textfiles/games/REVIEWS/ijlc-2.rev

 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE: THE GRAPHICS ADVENTURE

 Lucasfilm Games's INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE is a splendid adventure
game, on par with any of Sierra's best. Why? Because it's tough, long, clever,
beautifully drawn and animated, and offers extraordinary replay value. Even the
music, whether heard through the standard IBM speaker or an optional AdLib sound
board, is superior. For Lucasfilm, this is a major achievement in their bid for
prominence in the adventure game market. (This review is based on the IBM-PC
version; Amiga version notes follow.)


 That's not to say anything against Lucasfilm's two previous adventures, MANIAC
MANSION and ZAK MCKRACKEN AND THE ALIEN MINDBENDERS. Both were quality games,
with amusing storylines that allowed you to solve puzzles by switching
characters midstory -- a unique feature. But the graphics, cute as they were,
seemed too blocky to exhibit much personality, and Lucasfilm's traditional menu
system was not quite up to snuff. Refinements have been made, and the screen
resolution has been vastly improved (320x200, up from 160x200).

 The plot closely follows the film's story, except for removal of one or two
subplots. Indiana Jones's father, Dr. Henry Jones, has vanished while searching
for the legendary Holy Grail. Indiana receives a mysterious package from his
father, containing Dr. Jones's Grail Diary, a disorganized compendium of clues
and notes pertaining to the whereabouts of the Grail. Indy decides to go in
search of his father -- and the Grail -- with the help of Marcus (a friend of
Dad's) and the beautiful Dr. Else Schneider. The journey takes Indy from New
York to Venice and further, through catacombs and castles, by air an by land.

 When a game is based on an existing work, the concern is that it might require
familiarity with the original version, or even that familiarity will somehow
spoil the game. In the case of INDY, nothing could be further from the truth: It
stands completely on its own, and if you haven't seen the film, playing the game
will make you want to. Not that the film's story will help you to solve any of
the puzzles. The game includes sequences and subplots that were removed from the
final cut of the movie, and although many locations and snippets of dialogue are
familiar, the puzzles and their solutions are mostly unique to the game.

 The graphics and animation are excellent, and brief moments are absolutely
outstanding: Indy dipping the grail into the holy water (avoiding the deadly
whirring blades), all the sequences in which he uses his whip, and more. Many of
the scenes and backgrounds are beautifully drawn, with style and atmosphere,
especially the catacombs, the castle exteriors complete with lightning, and the
so-called Lion's Head cavern. There are plenty of close-ups, long shots of areas
(which scroll right and left), overhead views, and a wide variety of cinematic
touches in general.

 Much is made of the multiple solutions, and this game goes farther than most in
providing alternate ways to solve puzzles. In many cases, puzzles can be solved
either by brute force or by wits: Punch your way past the guard, or talk your
way out of the situation. Often, there's a third method, in which you avoid the
encounter and choose a different route entirely, that in turn may be handled
several ways. Thus, you have a rather complex assortment of means to an end.

 To make this a more salient feature, INDY offers not one, but two running
scores during your game: the episode total and the series total. The episode
total gives your score only for the solutions you've utilized in the course of
your current game. The series total keeps track of how many solutions you've
actually discovered along the way, in all the games you've played. Altogether
there are 800 points to be earned in INDY, but because that number includes
points from every alternate solution, there's no way to earn 800 in any one
game. Achieving a series total of 800 becomes a puzzle in itself...and this is
the most challenging and difficult puzzle of all.

 About that punching: INDY contains a number of arcade sequences. You probably
won't be able to make it through the game without encountering at least one such
sequence, though there could be some magical combination of actions that allows
this. (Note that you most certainly won't even approach a perfect series total
without tackling the arcade sequences.) The main arcade task is punching Nazis;
Indy hates those guys. Fortunately, there's a ring in which you can practice
your boxing without injury to Indy. There's also a sequence or two involving a
biplane: Flying the biplane and shooting down enemy aircraft is another arcade
challenge. For some, these sequences intrude on a game whose appeal is the
requirement to use your mind, not your manual dexterity. I tend to agree,
although INDY (unlike some Sierra games that incorporate arcade sequences)
generally offers ways to avoid nearly all the arcade stuff -- at the cost of
some _mighty_ brain-work, however.

 A couple of the puzzles in this game -- or, rather, a couple of possible
solutions -- involve switching characters, as in Lucasfilm's earlier adventures.
However, this is a very minor component.

 The program supports the usual IBM internal speaker and, optionally, the AdLib
sound card. Either way, the sound effects and music are excellent, far beyond
the beeps and buzzes of most MS-DOS games. The AdLib offers a vast improvement
over the internal IBM speaker, but doesn't even come close to the sound
capabilities of a computer like the Amiga or Atari ST. Fortunately, Lucasfilm
will be supporting the high-end sound cards (the Roland MT-32 and other
MIDI-capable equipment) in future releases.

