Indiana Jones and the History of His Videogames

The stories of an adventurous archaeologist with a hat and a whip. Indiana Jones is one of the most well known characters in film history, the theme tune has worldwide renown and the famous boulder scene is one of film’s most iconic -parodied, acknowledged and recreated uncountable times.

A man who swings across chasms with a whip, shoots Nazis, explores temples and jumps between moving trucks; he’s a badass and his adventures transition perfectly to video games. Whether you’re pointing and clicking around a freshly excavated tomb, fighting skeletons with your trusty whip or asking “which collection of pixels is supposed to represent Indy”, Harrison Ford’s character has appeared in a colossal ten games, with another two on their way – that’s three times the number of films!

With the fourth film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, gearing up for the silver screen this week, we thought it was the perfect time to take a trip down memory lane. A lane filled with booby traps, Nazis and fine leather jackets…

Film Released: – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Raiders of the Lost Ark – Atari Games (1982)
Platforms: Atari 2600

Yar’s Revenge creator, Howard Scott Warshaw (know by the insignia he left in his three games, HSW) was asked by Atari to create a game loosely based on Indy’s first flick. “Since Warren Robinette had done such an amazing job with “Adventure,” there was no point in doing another adventure style game (in my opinion) unless it was a quantum leap forward from where he left off” says Warshaw.

A sort of pseudo point and click adventure, Raiders asked the player to use two controllers; one to move Indy and the other to flick through your inventory. While there was plenty of action, and snakes, the main core of the game involved blowing up walls with grenades, parachuting to safety and digging up the Ark.

After Raiders was a huge success for Atari, the game grabbed Steven Spielberg’s attention and he asked Warshaw to create a new game… E.T.

Film Released: – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – Atari Games (1985)
Platforms: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Arcade, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX, NES, ZX Spectrum

Although it was released on about fifteen billion machines, Temple of Doom started life in the Arcade. Mixing the action of a platformer and a side scrolling brawler, players have to free the children the cult has kidnapped as slaves, recover the stolen relics and escape from the Temple of Doom – piece of cake.

With an emphasis on high octane action, Indy whips his way to victory as he defeats and avoids cultist guards, killer bats, lava pits and flaming gasoline cans. The raw power of the arcade cabinet allowed a small bank of voice clips from characters in the film. In your final encounter, as you cut the rope bridge’s support, Harrison Ford shouts a compressed “You will meet Kali, Mola Ram… in HELL!”

Film Released: – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure – Lucasfilm Games (1989)
Platforms: DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, FM Towns, Amiga CDTV

The first of three games to tie-in with Indy’s third flick, The Last Crusade’s graphical adventure ended up at home with Lucasfilm Games. Created before LucasArts really got their name and started pumping their most memorable releases (Sam and Max, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle), the developer freely toyed with ideas and mechanics before the point and click system was set in stone.

Not only was it the first SCUMM (an engine that all of Lucas Arts’ point and clicks were built on) game to incorporate conversations, Indy could choose how to deal with enemies either by outsmarting them (and earning bonus “Indy Quotient” points) or by knocking their lights out.

The game introduced the term “Hello, I’m selling these fine leather jackets”; an in-joke at the company that cropped up in Curse of Monkey Island, and then appeared in every forum signature, blog title and forehead tattoo ever after.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game – Tiertex Design Studios (1989)
Platforms: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System, Megadrive, MSX, NES, ZX Spectrum

If totally boring things like thinking and using logic were not your cup of tea, Tiertex’s adaptation of The Last Crusade was filled with action, horses and biplanes!

In search of the Cross of Coronado, a shield and a diary, Indy battles foes with his whip or his fists in four adventurous levels, each with multiple routes, traps and guards. Indy explores the caves underneath Colorado and jumps between moving circus trains, while the second level mixes Venetian catacombs and Castle Brunwald in Austria. The third takes place on a floating Zeppelin and the last features Indy recovering the Grail itself! – Phew, that’s a lot of action! Thank god for the sticker on the box, I’m glad I knew to brace myself for an immense overload of action!

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – Taito (1991)
Platforms: NES

After creating some no-name arcade games like Space Invaders and Arkanoid, Taito went on to create their most well known release yet: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not to be confused with the graphic adventure or the action game, this is just plain old “Last Crusade”.

Boasting platforming, motorcycle racing, puzzle solving and adventuring, Crusade lets you choose your own path through the story. But seriously, leave your father to get kidnapped by the Nazis and go and find the sketch of the Holy Grail – you’ll need it later. You’ll be able to get your dad back, you’ll just need to go through a super hard maze and fight the entire Nazi army. Hey – you got a whip! It’ll be easy!

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis – LucasArts (1992)
Platforms: DOS, Amiga, FM Towns, Macintosh

For the absolute best game in the series, Indy headed back to LucasArts to create another Point and Click adventure. Now with two Monkey Island games under their belt, and the formulae set, all the parts were in motion to create a brand new adventure for Indiana Jones.

