucasarts brand was never actually killed off. (Which makes it even weirder why they didn't just build up that studio. There's gotta be some contract stuff we don't know about.) But let's be honest here, gutting a promising studio by cancelling all their projects, firing 99% of the staff and turning a company that used to be on the cutting edge of development into a licenser; that's as close to studio murder as I can see. And now they've turned around and invoked her name to their own ends in an effort to ride this train of Star Wars revitalisation to glory. Nevermind the fact that, just going by pure statistics, at least 1/4 of the 20 new Star Wars projects they announced are probably going to fall flat on their face, meaning that unless the other 3/4 picks up serious slack, this Lucasfilm games experiment could go the way of the last company. (Afterall, we know how Disney's crack team of problem solvers deal with the most minor of inconveniences "Kill it with fire.")

Let me be frank for a second; I will not commend Disney for this move, because even at it's most basic they are missing the point of why killing of Lucasarts was so hurtful in the first place. Essentially Disney, at the time of the Star Wars acquisition, had but dipped their toes into the video game market and they bristled when they realised it wasn't a money printing machine; they actually had to put in work and make good games with mass appeal. As the dinosaurs that they are, rather than put in the work to get ahead of this burgeoning industry and install themselves in it as a powerplayer; Disney just said "it's too hard" threw in the towel and gave up. And after buying Lucasarts, a studio renowned for it's ability to make new and innovative products, they thought that the best move would be to fire everyone and kill it off rather than make use of the literally gift horse they'd just bought for their stable. (Are you starting to pick up on the way I don't particularly like Disney yet? I'm pretty subtle about it, you might not have noticed.)

Now they're realising that they were missing on literally stupid amounts of money and are slowly turning themselves around like the mile long ship that Disney encapsulates. But at the end of the day, is this all that Lucasarts ever was? Were they just a vehicle for George Lucas properties to be transferred into the gaming world, a creator of endless Star Wars games? Of course not, they were innovators! Look at their contributions to the, since stagnated, world of 'Point and click'! Ever heard of 'The Secret of Money Island?', literally one of the most famous Point and clicks of all time? That was them. How about 'Grim Fandango', the game which started the legacy of Tim Schafer even before he founded Double Fine? That was them. Day of the Tentacle, a lesser known classic that's just as brilliant? Lucasarts. And yes, a bevy of Star Wars games among them, but even then there they weren't slackers. Force Unleashed was responsible for real steps forward in ragdoll technology, and their contributions to the wider gaming world merely grow for there.

But all that means nothing now. Today their image and brand merely exists as a face for Disney who are still too cowardly to put their own face on front of their games unless it doesn't do well. Is that a promotion from simple licenser? I guess so, although we haven't really gotten confirmation whether this is actually the new form of Lucasarts or if they just stole the legacy of that studio in order to make a new company, so I can't even award Disney that slight praise just yet. At the very least this announcement could herald something positive; perhaps even an end to the tyrannical 10 year saga of Star Wars games that are published solely by EA. A decision which has cut down on the nearly yearly release of Star Wars games before the deal by about 300 percent. But as I don't believe that deal has technically run it's course just yet, I suppose we won't be celebrating liberation from that empire anytime soon. So in that case, why bother announce this at all?

Oh that's right, in order to precede the Bethesda announcement. That's right, Bethesda, makers of those RPG franchises you used to like, are teaming up with MachineGames (If you can even call it 'teaming up' considering that they already work exclusively with Bethesda) in order to make an Indiana Jones game. And I am... conflicted. On one hand, I still remember how much I loved 'Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb', but that was literally in the PS2 days, I'm not really sitting here with a candle in my window anymore. There was another game for the Wii, but by all accounts that was nothing to write home about. So now we've just got another game to coincide with the ramp up of marketing around this franchise that, rumour is, Disney wants to reboot. Call me a cynic, but I just ain't all that excited.

I mean sure, maybe once upon time merely hearing the Bethesda name would be enough to light a fire on my tail, but we live in enlightened times. They're handing this off to MachineGames, and even that has me a little confused. Those guys who, up until now, have focused on first person satirical action? Is Indiana Jones going to be a first person game? Would that work? Maybe, but something tells me that without getting to look at a digital recreation of Harrison Ford, (or, possibly, the next actor they bring in for this alleged reboot) selling the adventure might be hard. And it doesn't even make any sense conceptually. The fantasy isn't to replace Indiana Jones, we want to be him; so at least let us look at the guy. Yeah, there's no way this is going to be first person, I'm working myself up over nothing... probably.

Somehow it seems wrong to revive Lucasarts for an Indiana Jones video game, but I suppose it does send the message that this new 'Lucasfilm Games' isn't going to be a onetrick pony. (Although, given that they appear to be a pure licenser, maybe they will be anyway) Also, not the biggest fan of the 'absolutely nothing' teaser trailer approach to announcing games; I thought we outgrew that 5 years ago, but Disney and Bethesda are nothing if not behind the times. (They deserve each other) In my heart of hearts I want to look at this and nod my head that good fortunes are coming from this decision, and maybe they will be. Heck, perhaps Lucasfilm Games will slowly grow into independency once more and become a force for positive growth in videogame technology once again. Or maybe not, I dunno. At least I can say that all the ingredients seem to be there for a potentially cool game. (But experience says that'll just make it all the more heart-breaking when everything goes down the drain.)