I've finished my replay of "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"!

How devious of me...

After playing through both the Wits and the Fists path in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, I reloaded my game to the point where you choose your path, and continued on the Team Path. This time, Sophia tags along for the ride, though it once again takes us through the same locations, although the experience is a bit different. It feels like it combines elements from the two other paths a bit, while still adding some new things as well.

Around Algiers in 80 days...

I often wondered what a movie adaptation or novelization would be like, how it would combine elements from all three paths, especially when it comes to Sophia since she always shows up somewhere. There actually is a novelization out there, a fanmade project you can read for free. But I own a whole bunch of Indy books and I would very much like to add a physical copy of a genuine "Fate of Atlantis" book.

I imagine the real world location to be a kind of theme park now...

After dealing once again with Trottier and Al-Jabbar, the adventure takes us back to Crete. While most of this path you keep doing things on your own as Indy, I'm glad there are several instances where you actually need Sophia to continue. Of course that's what the Team Path is about. I'm guessing it was a tough balancing act, though. Naturally gamers want to play as Indy as much as possible, but you need to make sure Sophia is essential as well.

Up, up, and away!

As I reached Atlantis, this time I continued playing and searched the second maze in this game. I didn't realize it before, but now they remind me of the mazes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: the catacombs in Venice, the castle and the zeppelin. Thankfully the mazes in Atlantis are far more forgivable and put more focus on exploration instead of trial and error surival.

A game of hide and seek...

I like how the rooms in Atlantis are randomized each playthrough, except for the dungeon of course. This is where your actions also define which ending you get; I didn't try them out for my playthrough, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think there are three of them.

Be careful what you say, now...

I finished this playthrough of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in rougly 4,5 hours - playing through all three Paths, of course, and remembering most of the puzzles. It's still quite a fun game which I think really captures the essence of an Indy story without making it too much into an action game. It also reminds me that I still need to finish Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on the PS5... Hopefully in the new year!

The End!

My next playthrough will be a game released in 2025 but I didn't get around to yet; there are still a couple of those I want to finish before we're bombarded with loads of amazing new releases again. I think I'll finally go looking for a bunch of long-lost relatives in a particular family...

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

Played through two of the "paths" in "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Typical Indy-travel view

When I first played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, I spent hours on figuring out all the puzzles. Mostly the dialogue ones gave me trouble, not being as fluent in English back in the day, and of course not as experienced in adventure gaming. This replay, however, is going very smoothly, even after so many years.

Follow the little red dot...

After the first part of my replay, I continued onto the Wits Path. This took me to Algiers and Monte Carlo, getting in touch with Sophia's contacts. I had to find a way to follow Omar Al-Jabbar's assistent to the home of his boss, locate a dig site deep in the desert on camelback, then save Alain Trottier from his kidnappers in a chase sequence you'd actually expect for the Fists Path.

High speed chase through the streets of Monte Carlo...

Finally I ended up in the Greek isles, first on Thera - or Santorini - and then on Crete and the labyrinth of Knossos. I think this is one of the rare in-game labyrinths I actually enjoy. It's been so long since I played this game, most of it I still remembered but navigating the labyrinth felt like it was the first time again, and it took some searching around.

Finish him!

Finally I found my way into Atlantis, and that's when I reloaded my game to the point where I get to choose which path to take, and this time I continued onto the Fists path. At first this felt like some kind of Easy Mode, visiting all of the same locations, but a bit further on the path's difference became very much apparent when I had to fight some soldiers and actually met up with Sophia again, which you'd only expect on the Team Path.

Did this inspire that Dial of Destiny scene?

After two hours and forty-five minutes of total playing time, I had completed both the Wits and Fists path up to the point where I reached Atlantis. Now it's time to reload again and finish the game following the Team Path!

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

Classic Replay: "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Replay time!

When I bought a copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis when I was fourteen years old, a whole new world opened up to me. I was already a fan of point 'n click adventure games, but never before did I lose myself so truly in an interactive story. To be honest, I wasn't even that big of an Indy fan yet; this game changed it all.

Gorgeous close-ups in this game!

I've actually bought this game twice: first I had the floppy version. I believe it came on five disks. Then later on, I bought the LucasArts Archives box to get a copy of Sam 'n Max Hit the Road, and it also contained the CD-ROM version of Fate of Atlantis; the exact same game, only fully voiced this time, with Doug Lee doing quite a good Indy impression.

I actually started keeping an "Atlantis Diary" after this game...

When I first played it, I loved this game's hilarious, slapstick opening sequence, with Indy searching through the Barnett College collections for a rare Atlantean artefact Marcus Brody stashed away somewhere. Only afterwards, I thought this part wasn't very dignified for a hero of Indy's calibre. And I also didn't know why Marcus would hide it away for Indy to find, nor why Indy would need to whip his way inside, breaking an attic window in the process. It just didn't make much sense anymore. Then again, knowing scatterbrained Marcus, perhaps it's not so surprising... 

Always wanted such a necklace of my own...

After that opening sequence, Indy travels to New York to meet up with Sophia Hapgood, who he worked with on a previous archeological expedition and is basically an expert on everything Atlantis. After that, they travel to Iceland, Central America and the Azores in order to find enough information about The Lost Dialogue of Plato, a book the philosopher presumably wrote filled with details about Atlantis.

