Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - first person adventure from MachineGames

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Everything was built by the Ancient Aliens, who needs archeology today?

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Everything was built by the Ancient Aliens, who needs archeology today?

It was funny when it was still a bunch of conspiracies that led to some entertaining stories but I hate how more serious it is taken.

After I saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I started to play in my mind with the idea of Jones looking for a rumored "first civilization"; the civilization from which all other civilizations might originate.
There would be some hints of higher beings or aliens but nothing concrete would be given, leaving Jones and the audience guessing in general.
I had this big finish in mind in which one of the characters accidentally activates a mechanism that opens a giant portal or wormhole above the "first city" that starts sucking it up. Jones has a brief glance of what is on the other side but he is not sure what he saw.
Perhaps still a bit too much science fiction like.

Using an artifact from religion or mythology might be better.

 

[abnaxus]

Bring back Sophia.

 

[Zariusz]

Indiana Jones and the Last Skyrim Port

 

[prengle]

to be fair, todd has always had a hyper boner for shitty epic big budget hollywood action movies with LOTS of SPECTACLE and SEXY WOMEN, so him thirsting over this indiana jones project actually makes complete sense even though i have no idea why motherfucking bethesda resurrected lucasarts from the dead for... this. i'm guessing this was planned before the microsoft buyout

 

[sser]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

 

[DalekFlay]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

I don't know if it's "bad" necessarily but I do not find Infernal Machine fun to play because of the controls and cumbersome gameplay.

 

[sser]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

I don't know if it's "bad" necessarily but I do not find Infernal Machine fun to play because of the controls and cumbersome gameplay.

Now you listen here.

I bought had my family buy a faster and better PC under the pretense that it would run useful programs, but in reality it was to run Infernal Machine. Naturally, and without a hint of reticence, the first thing I did was install Infernal Machine and played that bad boy. I suppose in retrospect it made sense, as the computer itself was an infernal machine. A Dell, before Dells were cool. Actually I take that back, the first thing I did was call tech support cause it wouldn't boot properly and they taught me the technically difficult task of pushing RAM down a little harder until I heard the snap, and I wasn't sure if the snap was the RAM or the tech support guy blowing his fucking brains out.

Anyway that game looked so good and it played awesome as fuck and you need to apologize at least a little bit.

 

[Wunderbar]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

Staff of Kings was a boring run on a mill licensed game, made from scraps of an ambitious but cancelled project.

 

[DalekFlay]

Anyway that game looked so good and it played awesome as fuck and you need to apologize at least a little bit.

Nostalgia's a powerful drug no doubt. I didn't play it back then, I don't know why. I've always one through long stretches where I ignore games, maybe it came out during one of those. Did Shadows of the Empire come out first? I know I hated that game which might have turned me off. Anyway I eventually played it but by then there were a 100 games of that type with much better controls and gameplay so I just couldn't enjoy it. Like I said though, I don't think that means it's "bad." I can't play the early Might & Magic and Ultima games either, for similar reasons.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah, it's the only one I haven't played, but Staff of Kings is pretty universally reviled.

Playing them in 2021, I don't know that anyone can make a good-faith argument that Infernal Machine or Emperor's Tomb are good games (point of fact, I tried to replay Emperor's Tomb last year, and holy shit does that boring-ass intro/tutorial just go on forrrreevvvvverrrrr), but they were technical powerhouses for their time, and the film franchise still had enough cultural good-will that people were happy to buy them and not complain about getting a cheap Tomb Raider knock-off.

Oh! Also I just remembered Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures, which is definitely a massive piece of shit (though I have fond memories of it due to playing it while pretending to take notes in class; games with proper alt+tab functionality were a relative rarity) along with it's semi-sequel Yoda Stories. For those unfamiliar:

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Meh I still like Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures and I don't mind what it is.
Even these days I still play it whenever I am in the mood for a small Indy adventure.

 

[Ash]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

I don't know if it's "bad" necessarily but I do not find Infernal Machine fun to play because of the controls and cumbersome gameplay.

Now you listen here.

I bought had my family buy a faster and better PC under the pretense that it would run useful programs, but in reality it was to run Infernal Machine. Naturally, and without a hint of reticence, the first thing I did was install Infernal Machine and played that bad boy. I suppose in retrospect it made sense, as the computer itself was an infernal machine. A Dell, before Dells were cool. Actually I take that back, the first thing I did was call tech support cause it wouldn't boot properly and they taught me the technically difficult task of pushing RAM down a little harder until I heard the snap, and I wasn't sure if the snap was the RAM or the tech support guy blowing his fucking brains out.

Anyway that game looked so good and it played awesome as fuck and you need to apologize at least a little bit.

