Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: One of this year’s greatest adventures

videogameschronicle.com:

Indiana Jones has deserved a game this good for a very long time. While Lucasfilm’s more popular sci-fi brother has had more video game adaptations than there are stars in the galaxy, Indy has had to suffer in relative gaming obscurity.

A few PC adventures and a console game or two simply haven’t been good enough for one of cinema’s most iconic heroes. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle puts that to rest with an adventure game that’s not only presentationally top-notch, but packed with entertaining scenes.

The Great Circle takes place in 1937 between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, right in the middle of peak Dr Jones. A mystery intruder leads Indy to The Vatican on the trial of an artifact that both he and the Nazis are keen to get their hands on.

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a first-person game that splits its time between puzzle solving, hand-to-hand combat and stealth. There are linear story missions, but the game really comes into its own during its massive open levels.

The first of these, The Vatican, begins as what seems to be a fairly small courtyard with some corridors to explore. As we progressed through the main path, we quickly realized that all of the balconies that looked down at us and all the papal hidey-holes that we walked by were actually explorable.

While the game will point you in the direction of the main mission, there is a significant amount of fieldwork to complete, which are the game’s sidequests. These quests often have long cutscenes and extended, multi-part objectives that feel just as meaningful as the game’s main quests. There are tons of things to be missed if you’re not thorough. Beyond that, there are smaller mysteries like trying to work out the code to a safe, or unlocking a door to an armory.

None of this feels like padding, either. The inclusion of full cutscenes, extra side characters, and worthwhile rewards means that if you were to complete absolutely everything in The Vatican,