Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

indiana jones and the great circle

Credits

Release Date

ESRB Rating

Platforms

Publisher

Reviewer

Bob Hoose

Game Review

So, you’re longing for another Indiana Jones tale from when the adventuring archeologist was young and spry and at his whip-snapping, 1930s best? Well, Bethesda and the creators at MachineGames believe they have your apple dumpling.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set somewhere between the events of the movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. And this game is part action/adventure, part stealthy crypt creeper, part Nazi battler and a whole lot of world-hopping in search of religious relics and supernatural power. You know, the kind of stuff you’d expect from Indy but haven’t seen in a good long while. However, the big question is: Is it fun?

The story starts off with a sweet introduction that’s reverently pulled, seemingly frame by frame, from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s that tomb exploration scene with the surprise impalements, the ancient trap puzzles and the huge rolling boulder.

The Great Circle uses this well-known intro to ease gamers into Indy’s digitalized look and voice. The whole thing feels and sounds surprisingly close to the original silver-screen rendition. (Close enough for horseshoes and video games anyway.)

This go ‘round, the story pulls Indiana away from his teaching stint at Marshall College in 1937. It commences in earnest when a giant of a man breaks into the college museum and steals something ancient. Indy’s short encounter with the man, before being knocked out cold, entices him to give pursuit.

Clues lead, of all places, to the Vatican, where Mussolini’s fascists have taken control. There are hidden enclaves to explore. Secrets to uncover. But it’s a Nazi scientist/henchman named Emmerich Voss who’s really driving things here. And, of course, he’s looking for a mysterious source of great power that will boost Hitler to world domination. Indy’s gotta stop that! Along the way, he also meets a female reporter from Italy who’s looking for her kidnapped sister and could use a little Indiana Jones help in that department, too. (Cue the Raiders theme.) 

Gameplay wise, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a single-player only game that does not require an online connection. Much of the onscreenaction takes place in an open world map setting with specific objectives. Many environmental puzzles involve observing your surroundings and figuring out place-this-object-here solutions. And along with some stealth missions, there’s also a bit of light platforming activity where Indy can use his whip to climb up to different levels and swing to nearby ledges.

Players can also adjust the game’s difficultly levels to fit their gaming tastes—making stealth and hand-to-hand battles everything from a bruising, overwhelming challenge to a very forgiving jaunt.

POSITIVE CONTENT

The game makers have gone to great lengths to make this game and its story feel as authentic to Indiana Jones canon as possible. The voiceover is solid; and the sometimes awkward, sometimes cool, sometimes insightful, sometimes sloppy Indiana Jones dialogue feels spot on. And, of course, Indy is once again able to overcome his own foibles to somehow save the world.

Gameplay is fun and offers a variety of objectives, challenges and locations (catacombs, icy mountaintops, scorpion-infested caverns etc.), which means it rarely feel static or repetitive.

Gamers can wade in to give battle, and there are pistols, rifles and machine guns to shoot with. But truthfully, other than a shoot-out between WWII airplanes, The Great Circle never seems to require or even encourage gamers to shoot their way out of a fix. There are always other ways to make it through. (Which, of course, is another nod to the character of Indiana Jones.)

The game is also enjoyable to look at. From the Sistine Chapel to the ancient Sphinx, the artwork environments are very impressive and often nice enough to just stop and admire.

CONTENT CONCERNS

There is some deadliness on tap here. Other than some light blood spatter, it’s not very messy, but people are shot at, impaled, slashed and beaten. Planes and vehicles crash and explode. We see people who have frozen to death, others who fall screaming to their death. One scene reveals a severed arm. There are pits full of spikes and razor-sharp edges as well as traps that rain huge stones and debris over a vulnerable area. And Indy gets into some skinned knuckle fisticuffs—which is no surprise, really.

You can find rough-edged language here from time to time in the form of words such as “h—,” “d–mit” “a–” and “b–tard.” It’s implied that two women may have been a couple in the past. And there are references to someone’s ongoing morphine habit after enduring great pain.

There is also quite a bit of multicultural spirituality mentioned in the midst of Indy’s relic collection. Most of the Christian references are all nonsense twists of Scripture that lead to God unleashing great power in the event of a series of recited words. (It’s very similar to the use of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, only without an ounce of scriptural precedence.) In essence, that conception of God essentially treats him like a giant genie whose power can be harnessed (it’s believed) for human means.

GAME SUMMARY

There’s a lot of fun and Indiana Jones-esque authenticity in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It’s like the movie they should have made as a sequel. That said, anyone who dons Indy’s fedora and picks up his iconic whip will have to navigate the game’s rough edges, including language, violence and all of that gobbledygook spirituality.

Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Want to stay Plugged In?

Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family, that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!