Steam Roundup: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a Lucasarts adventure game from released in 1992. It used the SCUMM language, the same language that powered most of Lucasarts adventure games such as the Monkey Island series and Maniac Mansion. It is essentially a Indiana Jones game in a Monkey Island shell and it works well for this game.

I've never been the biggest fan of adventure games. For one thing, they were really popular around the time when I was in preschool. The main reason I've never liked them much is the frustration I feel when I can't figure out how two objects are supposed to interact. Adventure games are infamous for crazy puzzle solutions that make little to no sense and it's always infuriated me when one of them pop up. I can bear most adventure games today but my anger is on a hair trigger when it comes to being stuck on a puzzle. Lame trait I have.

So, in all honesty, I used a FAQ to get through this game in a timely manner. In fact, I use FAQ's for most of my adventure games. To me, the story of the game is the enjoyable part, so I don't feel bad trying to get past the annoying parts of these games any way I can. Some of you may argue that I'm ruining the game or I'm making the length of it that much shorter but it's what I feel comfortable doing.

As far as this game's story goes, it's pretty darn good, as most Lucasarts games are. The titular fate of Atlantis is discovered over the course of the game and the beats are pretty good. Interesting characters, decent voice acting, and a nice variety of locations round it out. I could easily see the plot of this game being another Indiana Jones movie (probably a better one than the Crystal Skull...).

On the downside, there are a lot of puzzles that require backtracking and thorough searching to complete. True to the era, yes, but it doesn't hold up so well nowadays. Having a FAQ certainly helped but there were a few areas where I still had to poke around a bit longer than I liked.

I've heard people talk about this game for years as one of the better Lucasarts games and I have to agree. It holds up as well as I expected and was a nice change of pace from the (mostly) FPS games I've been playing for this roundup.