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| .............CONTENT
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Intro Although Dr. Jones has a way to go before he makes his next appearance on the silver screen, he's helping to ease the wait by taking on the task of entering the long-hidden tomb of the first Emperor of China in order to unlock its powers. He'll have to contend with Chinese officials, gangsters, and even Nazis to discover the true secret of the Emperor's treasures. The Collective's effort to transform Indy into a solid videogame produces an experience of both enjoyment and extreme disappointment. Gameplay: 6.5/10 Initially, the Emperor's Tomb is an exhilarating and refreshing action title that feels like someone had successfully captured the essence of the movies. Exploration, exotic locales, fisticuffs, a wide arsenal, and even a bit of humor, all are presented how one would ideally envision them if this had been based off an actual movie. With some strong first levels, the game presents an ideal mix of environments, enemies, and puzzle elements. Exploration is never overly difficult, thanks to icons denoting when to use a whip, explosions, investigate, or where to exit a level - these won't be shown if the game is set to Hard - and Indy gets his hands on a fair amount of weaponry as he uses pistols, machetes, tables, crates, and his trusty whip to dispatch his foes. The levels are broken up in such a manner that dying doesn't mean having to backtrack for half an hour, and the strong designs mean that the nimble can pass through on their first try as they whip across ledges, doing a Metal Gear Solid-esque lean against walls to get the drop on some Nazis, and utilizing a super smooth maneuver where he pops around a corner for the duration of the shoulder button being pressed so that he can shoot a few rounds at the baddies; it's all very stylish and befitting of the movies, especially the shootouts where the corner turns are used. After a few intervals of planes traveling across the globe, the player will begin to notice that the flaws that were initially found to be either too trivial or random to bother with, are compounding with each new level discovered. As the story continues and Indy is hired to go into the Emperor's Tomb, he will find out the backstory, which states that the Chinese mafia, the government, and the Nazis are all vying for a powerful artifact that is said to have the power to control man. Thanks to a strong graphical likeness of Indy, along with some solid voice-overs, especially the exceptional Harrison Ford stand-in, the story remains true to the style of the movies and its pacing is done well. Going all over the world, players will traverse caverns, shark-infested waters, towering clock towers, and busy Hong Kong streets. Throughout each location, the action and exploration elements are present, but become unbalanced as the game progresses. Likewise, features like the auto-grabbing of ledges, the fighting system, and the basic controls all start to unravel as the game seems to come apart at the seams. Apart from a random freezing, which others have experienced as well, the graphics and sound both suffer in technical aspects, and the unbalanced mixture of the aforementioned elements become downright irritating as the controls become more and more inept. Having Indy auto-grab ledges similar to the N64 Zelda's means that he doesn't have true freedom in his movement; although the automation does initially make the game a brisk affair, the tedious and precise jumping elements require more control than is afforded with the system that rarely lets the player simply jump onto a higher level. This became a rather large problem for me as I would be on a ledge or beam, but for some reason, I would fall off, and no matter how hard I tried to jump and stay on, I would end up plummeting anyway. The animations for Indy's grabbing are nice, but become painfully slow when he is getting out of water and a shark is a hair's length away from having him for dinner. He also has an auto aim that works fairly well -- although he does aim away sometimes -- along with a first-person targeting view that is nicely implemented, and a lock-on feature, which is also akin to N64 Zelda's. Sadly, the latter can become troublesome when the camera swivels to a poor view, as trying to switch it back to center can sometimes make him do an evasive roll. Combat isn't particularly bad, but it gets old after a while. The basic combo sequences are enjoyable to watch as Indy head-butts, uppercuts and kicks fallen opponents, and throws various objects at his enemies. Aside from targeting, another problem that comes with fighting is that the enemies are pretty tough. When I say tough, I don't mean, "Oh wow, they put up a good fight;" no, I mean something more along the lines of, "Wow, they just took three shots from a Luger and are proceeding to toss me around like a rag doll." Whether it's the ability to stand up to repeated stabbings and slashes from a machete, point-blank shots from assorted pistols, shotguns and machine guns, smashing from shovels and crates, to old-fashioned bare-knuckle punches, the tenacity of the average enemy is something to be admired - or irritated by, especially if they come out near a ledge, or attack underwater with a shark nearby. I have to point out that underwater fighting is pretty cool, especially when zooming up with the speargun. Fighting is also dampened by the fact that the enemies are heavily repeated and seeing a new one just means that they'll be seen a few dozen times over the next few levels. Some of the smarter martial arts-influenced fighters of Hong Kong stages are impressive with sequences that look like they were taken directly from the movie, but for the most part, it's the weapons and gunning segments - these are either with a mounted machine gun, or an enclosed area that has scripted events with Indy going nuts with an automatic weapon and unlimited ammo - that really keep things exciting. As
the game slowly fell apart, I wondered what happened. The technical flaws are
glaring and I can't see how they got past anyone, since most make the game come
off as an unfinished product. This is especially troublesome when you consider
that it's a console game, leaving gamers to be stuck with a potentially good game
marred by what seems to be problems that could easily have been remedied. I would
say it was rushed, but since there's nothing related to the franchise coming out
soon, I can't see why it would be pushed out the door. Emperor's Tomb starts off
as a fantastic title worthy of nothing but praise, and devolves into a game that
ends up as an above average affair.
Graphics: 5.5/10 Sound:
9/10 Control:
4.5/10 Leaning
against a wall proves to be an efficient way of getting around tight corners,
especially since Indy doesn't step away when he comes to a corner, but this can
also be troublesome as Indy tends to step away completely when in a shoot-out,
and trying to go lower by grabbing onto a ledge doesn't always work. When everything
works, it's a beautiful sight and the action is so fluid that players will think
they hit the jackpot - a game that authentically replicates an Indiana Jones movie;
unfortunately, those sections become rarer as the game goes on. Overall:
6/10 [ top ] | |||
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