Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has my whip cracking in excitement

thesixthaxis.com:

If I had enrolled in one of Dr. Jones’ courses at Marshall College, I’d probably have demanded my money back. Oh sure, he knows his stuff, and his passion for archaeology and preserving stuff in museums is without doubt, but his impromptu field work probably means that he barely spends any time doing the actual teaching you’d expect him to. It should come as no surprise that, after a break-in at Marshall College by a very, very, very tall man, he takes that as an excuse to go gallivanting once again in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Let’s address the priceless porcelain elephant in the room, because if there’s one element that has proven to be rather divisive since Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s reveal, it’s the mixed first and third-person views that MachineGames has leant upon for this game. Given how Indiana Jones helped inspire the third-person action of Tomb Raider and Uncharted, it would have been very natural for it to come full circle with third-person adventuring – after all, that’s what we saw in Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, two decades ago – but that’s not MachineGames’ speciality, so they’ve gone predominantly first-person instead.

In fact, the game is probably 99% first person, with the only brief cuts to third-person coming when swinging on Indy’s trademark whip, pulling himself up to a ledge or a little bit of climbing. It works decently well, but I’d personally argue that they could ditch third-person entirely – we’ve had countless examples like Dishonored, Mirror’s Edge and more that have special abilities and slick movement entirely in first-person, and Indy’s just a dude who does a bit of clambering and swinging in comparison.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle quickly grabbed my attention as I played through the opening stages. There’s a really intriguing blend of linear and open levels, of action, stealth and puzzles, all wrapped up in the pulpy action adventuring of a classic Indiana Jones story.

Investigating the nighttime