 On the downside, there are a few problems with INDY. The program restricts your
ability to save the game at many points along the way, often with no apparent
reason. For example, during any of the overhead sequences (and there are at
least three lengthy ones), you can't save. There are ways to work around this
limitation, but they're inconvenient. Nor can you save the game once you
approach the cave in which the climax occurs. If you get killed during the
climax -- which contains a number of deadly puzzles -- the computer redeposits
you at the cave's entrance. This was a purposeful move of the designers, but I
can't figure out what it added to the game. Additionally, there's a serious bug
that pops up during one of the climactic puzzles, a bug that will hinder your
attempts to solve the puzzle. The bug causes the entire system to freeze,
forcing a reboot. I should point out that if you come across this bug, you're
barking up the wrong tree as far as finding the solution to the puzzle.

 Another quirk involves the mouse interface, which is generally very good. At
times, I couldn't make the character move where I wanted him to, even though I
was clicking the mouse on the appropriate point in space. For example, to get
Indy to walk down a flight of stairs, I sometimes had to click off to the side,
rather than precisely on the stairs. This caused some occasional frustration.
Thankfully, those errors didn't occur too often.

 The package includes a Grail Diary, a replica of the book that remains in
Indy's inventory through most of the game. Its dense prose is full of clues that
will come in handy along the way. It's written in script, though, so the reading
is awkward and very slow going. Also provided are the manual and reference card,
and the copy-protection document: a "translation table" that's a four-page sheet
with red letters overprinted on blue symbols. Using a red filter, you enter the
symbols that correspond to a page, row, and column number at the start of the
game. While this isn't nearly as objectionable as on-disk copy protection, it's
inconvenient because you have to reenter new symbols every time you lose your
life -- and Indy dies a _lot_.

 If you're very quick with the restore button, you can avoid this problem, but
you'll probably have to prove your ownership dozens of times during a single
play session. Surely this isn't necessary.

 General requirements: an IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, Tandy or compatible with 384K
RAM. The graphics require a CGA, EGA, VGA or MCGA (either of which will display
the superb EGA 16-color graphics), or Tandy 16-color card. The joystick and
mouse are both optional; a mouse is the ideal device. The keyboard interface
needs some additional thought: Z stands for GIVE and G stands for TRAVEL, E
stands for WALK and W stands for OPEN. Although this mirrors the appearance of
the parser menu on the bottom third of the screen, it's clumsy and unintuitive.

 The program comes on 5-1/4" disks; if you need 3-1/2" disks, there's a coupon
allowing you to obtain them for an additional $10. But since the disks are not
protected, it'd probably be cheaper and faster to find a computer with drives of
both formats and simply transfer the files. The game can be installed on hard
drive, or can be run from single or dual floppies. If you have dual floppies, be
sure to note the special command-line parameter for taking advantage of the
two-drive setup.

 Because of the high resolution and animation, the game will run slowly on older
PCs, particularly in 16-color mode. If your system is under 8 Mhz, you might
find the game too slow in EGA mode. To help alleviate the problem, there's a key
that will instantly reposition a scene, rather than letting the screen scroll
slowly after a command is issued.

 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE is an extremely high-quality game with more
depth than most (all?) previous adventure games. The emphasis is on puzzles,
unlike other classics (A MIND FOREVER VOYAGING, for example) that render puzzles
secondary to story. The execution is beautiful, and the game will retain its
appeal long after you've played it through once. Noah Falstein, Ron Gilbert,
David Fox, and Aric Wilmunder deserve mighty praise for their efforts. Special
kudos go to Steve Purcell and Mike Ebert for the graphics/animation, and David
Warhol, David Hayes, and Eric Hammond for the exceptional sound quality.
Adventurers should not miss this game; it's one of the best of the year.

 AMIGA VERSION NOTES

 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE looks and plays wonderfully on the Amiga. It
comes on three unprotected disks, and is easy to install on a hard drive. It
will play in 512K of RAM, but 1MB is recommended; if you are using a
floppy-based system, you need to disconnect or turn off any external floppy
drives when running the game in 512K (hard disk users usually have over 1MB of
RAM, so it's not an issue in that case).

 Careful attention has been paid to the design of the Amiga version: Mouse and
keyboard control are both fully used and supported, and the organization of the
keyboard functions is especially well laid out. The music and sound effects are
outstanding; Dave Warhol, who's been designing sound for the Amiga since F/A-18
INTERCEPTOR, participates here, along with David Hayes and Dan Filner. The
latter, along with Aric Wilmunder, also worked on the programming.

 Lucasfilm Games has done a bang-up job on the Amiga version, proving again that
they're one of the few American companies right at the top in terms of Amiga
programming talent.

 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE: THE GRAPHICS ADVENTURE is published by
Lucasfilm Games and distributed by Electronic Arts.

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