Another essential

A few months ago I started The Essentials series with a write-up of Deus Ex.  Well now we move on to a little unicorn that has evade me for a number of years as it has not been the least bit easy to find.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a LucasArts gem that somehow has gotten glossed over in favor of the Monkey Islands and the Day of the Tentacles when adventure games are brought up.  It probably has something to do with the availability and the fact that Monkey Island was made into a lengthy franchise, but there are few people who will admit that anything else in the genre actually tops Fate of Atlantis.

Luckily for me (and you), Steam has started releasing the old stuff in LA’s catalog, with Indy included in the opening salvo.  At five bucks it is pretty much treason not to download it.  There’s some other good stuff in there like The Dig and the offbeat Loom.  But Fate of Atlantis is the peach here.  A preference of mine has always been toward games that are part of a franchise I already like.  It’s not going to mean I like shit Star Trek games for the sake of being Picard, but it does mean I’ll always lean toward replaying Knights of the Old Republic instead of Mass Effect because I’d rather whittle away my hours with a lightsaber and a Jedi Council.

Fate of Atlantis seamlessly integrates the Indy universe into the standard point and click template, with voice acting that may as well be straight from the movie series and a plot that makes a lot more sense than interdimensional grays.  Instead of just going from point A to point THE END, you quickly are presented with three paths you can take through the bulk of the game.  You can either go heavy on puzzles, go heavy on kicking ass (through a somewhat-cumbersome fighting system) or team up with your special lady friend.  Each path leads you to the same general locations but with great variety in gameplay and subplots.  The humor is the type of timeless wit you expect from a LucasArts game (Although I bet they didn’t think a Paula Abdul joke would stand the test of time so well.) and while this is a rare LA game where the main character can actually die, it never feels very dark.

So if you are looking for another fun trip with Indiana, throw down a five-spot and give it a whirl.