Part of the reason why Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is enjoying such high levels of popularity right now is the Indiana Jones name itself. People love Indy, and so you get an influx of non-gamers who want to experience a sixth movie starring themselves (or fifth, or fourth, depending on when you stopped counting Indy movies). That’s the magic of IP, baby.
It was a similar phenomenon that bolstered Hogwarts Legacy last year, despite it being roundly considered average beneath the Hogwarts veneer (zero eyelids were batted when The Game Awards rejected it entirely), or the swirling controversy around it. The rarity is a factor too. We’ve had too many Star Wars games (and maybe just too much Star Wars stuff) for any of them to be that special. Even if they loudly proclaim themselves the first open world Star Wars game. But this influx of new eyes has also shown me what we take for granted in gaming.
The Great Circle Is Friendly To Non-Gamers
My wife is not much of a gamer. She enjoys watching me play (or loves me enough to lie and says she does), but rarely gets stuck in for herself. However, she does love movies, so when she heard Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was coming out on Friday, she couldn’t wait to play. Then she realised it wasn’t actually out until Monday, and the Friday release was only available if you bought a game at full price that you were about to get for free on Game Pass in three days time anyway, and she was disappointed. Then Monday rolled around, and she couldn’t wait to play again. What a roller coaster!
I dialled the settings down to easy and switched on the puzzle hints, and handed her the controller. It was my turn to enjoy watching her play, by which I mean to love her enough to lie about liking her fumble around looking down at the controller while asking which one the right stick is (it’s the stick on the right).
To her credit, she beat Baldur’s Gate 3, and needed little help after the opening hour or so getting used to the menus. She can play video games, she’s just out of practice. So I occasionally took control to help her but mostly watched casually while scrolling through my phone. She made it through the opening sequence, the university break in, the fight with Candyman (her words), and arrived in the first main location in Italy. It was here that I realised a lot of things I have complained about as a Real Gamer probably help people more than I realise.
Maybe Yellow Paint Deserves A Chance
The first map opens up slowly, beginning in a series of linear courtyards. After a while, the basic objective of getting inside the building appeared. The doors did not open. There were no ladders. The guards were all defeated, with no key in sight. The only way appeared to be back down the steps underground she’d just come from. Heading down there caused Indy to mutter something about going the wrong way. Frustrated, she handed the controller over to me. And I laughed.
I was not laughing at her (I promise I wasn’t, please don’t make me sleep on the couch), but at the ridiculousness of the situation. There was a window she was trying to get to, but could not reach. Beneath the window was a ledge. And daubed all down the ledge was a streak of yellow paint.
Naturally, I ran to the ledge and climbed it in a second, then handed her the controller back. She asked me how I knew to do that, and why didn’t they make it more obvious. I told her both those questions have the same answer. The yellow paint is making it obvious. I wonder how many other casual gamers have found themselves stuck on that part, or a similar part in a similar game, and have learned in that moment a connective language of video games, like explosive red barrels or a change in music signifying progression in a puzzle.
I still think criticisms against yellow paint stand. It’s not a very elegant solution to a problem the game has created for itself by offering a setting that looks open but in fact only has one path of progression, and is not particularly immersive. Anecdotally it’s not even that intuitive to outsiders. But while those of us who play dozens of games a year might be sick of seeing it everywhere, the fact is most people do not play dozens of games a year. If games really are for everyone, then maybe yellow paint still has a part to play.
-
OpenCritic
-
Top Critic Rating:
86/100
- Released
-
December 9, 2024
- Developer(s)
-
MachineGames