Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

[Grogan]

Against my better judgement (reading about it), I just couldn't resist buying this game, it's been tempting me for a week now. It doesn't sound like something I'll like (stealth, mostly melee combat) but I can't resist Indiana Jones. They say the character and voice is very good, as well as the story. It gets high praise in reviews. I'm also reading about a lot of crashing issues though. It does look pretty good on protondb, however.

Ray Tracing is mandatory, there's no fallback. So if I have trouble with it, that can't be disabled. I'm kind of surprised that they are limiting their audience like that.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2677 ... at_Circle/

I will post my travails... we'll see how it goes.

[Zema Bus]

That's definitely one I'd like to have if it's viable, I'll have to wait until after I sell the house though. I'll celebrate my long awaited freedom with this game

[Grogan]

I haven't played for long, but I'm just excited to say that the prologue starts off with a re-enactment of the opening scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You start off walking down a jungle path with hired locals. Hmm, these guys look familiar (similar faces). I clued in right when I found a big scary idol in the bushes and the one guy screams hysterically and runs away. Walk along and you have to snatch the pistol away from the hired hand that tries to betray you with your bullwhip. In the hidden temple, it's the light triggered spear trap, then the pressure plates. When you get to the idol, your sandbag is the wrong weight (despite "adjust weight") and the place starts coming down around you, all just like the movie. The last guy (who looks almost identical to the guy in the movie, I've seen that movie many times) won't throw you the bullwhip and tries to take the idol and gets caught in the spear trap. You have to outrun the rolling ball... and Professor Jones wakes up at his desk in the university

It wouldn't run with the proton-tkg that I built just last night (my other games, old and new, do). I had to use Proton Experimental (which is an older code base than my "valve bleeding edge" build). That's not a good sign, because it means it's finicky. The game is using the Vulkan API so should be pretty straight forward, but there could be some antipiracy crap or something. I notice that the game launch is in the "Launching" state with light blue text for several seconds longer than usual (every time it's launched, not just creating the wine prefix) which is a sign of that extra setup.

Oh well, I can play it right now. I have the graphics settings cranked up to the highest levels, Borderless Windowed, 1920x1080, vsync off and it seems to be working well. Too soon to say if the whole game is going to be stable and reliable.

[Grogan]

It really is like playing an Indiana Jones movie. The voice actor emulates Harrison Ford pretty well, both in voice and character. I was sneaking around Vatican City, bashing fascists, looking for the key to unlock a gate. I stole some money and Indy muttered, "fascists can't be trusted with money anyway". That's something like what he would say

On the bad side, this has only a checkpoint save system and they are far between. I can see from the main menu under "Restart from checkpoint" how long ago the last checkpoint is and it's like 15 minutes or so typically when I look. So you can't just quit.

I have to get taking more screenshots, but I have a nice view of Vatican City here:

indianajones_vaticancity.jpg (226.77 KiB) Viewed 49762 times

[Zema Bus]

Looks good! Nice and dark at night. I like it when the night times in games really look like night time.

[Grogan]

I made sure to catch those dark, misty canal bridges, that's what I like most in that shot.

[TheeRadioDJ]

I love all of the Indiana Jones movies, so a game based on them sounds very interesting.

[Grogan]

Hey, it's GK, good to see you. Indeed, there are some interesting parts. I'm not so keen on the sneaking and fist fighting (though it's not too hard on the easiest settings) but exploring old catacombs beneath creepy churches, figuring out how to get secret passages to open by torch light and listening to Indy's dry comments and stuff is worth it.

I had a revolver, but on escaping from a tomb (I chose the wrong exit because I had two waypoints and wanted to see where both led) I had too many enemies and used up all my ammo, AND broke it by using it as a melee weapon. I have repair kits that I think are for that.

I haven't had a crash or performance spell yet either, it's been solid.

[Grogan]

I just had an amusing little scene. I'm in disguise as an American priest visiting the Vatican (I have a priest friend there). I'm sneaking along with this journalist disguised as a nun, and get grabbed by a fascist soldier. "You're that American priest that I heard about". Indy mutters something, then he says "Don't worry, I love Americans!" and he wants confession. At this point it's a cut scene. I guess he'd rather confess this to a foreign priest, as he had sex with his mother in law while his wife was pregnant, and got his mother in law pregnant. Indy loses his composure and says "Jesus Christ, what the Hell did you do that for?". Then the soldier realizes he's not a priest and Indy punches him through the cane of the confession booth window and knocks him out... it looked funny. As Indy is walking away and shutting the door to the confessional he says "Sorry, but you kinda deserved that"

[Grogan]

Some of the combat in this game is really stupid. It's mostly punching (and anything you pick up as a melee weapon breaks after about 3 hits typically). I'm in this secret store room of artifacts below in the bowels of the Vatican (where my stolen "cat mummy" artifact is). The giant (a member of a sect of Nephilim, offspring of fallen angels) who stole it is also there and I have to fight him. There is nothing in the room I can pick up, all those solid brass statues and things, nope... no objects. All I can do is keep punching him and punching him until my wrist hurts, because if I stop he grabs me and I take damage. At intervals, my side kick is throwing things at him saying "take that" and stuff, but it's pretty feeble. So I back up and get my revolver out, I have only 2 shots. It's scripted to just ignore it, I shot him twice in the head and it made no mark and had no effect, then I broke it using it as a melee weapon and it was back to punching. I was about to quit and look up "how to defeat Locus" thinking that punching him wasn't the answer, when he went down. Punching was the answer, about 10 minutes of it lol.

After that, some Nazis bullying this priest come in, with this sinister Nazi scientist and... Mussolini! He lets the Nazis rape the store room for the artifacts and then it's off to the pyramids of Gizeh. I had to climb up to the dock and grapple onto a big zeppelin with my whip and climb up to meet my female side kick, who snuck on before it lifted off. That was kind of neat, dangling over Vatican city.

During traversal to the zeppelin, I picked up machine guns and got to use them briefly, they are just temporary pickups. The game really doesn't seem to like shooting.

Apart from the stupid combat, the game is alright. It's not too frustrating (on the easiest level, with everything set to "Light"... combat, stealth, puzzles etc.)

[Zema Bus]

I made it to the Vatican, the part where I put on the priest gown. I'm also on easy mode and "Light" setting for the other aspects of the game.

[Grogan]

I should really install this again and try to finish it. I kept my save data.