The Less You Play Indiana Jones The Better It Gets

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a good, but not great, video game. I said as much in a much smarter way in my review (you’ll have to scroll to the bottom to see the score, you know how this works) and I stand by it, despite being a bit of an outlier on the ‘ol OpenCritic. Some reviewers felt it was game of the year material, and the best thing Xbox has published in years. And while that’s frankly a low bar to clear, I recognize the genuine enthusiasm. Other reviewers think Indiana Jones is phenomenal, and you might too, but I don’t.

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Brief Error Meant Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Was Given Away For Free

It’s unlikely those sales will be honored, though.

I’ve been considering why I feel so differently from a lot of other reviews on this one, and I think I can account for some of the discrepancies. More importantly, I think I can help you have a more enjoyable time playing it too. A lot of my issues with Indiana Jones are a consequence of the way I played it, and if you’re willing to take advice from a slightly disgruntled Indy fan, I believe I can help you avoid a lot of the negative aspects of this game. To put it simply, just don’t play that much of it.

That might sound like strange advice if you’re not already aware of what kind of game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is. As my review explains (did you read it yet) Great Circle is actually two games: a linear, cinematic, Uncharted-like action-adventure, and an Ubisoft-style open-world game filled with side quests, collectibles, and enough map markers to trigger your trypophobia. The first half is great. You’ll get all the tomb raiding and puzzle solving and whip cracking and nazi punching you want out of an Indiana Jones game. The second half? Not so much.

Sometimes Less Is More

I wrote a lot of guides for this game, which means I dug pretty deep into all of the optional stuff here. Unfortunately the more of it I played, the more my impression of the game worsened. There’s a whole lot to do and none of it is particularly interesting or rewarding. Finding lost cats, collecting comic books, and participating in a Nazi boxing league are all things that take a lot of time, but don’t deliver a lot of satisfaction.

This is why I say I understand why so many people rate it so highly. If you approach Great Circle like it’s an Uncharted game, like watching an Indiana Jones movie, you’re going to have a great time with it. It’s fast-paced and cinematic, with great set-piece moments, charming characters, and a fun globe-trotting story. It’s a true Indiana Jones experience… if you play it like one.

If you approach it as a completionist, however, it becomes too hard to ignore its many issues. The more side quests I did the more I realized how uninteresting they were, and the more I felt like the game was wasting my time. I have a gamer’s instinct to venture off the beaten path to look for secrets and rewards, but after 30 hours with the game I found very little worth exploring for.

Some people love checklist-style open-world games, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If collectible hunting scratches an itch for you, I’m not trying to be the ‘stop having fun’ guy. My advice is directed to the people expecting to play an Indiana Jones movie: when the game invites you to go out and explore the world, just say “no thank you” and get back to the very important mission of stopping the Nazis from ending the world.

Uncover one of history’s greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™, a first-person, single-player adventure set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. The year is 1937, sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power known as the Great Circle, and only one person can stop them – Indiana Jones. You’ll become the legendary archaeologist in this cinematic action-adventure game from MachineGames, the award winning studio behind the recent Wolfenstein series, and executive produced by Hall of Fame game designer Todd Howard.