It's only natural that cinema's greatest adventurer, Indiana Jones, would inspire some of the most successful classic video games of all time...unfortunately he wasn't in them - Pitfall and Tomb Raider. Regardless Dr. Jones has been featured in many terrific classic games, ranging from simple graphic adventures and all-text games, to fully detailed puzzle adventures with high end 3D graphics. Spanning from 1982 to 1999 this is...
Indiana Jones and the Classic Video Game Crusade
Aka
Raiders of the Lost Floppies
Aka
Indiana Jones and the Consoles of Doom
1992 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game
- Amiga, Amstrad CPC (Europe), Atari ST, Commodore 64, PC, ZX Spectrum (Europe)
Once again LucasArts releases an alternate arcade-style Indy game with an action title that follows the same story as the
Graphic Adventure, but skips the brain teasing clues and puzzles and leaps right into the whip cracking meat of it.
The Action Game doesn't feature the three gameplay modes that were introduced in its Graphic Adventure counterpart, but it now features an inventory system complete with cash Indy can use to buy multiple weapons and supplies.
Some fans at Amberfisharts have teamed up to make an unofficial homebrewed sequel Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2.
1992 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
By the time the third Indiana Jones film hit theaters, video game licensing finally caught on and there was quickly a
Last Crusade game for just about every system. The SEGA Game Gear version being Indy's first foray into handheld gaming and follows the platforming, side-scrolling style of the classic
Castelvania games, complete with the trademark whip action. The second handheld Indiana Jones game released two years later on the Game Boy, again using the
Last Crusade title.
1992 - The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
- Nintendo Entertainment System
Based on the George Lucas ill-fated television series, a teenage Indiana Jones fights alongside Poncho Villa during the Mexican Civil War. Of course the young Indy doesn't condone war of any kind, but he gets himself into the thick of it all regardless. Just like the Game Gear version of
The Last Crusade, the gameplay is nearly identical to the classic
Castelvania games, but with the addition of being able to wiggle your way into extremely narrow crevices to find pick-ups and treasures.
1993 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Nintendo Entertainment System
Two years after the Taito Corporation published an
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game for the NES, Ubisoft released another NES game with the exact same title. This caused quite a bit of confusion as most customers didn't know it was a completely different game. The Ubisoft version is closely related to the
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game computer title that LucasArts released in 1989, with simpler graphics, level design and mechanics to match the NES capabilities.
1994 - Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
Instead of having the only Indy game for the Super Nintendo based on one of the films, LucasArts based it on all three films. You control Indy as he adventures through stories and scenarios from
Raiders of the Lost Ark,
The Temple of Doom and
The Last Crusade, split into 28 levels. Most of the gameplay is as an action platformer, peppered with vehicle action such as a mine cart, airplane dogfights, and snow rafts,. The game takes full advantage of the SNES capabilities with the finest graphics of any Indy game to date, more moves and a variety of weapons.
1994 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
After five previous
Last Crusade games made for various systems, it was finally time for Game Boy to get a turn. A platform adventure similar to the 1989 PC
Action Game. Indy battles a variety of henchmen, dodges thrown knives and falling stalactites, climbs up and down vines and grabs power-ups and treasures, all on his journey to find the Holy Grail. The action is spread across four levels all delivered in the Game Boy's cartoonish monotone graphics.
1994 - Young Indiana Jones: Instruments of Chaos
The second and final Young Indiana Jones game released a year after the show was canceled. Indy once again tackles anti-war sentiments as the youthful adventurer travels the globe to stop scientists from creating biological and chemical weapons for the Nazis. In general the game feels like it was intended to be designed for the grown-up Indy. Gone is old man Jones flashing back to this adventure from his youth, an absence of Indy's father who usually brought his son to the locale of their adventures, and Indy is treated like an adult from everyone he comes across. The graphics are highly detailed, but movement is limited and often frustrating. Here Indy faces his deadliest enemy...a bunch of jumping fish.
1996 - Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures
A new concept in computer gaming, the
Indy Desktop Adventure lives on the player's computer desktop. With one click a 30 minute adventure pops up. Each of these quests link together into a full story, but designed to load in random order, so the games progress isn't designed in a linear path. The game uses the
Legend of Zelda top down RPG style as Indy journeys through 1930s Mexico fighting Nazi's, criminals and all sorts of other baddies. Although innovative and fun, the concept of the game was difficult to grasp and the title "Desktop Adventure" made it sound like software instead of a game.
1999 - Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
- Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64 and PC
Edging just within our timeline, the PC version released in 1999 while the N64 and GBC ports shipped the following year.
Infernal Machine leaps Indy into his first 3D adventure, with high quality graphics in a 3rd person
Tomb Raider style game. An irony since
Tomb Raider was inspired by Indiana Jones. This also marks the first time his enemies aren’t Nazi's, but Russians and giant supernatural creatures. When Dr. Jones reunites with Sophia Hapgood from
The Fate of Atlantis, she recruits him into the CIA on a mission to find an artifact which has been broken into four pieces that, once combined, allows communication with the Babylonian god Marduk.
