It's been over 15 years since Indiana Jones last had the right to new adventures in video games. A year after his final adventures in the cinema, Indy is back on Xbox and PC with The Ancient Circle and offers us an exceptional journey that pays homage to the films and in particular to the first three in the saga. Discover now our detailed review of one of the titles of this end of year.
Indy to save the world
Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle takes us back to 1937, at the height of our favorite archaeologist's career. The action takes place between the first opus (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1936) and the third film (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which takes place in 1938).
We therefore find a young Indy, at the top of his art. Moreover, the MachineGames teams do not miss the opportunity to make us experience nostalgia by reproducing the beginning of the very first film to put us directly in the mood. Once the warm-up is over, we are immediately in the thick of things. While we are on duty at the Museum where our favorite archaeologist works, he is the victim of a burglary. Apparently, the Vatican is behind this infraction.
That's all it takes for Professor Jones to set sail and begin his investigation. Very quickly, he realizes that the Nazis and the Vatican are fighting in search of the 17 sacred stones that would allow the use of the Ancient Circle, a very powerful artifact that could, if it falls into the wrong hands, harm the World.
Indiana Jones also throws himself into the fight to be the first to find the stones and avoid a new tragedy. A journey that will take him to the four corners of the globe, from Rome to the Himalayas, via Iraq, Giza and Shanghai.
A real adventure game
Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle is a real (and good) adventure game. The title takes us to the four corners of the world and offers us sublime landscapes and panoramas. Of course, we find cult sites like Giza which will immediately make us think of the Indiana Jones films. But all the other places are also very well inspired and we enjoy visiting and even exploring them.
Because yes, we are in a corridor game, however, some passages offer semi-open areas in which you will be able to solve mysteries, additional puzzles as well as secondary missions. We then enjoy wandering through these places to recover all the secret documents and learn a little more about our quest.
In the main story, we face a real treasure hunt. The title succeeds in being extremely faithful to the saga and the Indiana Jones films. We feel that we are in an action/adventure game, but we understand that we are not in an Uncharted or a Tomb Raider. MachineGames has managed to bring a real identity to this Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle.
The narration is good, enhanced by cinematics worthy of the movies. The puzzles are pretty cool, although some lack precision and can be a bit confusing, leaving the player without clues. Sometimes you will have to ruminate and search for the smallest corners to understand how to solve certain passages. But overall, we are treated to a beautiful journey and a real adventure game, centered on exploration and not on gunfights and confrontations. And fortunately so.
Because yes, this is the main flaw of the game. The entire infiltration part, the hand-to-hand combat, or even the gunfights are catastrophic. The AI is disastrous, some enemies will not see you two meters away from you. While others will be able to detect you at the other end of a camp if you want an object in a monitored area. We will not even talk about the health of the opponents. A burst of machine guns won't kill them.
In close combat, it's a little simpler (which makes the fights incoherent). But on your side, you won't have the right to make a mistake and two or three bullets will kill you, four or five shots will also make you fall. In addition, you have to manage with your endurance to dodge and strike. All this really doesn't look good, with soft, messy and very frustrating fights, especially when you have more than two enemies on your back.
Fortunately, the game will focus on adventure and exploration, offering you very few mandatory fight sequences. Most of the time, you can pass through enemy areas without being spotted, avoiding conflicts.
Technically flawless
Technically, the game does relatively well. Thanks to the ID Tech 7 engine, we are treated to a truly beautiful game with some even sublime sequences. Whether it's the characters or the environments, we have a very beautiful production that doesn't have to blush in front of other games with a bigger budget.
The MachineGames teams manage to offer us a game in dynamic 1080p with very clean rendering, with Ray Tracing and 60 FPS. This allows us to have a fairly solid and visually impressive game. It’s fluid, even in the most intense moments when many elements are displayed on the screen.
Over the whole adventure, very few problems and bugs are to be deplored. In a specific section of the game, we had some problems with vegetation that appeared at the last moment. Apart from that, there is nothing catastrophic to point out, knowing that we played the entire adventure without the day one patch.
The first-person view is also a real success. As soon as the game was announced, this could have cooled more than one person. However, it is clear that it looks really good and that we feel the studio's mastery of the genre. Which makes the failed side of the melee and gunfights all the more surprising, since these parts were quite successful with the Wolfenstein
Real Indiana Jones
What we remember most about this game is that the MachineGames teams managed to offer us a game worthy of the Indiana Jones saga. Thanks to Harrison Ford's appearance (and the majestic voice of Richard Darbois in France, with a high-quality French version), we are immediately immersed and plunged into the adventure.
In terms of narration, we are, here again, typically in an Indiana Jones with the humor specific to the series. We find a few small details, like the famous world map and the red line that indicates Indy's routes. Several secondary characters will come to accompany us throughout our journey. And of course, we keep a little of this mystical side that we find in each of the explorer's adventures.
The cherry on the cake, the music comes to sublimate the whole adventure with an incredible soundtrack and a few passages that have the right to the mythical main theme composed by the unique John Williams.
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