Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: Nazi punching never felt so good

digitaltrends.com:

Indiana Jones and the Great Cicle MSRP $70.00 Score Details Pros

• Superb world design
• Exploration is always rewarded
• Brainy puzzles
• Cathartic brawling combat

• Dull story
• Lifeless faces and sound design

InWolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, the best way to deal with a Nazi is to tear them limb from limb. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle walks a different path; it finds catharsis in humiliation.

Despite working with a more family-friendly property with less blood and guts, Machinegames’ latest still has all its teeth in place. A globe-trotting action-adventure romp becomes a slapstick comedy about outsmarting fascism rather than outgunning it. Its enemies are dimwitted punching bags that are so frail and oblivious to their surroundings that you can tip one like a cow with only a toilet plunger. In a crowded media landscape laser focused on Nazism and its unimaginably ugly resurgence worldwide, Machinegames offers what might be the radical thesis that we need right now: Nazis may be dangerous, but they’re also very, very stupid.

• Xbox chief explains why Indiana Jones is coming to PS5: industry facing lots of pressure
• Bethesda’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming out this year

When Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is at its best, it’s a clever mix of Dishonored and Uncharted that rewards players for using their brains to get one step ahead of a fascist power grab. It does that while retaining the campy charm of Steven Spielberg’s original trilogy, even if its attempts at Hollywood spectacle can feel a little flat when compared to a medium full of adventure games that have long since beaten Indy to the finish line.

To a pulp

Set after Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle kicks off when a mysterious giant man breaks into Marshall College and steals a priceless, though seemingly random, artifact. Indiana Jones gives chase, a journey