Don't worry, you have inspired me to give it a try. Missed this one back in the day. DalekFlay is in-part right if the game is what I think it is: a classic Tomb Raider clone, of which the controls and movement are cumbersome and have their downsides, but those games were super awesome and I'm not going to dismiss super awesome just because of a little control obstacle. I prefer difficulty in getting to the meat and potatoes (old games) than ease getting to the dish only to find there is potatoes only, no meat (most modern games).



Hell yeah it's a TR clone. Updated my .txt

 

[Bad Sector]

I haven't played the full Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine game yet (though i have it both on physical CD and in GOG) but I have played the demo (actually i used it to test capturing my Voodoo 1 GPU to my main PC via jury-rigged setup that goes through 2-3 conversions :-P) and the main issue i remember compared to Tomb Raider is that the animations and controls feel more "stiff" compared to TR. But aside from that i think it was ok. It really depends on how much the level designers acknowledged that stiffness or pretended that the controls are as smooth as they can be - but i haven't played the full game to judge that.

I do plan on playing it at some point though.

 

[awsker]

If he's not searching for Atlantis, I don't give a single fuck.

 

[Ismaul]

A Dell, before Dells were cool.

Dells have never been cool. Always with their prioprietary hardware and connections.

Actually I take that back, the first thing I did was call tech support cause it wouldn't boot properly and they taught me the technically difficult task of pushing RAM down a little harder until I heard the snap, and I wasn't sure if the snap was the RAM or the tech support guy blowing his fucking brains out.

WTF? Since when Dell sold assembly-required stuff?

 

[Doktor Best]

Here is an early showcase of their trap design

 

[Bad Sector]

The Ayleid dungeons were the most interesting part of Oblivion's world IMO specifically because of all the traps and mechanisms. Morrowind's world was too static to have something like that and the closest in Skyrim is the Dwemer ruins but they're a downgrade and too static compared to the Ayleid ruins.

I don't know how dynamic MachineGames' version of id Tech is (assuming they use that), but at least Arkane has shown that it can do very dynamic environments in Dishonored 2, so at least the engine shouldn't be a limitation in what sort of traps the game will have.

 

[Shinji]

Pretty sure they're just gonna make Uncharted with whips.

 

[DalekFlay]

I don't know how dynamic MachineGames' version of id Tech is (assuming they use that), but at least Arkane has shown that it can do very dynamic environments in Dishonored 2, so at least the engine shouldn't be a limitation in what sort of traps the game will have.

Current id tech looks amazing and runs like a dream, but it absolutely has downsides and lack of environmental interaction/reactivity is one of them.

 

[Bad Sector]

Current id tech looks amazing and runs like a dream, but it absolutely has downsides and lack of environmental interaction/reactivity is one of them.

Yes but Arkane has their own fork (Void Engine) which is more dynamic (see Clockwork Mansion). Environmental interaction is largely about scripting, the limiting factor is how dynamic the world can be (original id Tech 5 as used in Rage was very static for example). MachineGames also use id Tech but i'm not sure if they are maintaining their own fork like Arkane or if they can use Arkane's fork.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

How many bad Indiana Jones games are there? I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I feel like I've played a big chunk of them. Even the platformer I played on Gameboy was fun. The adventure games are fun. The action-adventure games are fun. Am I missing anything?

Wasn't there one Temple of Doom game on the NES that was pretty rank? I think there were a couple of text adventure games too, unsure about those.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yes but Arkane has their own fork (Void Engine) which is more dynamic (see Clockwork Mansion). Environmental interaction is largely about scripting, the limiting factor is how dynamic the world can be (original id Tech 5 as used in Rage was very static for example). MachineGames also use id Tech but i'm not sure if they are maintaining their own fork like Arkane or if they can use Arkane's fork.

I was considering Arkane's a different engine, but yeah we agree. We don't know what kind of game this will really be unless I missed something, so I doubt it will be an FPS which is what id tech is built around, but Arkane's "fork" as you call it would make a lot more sense. Assuming it can adapt to third-person, which I'm sure this will be.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Assuming it can adapt to third-person, which I'm sure this will be.

I hadn't thought about this before you mentioned it, but that's a really interesting avenue of thought. Obviously BGS has third-person camera options in their games, but their not very functional for actual gameplay and are more for just jacking off about how cool your character model looks; Machine Games has never made a game that wasn't a FPS. I think there's probably a market-reality that a first-person Indy game would not sell as well as a third-person one; the whole point is to show off the character after all, but it is then curious that Disney would license Indy to a group that has no success with third-person games.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think there's probably a market-reality that a first-person Indy game would not sell as well as a third-person one; the whole point is to show off the character after all, but it is then curious that Disney would license Indy to a group that has no success with third-person games.

I just googled it and The Evil Within guys did their own fork of id tech for a third-person game, naming their version of the engine "STEM." Maybe this will use that? I haven't played them yet so I don't know how well it worked.

I'd love a first-person exploration/stealth/puzzle/occasional FPS Indiana Jones game but I just don't see it happening.