Nazis, those sly foxes, have discovered the lost city of Atlantis and are preparing to dig up a valuable metal that will give them unlimited power. Indy, and his love interest from the past, Sophia, follow their tracks, infiltrate a German u-boat, take a balloon to Crete, ride camels through the desert and enter the lost kingdom.

Not wanting to lose the action/adventure balance of The Last Crusade, the game regularly gave the choice to out-smart or beat-up adversaries. A pivotal moment of the game gives Indy, and the player, the choice to play through the game by using your brains, your brawn, or by teaming up with Sophia.

Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures – Factor 5 (1994)
Platforms: Super NES

That’s right; Factor 5. The high-flying celebs who bought you classics like Rouge Squadron and complete turds like Lair! Greatest Adventures follows the stories of all three films and sets action, fighting and driving levels in the most iconic scenes. The Boulder chase of Raiders, Club Obi-Wan from Temple of Doom and the Catacombs of Venice as seen in Last Crusade all make up early levels in each of the three chapters.

Built on the same engine, Greatest Adventures was released in the same year as Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures – LucasArts (1996)
Platforms: Macintosh, Windows

This was a weird one for me. I thought to myself “what’s this Indy game? I’ve never played it…” Then I saw the screenshots and realised I spent a fuzzy, 1996 afternoon gorging on it. As a point and click obsessed seven year old, it couldn’t hope to compare to Fate of Atlantis, but the mix of puzzle solving and action, in a Zelda like world, was pretty addictive.

The game ran in a little window, and all I can remember apart from whipping the crap out of spiders is a button that would minimize the window, in case your boss wondered why your cash flow spreadsheet load strangely like Indiana Jones using his bullwhip to kill Nazis.

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine – LucasArts (1999)
Platforms: Windows, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color

Once again, Indiana Jones heads back to his rightful home, LucasArts, for his first 3D transformation. In an ironic twist of fate, The Infernal Machine was often called out for copying one particular game. One game that would never have come out if it weren’t for Indy’s gargantuan influence; Tomb Raider.

Set as a sequel to Fate of Atlantis, Indy teams up with Sophia Hapgood once again, this time to investigate a mysterious temple-sized machine that some wrong-doers are using to strike up a chat with a Babylonian god. Indy must find all four parts of the machine and put it back together to speak with him. I guess he lost his Skype User ID.

The best thing about Infernal Machine, however, was one cheat code. Press F10, type makemeapirate and press enter. Suddenly, our hero with a windswept fedora and tattered bullwhip is transformed into Monkey Island’s Guybrush Threepwood, dressed in his Curse of Monkey Island Garb. Forget Shen Long or Sonic’s Debug Screen, this is my Konami Code…

Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb – The Collective, Inc. (2003)
Platforms: Mac OS X, PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox

This time round, Indy’s 3D adventure was created by a little movie/game tie-in developer called the Collective. These California guys and gals are hot stuff right now as they work on Silent Hill’s fifth game.

Lucky for Silent Hill fans, Emperor’s Tomb received some pretty high scores. Set right before the events in Temple of Doom, Indy is travelling across Asia to recover an artifact that holds possibly the most powerful energy in the world. Indy isn’t the only bounty hunter out to find the treasure, with the Nazi’s right on his tail, ripe for a good whippin’!

The game provided sites and scenes across the globe from the jungles of Ceylon and underwater palaces in Istanbul to the deadly streets of Hong Kong and beyond. Whether you’re shooting, punching, whipping or smacking a Nazi with a table leg, it’s all the same – they’re Nazis! You don’t have to feel bad about killing whole armies of them!

Film Released: – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures – Traveller’s Tales (2008)
Platforms: Nintendo DS, Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360

To celebrate the release of The Crystal Skull, Traveller’s Tales took some time off Lego Batman, reviewed their work on Lego Starwars and started pushing Indy’s LEGO arms into those super tight torso sockets, that make your thumb hurt like hell after like… two arms.

Featuring levels, scenes and characters from all three of the original movies, LEGO Indy has a huge cast of playable characters including Indy, Short Round, Willie Scott, Marcus Brody and everyone’s favourite character, the cult hero and now super famous “Army Intel man A”.

Gone from the series is the Nazi army, replaced with “anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race”. I’m sure Traveller’s Tales is just trying to stop hostility towards modern day Germany, and aren’t Holocaust Deniers. Then again… there is that unforgettable scene in “Muppet RaceMania”.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures will be released on June 6th.

Indiana Jones – LucasArts (?)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Now, with Indiana Jones’ final adventure out in cinemas, the legend will live on through his videogames. As one half of LucasArts works on expanding the space epic with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, another is hard at work on Indy’s next big adventure.

Shrouded in mystery, Indiana Jones was once the poster boy for NaturalMotion’s Euphoria animation engine, but has since been passed by Grand Theft Auto IV and the soon to be released, Force Unleashed. Now, with Indiana Jones no longer being a tech demo for Euphoria, let’s hope LucasArts has some tricks up their sleeve to make Indy’s next adventure, his most action filled, adventurous and explosive game yet.

If not, there’s always Uncharted…