Jungles and temples, that's so Indy...

Forty-five minutes into this replay, I saved my game at a key spot: choosing your path! Depending on how you solved the first puzzles, Indy's sidekick Sophia Hapgood will do a reading and advise a course of action: either fight his way through (the Fists Path), puzzle his way through (the Wits Path), or take Sophia herself along as backup (the Teams Path). I'm going to follow the path Sophia has suggested for this playthrough: the Wits Path. After I reach Atlantis - the place where all three paths converge again - I will reload and play the other paths.

Always hated Ubermann's voice...

Sophia gave me a couple of leads to start my first search for Atlantis. So now I'll have to decide where to try my luck: Monte Carlo or Algiers.

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

Classic time: "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" playthrough

Proudly displaying my Indy-gear...

I've replayed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and finished it in just under 2 hours! That's probably fast, but I've owned this game for thirty years or so, and I've played it countless times, so I know most of the (inventory) puzzle solutions by heart.

I've been a long time Indiana Jones fan. I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark on the BBC, so without Dutch subtitles, and together with the Lucasfilm/Arts Games adventures, that was a great help to learn the English language. I got really hooked by playing The Fate of Atlantis; I bought that game before I got my hands on a secondhand copy of Last Crusade, actually, and it was great fun being able to play as Indy.

I wish you could see the old librarian's face here as well...

The adventure game follows the movie, omits several scenes but also expands on others. It's too bad there's no young Indy section, and all the major action sequences are cut out too, like the motorboat chase and the tank in the desert. We do get to explore the Venetian catacombs and Castle Brunwald more thoroughly. Venice has several cool puzzles for which you need to check the in-game diary, but most of my playing time went into exploring the castle. I was caught several times, lost several fights, because I couldn't remember how to fool all guards.

Let's check out their tapestries, Lord McDonald...

I really like how there are different ways to play it. You can fight, talk or bribe your way past enemies, you can take the zeppelin or fly a biplane out of Berlin, but what's most important is that you need to find two descriptions of the Grail, one found in the catacombs and the other in the castle, together with the physical copy of the diary that came with the game, in order to properly finish it, and it's quite easy to miss those and get stuck in the end.

Dad? What? Dad?! What?! Dad! What!

But that's not all: it's also impossible to find the castle clue if you forgot to pick up an important item at the start of the game! Now, of course, every adventure player worth their salt knows that if it's not nailed down, then take it with you. But still, these kind of dead-ends, and the game-over screens after losing a fistfight as well, are not what Lucasfilm/Arts Games are known for. That's because danger is very important in an Indiana Jones story. You need to have that feeling that you can fail, that you can make mistakes, and that it will cost you dearly. Of course, that makes it a tricky balance to still wind up with a fun game, something you still enjoy playing instead of getting frustrated by it.

It was so simple in the movie. Just throw a guy out the window and go!

The Last Crusade is definitely a game where you will want to save often. During this playthrough, I chose to enter the zeppelin instead of using a manual found in the Venice library to start up a lonely biplane. The biplane would've actually been quicker; I had to reload the zeppelin maze several times, since I was constantly getting knocked out. I used to have the perfect route memorized to avoid all soldiers and get to the exit as fast as possible without a single encounter, but I could no longer do it. The three mazes (catacombs, castle, zeppelin) really prolong the game.

Where's a flock of seagulls when you need them...

Then there's the plane chase. Trying to leave Germany, fighter planes will try to take you down. If you crash, you'll find a car to continue your journey but then you'll have to get past a series of checkpoints. The number of checkpoints that remain depends on how many planes you managed to shoot down. However, you as Indy only control the biplane itself; it's your dad who's holding the gun, and his crosshairs seem to swerve all over the place instead of over the targets. I don't think I've ever been able to take down more than three enemy aircraft.

Hesitate as long as Indy did in the movie and you wont make it...

Sadly, there's no Sallah in this game. And then come the three trials. To be honest, I was kinda expecting more of the trials themselves. The second one is easy, the first one takes a clue from the physical diary and some pixel hunting, and the last one, well, that's just a leap of faith.

What, no sword fight?

This is an older SCUMM game, which I ran through ScummVM (hence the weird looking screenshots). A downside is that these games require a double click to activate the order you give. You're actually compiling a sentence: you pick a hotspot, you pick a verb, then you have to confirm your choices before Indy will do what you want. Also, hovering your mouse over the screen won't reveal anything. Hotspots can only be located by activating the "what is" verb. I'm glad future adventure games simplified that user interface.

I wish I could go back and play a game like this for the first time again. I don't recall how long my original playthrough took. But especially Castle Brunwald is very tricky. I've played the Indy action games as well (Infernal Machine, Emperor's Tomb, Staff of Kings) and I'll probably play The Great Circle too once it comes out, but I really wish they would make a new point 'n click as well.

You can find Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade here!

I'm on a podcast! Again!

I've joined Seoirse Dunbar of Adventure Games Podcast to talk about the new Indiana Jones game, Tavern Talk, Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I., The Fidelio Incident and The Night Is Grey!