Ah, Indiana Jones. What a fine trilogy of films you made, and what a slew of cut-rate, awful games based on those same films have dogged your footsteps like a fast-rolling boulder trap in an Incan ruin. Indy’s one of those properties that turns out OK as long as LucasArts has a hand in the matter, and winds up inexplicably sucking whenever someone else spends lots of money to acquire the license. To add confusion, there wasn’t just one version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade released, oh no: there were three. To further befuddle the market, two different versions of this game, developed by two different companies, and published two years apart, are available for the NES. We’re in for a bumpy ride; hope you brought your fedora.

Indiana Jones, looking more orange than usual.

The first game based on Last Crusade, developed by Software Creations and published by Taito, came out in 1991. It adapts many of the great action elements of the film, and gives players some degree of control over how those events play out by letting them choose when (in some cases, if) certain events take place. Right from the start, the game asks you to decide between going after the Cross of Coronado (an artifact Indy’s been interested in since he was a teenager) or traveling to Venice to find the Holy Grail. The choices you make as play continues will determine how hard each segment of the game is, with the rule being the earlier you tackle a given stage the easier that stage will be. For example, if you elect to hunt down the Cross of Coronado before traveling to Venice, you need only beat up 15 crew members before you fight the captain and reclaim the artifact. Travel to Venice first, and you’ll have to face 30 crewmen instead, but the puzzle sequence in Venice, where you assemble a picture of the Grail via sliding puzzle, is much simpler. This does lend replay value to the game, since different paths produce different results. It’s also possible to lose the diary you get at the beginning of the game by failing to complete certain stages in time. This forces you to play an extremely challenging rendition of the motorcycle sequence from the film, complete with big jumps, mines, gun turrets, and Nazis on their own bikes.

He sure did Nazi THAT coming!

Further increasing replay value are certain elements that are randomized every time you begin a new game. The Grail takes on new physical traits, the path through the JEHOVAH challenge changes, and the place where one must make the leap of faith differs from play to play. You really need to pay attention in these situations, so relying on a walkthrough found on the internet won’t help. Henry Jones Sr.’s Grail diary is the closest Indy ever came to possessing cheat codes, so it’s all you’re going to get for this game too. And Jehovah help you if you leave it behind in Berlin…

Decisions, decisions…

The game isn’t without its flaws. The controls take some getting used to, especially during the fighting stages, and if you aren’t good at maze navigation or those sliding puzzles you’re going to be absolutely miserable without some outside assistance. The music is also a mixed bag: the stuff based on the actual tunes from the movies sounds fine (if slightly off-key from the way you remember it). The new music created for the various action sequences has none of the heart of the film soundtrack, and nothing about it makes you feel like you’re particularly heroic.

Indiana Jones and the Go-Go Dancers never materialized.

Finally the graphics have both their up sides and down sides. The cut scenes between levels look very nice for the NES, using digitized images of Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Allison Doody and the other actors. The tank sequence uses a nice bit of parallax scrolling, though you’ll be too busy jump-kicking Nazis to be able to pay much attention to it. But the in-game sprites don’t exactly push the NES to its limit–Indy looks more like a scout-master than an adventurer in the side-scrolling levels. I also find him too slow for my tastes, especially in the Castle Brunwald maze. Yes you can run, but you also run too fast to react to things like the floor opening under your feet, which makes running a dicey proposition best left to when you’re sure of where you’re going.

(Insert Tarzan yell here)

Still, when it comes down to it, this isn’t a terrible film-to-game adaptation. It’s far more playable than, say, Predator on the NES, and the way it presents the game sequences as multiple choice with consequences related to when you attempt each stage is a unique way of creating replay value that meshes well with the randomized elements explained before.

And you never thought knowing how to spell would save your life.

So what about Ubisoft’s version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? How does it stack up to the Taito version, given it had two years to refine and expand on the first offering? Click here to jump on over to part two!

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


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