We meet again, Dr. Jones
It's 1935, and in the Far East, an unholy alliance has formed between the Black Dragon Triad and a German mercenary known as Albrecht von Beck. These two forces have come together in the hopes of finding the Heart of the Dragon, a black pearl which gives its possessor the power to mold minds. Rumoured to be buried in the crypt of China's first emperor, the pearl has been safely hidden for more than two thousand years. It's up to Indiana Jones to prevent this sacred artifact from falling into the wrong hands.
The return of the great adventure
There hasn't been an Indiana Jones game for quite some time - the last major Jones game release was in 1992 with the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the Megadrive (there was a Young Indiana Jones game, but I don't believe it was released in PAL regions - it was pretty cack too). Many games over the years have tried to clone Indy, such as Lara Croft and the revitalized Pitfall Harry, but all have only been a mere shadow to the god of adventure. Perhaps the greatest part of The Emperor's Tomb is that it gives you a real taste of what it's like to be Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb shares a lot in common with The Collective's last effort, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, namely the same gameplay engine. Indy has a few differences to the vampire slayer, namely his inventory and fighting style. Indy has a machete for trimming through vines (and attacking nasty blokes), a canteen for refilling health, a variety of guns, and most importantly, his trusty whip at his disposal. The whip is handled pretty well - you can use with for swinging across gaps, disarming enemies and attacking enemies. Unfortunately, the physics related to the whip aren't as realistic as we would like, but we can't complain. Combat is fairly intuitive - you can tackle it in many ways. Hand to hand combat is the preferred option against men; Indy has two punch buttons and a block button at his disposal, so you can mix and match and create various combos for quick results. Gun combat is also a fundamental part of the game - you'll get stuck in shootouts at several points of the game. Unfortunately, bullets don't cause too much damage to Indy, so these situations can be worked out relatively quickly with a few strikes with Indy's whip.
Traps and puzzles make up the other half of the Indiana Jones experience, and The Emperor's Tomb hasn't shortchanged gamers at all. Indy will encounter many traps in his travels through Asia - mainly things such as collapsing floors and ceilings, spike traps, missile traps, fire traps, water traps - basically, if you can think of a type of trap from any Indiana Jones movie, it's likely you'll run into it here. Puzzles are a little bit easy for our liking; you'll mostly find that they just involve finding a switch or key to open a door, or involve a large amount of jumping, swinging and climbing. There is the occasional difficult puzzle, such as trying to trap a massive crocodile in a pen so you can retrieve the artifact that he is guarding.
The Emperor's Tomb is not a short quest. The game is broken up into about 8 different sections, which are then broken up into smaller sub sections. There's a whole truckload of these sub sections, and at about 10-20 minutes a piece, you're looking at a good 15 to 20 hour adventure. The only really bad thing in this regard is that when you've finished the game, there's nothing left to go back to.
Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
The visual presentation of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb leaves a lot to be desired. It's not that the game looks bad - in fact, it looks pretty damn good - it's more the fact that the frame rate is amongst the most unstable we've seen in recent times. The Indy player model is a good recreation of the character from the movies; he's impressively modeled and well animated. The other human characters are also of a high standard, but animals such as the crocodiles and snakes leave a little bit to be desired. The game's camera can be a little erratic at times, but is well behaved throughout the experience.
Music was always an impressive portion of the Indiana Jones experience, and The Collective has kept this in mind when developing the soundtrack for The Emperor's Tomb. Music is dynamic - when the situation is peaceful, the music is slow paced and relatively quiet, but when the action heats up, the music does as well. Indy is voiced by a surprisingly talented sound-a-like who does an excellent job of delivering the dialog - especially Indy's wisecracks. Other actors are a little too stereotypical, but do a decent job nonetheless. Unfortunately, there is no surround sound support for the game, so you'll have to live with 2 channel stereo, but the effects in the game sound decent enough without the extra support.
Whip it good!
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is a fairly solid platform/action title, let down by its erratic frame rate, simple puzzles and lack of replay value. Had The Collective taken a little more time with the game to tune it up, and perhaps released it simultaneously with the DVD this Christmas, we would have seen a much better game.
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