Retro Let's Play: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (LucasArts 1992)

Retro Let's Play: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (LucasArts 1992)







Welcome once again to the OCAU retro game of the month, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis!

Why?

A classic, certainly worth exploring again. This game was a must have back in the day.

About;

Indiana Jones is back! The great archaeologist and adventurer has to solve a grand mystery once again, aided by his trusty whip, his sharp wit, and his courage. A man who calls himself Mr. Smith (not me) is interested in a certain ancient statue. When the unsuspecting Indy hands it over to the client, he finds out that Mr. Smith is in fact a colonel in the Nazi army! Why was he so interested in that statue? A young woman who had once worked together with Indy, the pretty red-haired (and a bit troublesome) Sophia, tells him the whole thing must have a connection with the legendary lost continent Atlantis. Gathering clues from all over the world, Indy and Sophia embark on a grand journey across the globe.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a puzzle-solving adventure game conceived in the spirit of Indiana Jones movies; however, it is not based on a specific movie, introducing a new, independent story. The game utilizes LucasArts' SCUMM system, with action verbs the player chooses from a menu; objects that can be interacted with are highlighted. The game contains many puzzles of various kinds (mostly inventory-based) and dialogues with multiple choices. There are also a few simple hand-to-hand fights against the Nazis, some of which can be avoided.

The middle part of the game can be played in three "modes": co-operation (Indy and Sophia), adventure (Indy alone), and action (Indy alone, with fewer puzzles and more action). In each mode, there are different locations to visit, different puzzles to solve, and different characters to meet. The CD version of the game adds voice-overs to all the conversations.

I’ll be the first to admin whilst I loved this game, it can get annoying sometimes too. So this is why there were hint books published… there are also walkthroughs online too.

History;

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was developed/published by LucasArts and released in June 1992 for Amiga, DOS, and Macintosh. Almost a year later, it was reissued on CD-ROM as an enhanced "talkie" edition with full voice acting and digitized sound effects. The seventh game to use the script language SCUMM, Fate of Atlantis has the player explore environments and interact with objects and characters by using commands constructed with predetermined verbs. It features three unique paths to select, influencing story development, gameplay and puzzles. The game used an updated SCUMM engine and required a 286-based PC, although it still runs as a real-mode DOS application. The CD talkie version required EMS memory enabled to load the voice data.

Publishers
Lucasfilm Games LLC
Softgold Computerspiele GmbH
Victor Entertainment Inc.
Trend Redaktions- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
U.S. Gold Ltd.
Disney Interactive, Inc.

Developers
LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC

Releases by Date (by platform)
1992 (DOS)
1992 (Amiga)
1992 (Macintosh)
1993 (FM Towns)
2009 (Windows)
2014 (Linux)
2021 (Antstream)

Awards
Computer Gaming World
November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #93 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time”
November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #4 Most Memorable Game Hero (Madame Sophia)
November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #14 Most Memorable Game Hero (Indiana Jones)
Amiga Joker
Issue 02/1994 – Best Game in 1993 (Readers' Vote)
Issue 02/1994 – Best Adventure in 1993 (Readers' Vote)
GameStar (Germany)
Issue 12/1999 - #37 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
PC Gamer
November 1999 - #42 Best Game of All Time
PC Games (Germany)
Issue 01/1993– Best Adventure in 1992
Power Play
Issue 02/1993 – Best Adventure Game in 1992
Issue 02/1993 – Best Presentation in 1992

Tips;

The GOG version comes with the published hint book and there are some thorough walkthroughs online, e.g.;

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/562678-indiana-jones-and-the-fate-of-atlantis/faqs/11808

Covers etc.;

















How to;

The game is available at the GOG and Steam sites, however from what I read the Steam version has audio issues. The GOG installer can be found by searching for this.

Alternatively find the original and use DOSBOX, or try one of the many in browser versions;

https://playclassic.games/games/poi...line/play-indiana-jones-fate-atlantis-online/

Enjoy some awesome Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis! J



JSmith

 

Nice, haven't played this one so good excuse now

 

This game is great. I love the artwork and the fun puzzles. It had me stuck for a long time but I eventually got past that to a point where I needed a manual or code wheel/some kind of copy protection and I couldn't progress further with my pirate copy. That was only with the cooperative mode, so there's two other adventures to try. I always intended to replay this game and I think it's time to buy the game on GOG.

 

A definitive 90s experience for me. Replayed it multiple times over the years, more than any other game probably. Now I also got my hands on a bunch of CRTs which is a great opportunity to revisit it yet again this time “as intended”.

 

Freaking epic write up mate.. One of my all time fave scumm games.. Booting this up when I get home man!!!

 

Love this game, admittedly I first played it in the 2000's well past its heyday, but its one of my favorite adventure games for sure.

If they'd made this into a movie instead of crystal skull or whatever the new one is, I'd be happy

Although I never really figured out how to fight in this game. There's a key you can press to uppercut the enemy and instantly win the fight but you don't get any points for doing that. That's the only way I know to win the fights :/

 

oh wow, i just played this through fully maybe last year. I never played it back in the day and decided to play it on my A1200, I had a great time.

 

haha I just set this up with retroarch and pixie crt shaders a few days ago ready to play again...havent touched it in 20 years!

 

This was one of the first “multimedia” (remember when that was a thing) games I experienced on PC. My friend next door had a 386 16mhz PC with a CDROM drive (or rather his dad did and tolerated us..).

I was blown away by the game, the voice acting and sound track was incredible for the time. It felt like playing an Indiana Jones movie. The playable intro sequence was really well done.

It took us a long time to get to the end of the game. No internet hints back then because, the internet wasn’t a thing .

 

I had your exact same feeling, but it was with The Dig. Looking forwards to get home to give indi a run.

 

Coincidentally I've been messing around with this on my socket 7 machine, trying to get it to run nicely. I was having trouble with the game freezing when certain FX played, but I've sorted that out now (was related to the WSS resource conflicts on my ISA YMF719). The audio still pops and clicks at times so I'm wondering if that's speed related. More work to do.

In general though it looks and sounds fantastic, and has a sly sense of humour that I'm enjoying too. I never played point and click adventure games as a kid so I admit that I don't really know what to do once the game opens up. I've read that this is one of the more logic point and clicks, and indeed the puzzles I've encountered so far have been logical enough.

Great write-up thankyou OP!

 

Great write up, remember playing this back in the day on our first PC along with chips challenge, commander keen and others. This was my all time favourite and was pretty tricky took me a good while to get past a couple of sections.

 

I've been working my way through this for the last week on and off... got to the Labyrinth last night and was doing a fine job avoiding the Nazi guards. Then I ended up in a fight with one due to a bad turn... started hammering the mouse but Indy wasn't doing anything. By the time my mouse started working, I had no energy and then Indy died. I had not been able to save the game.



JSmith

 

Where is the "dislike" button when you need it?

 

It's all part of the genuine experience right ?
I kicked off a rerun of the OG Quake II a while back and started on nightmare hardness level because I thought/remembered being good enough to play at that level.... turns out i wasn't and it was not an enjoyable experience. Went back and tried again on medium and it's was so much better

 

I didn't get around to playing this before the end of the month, but I did end up buying it like I said I should from GOG for $3.09. Of course I also picked up Soul Reaver 2 for $1.39 and Fallout 4 GOTY for $13.79.

GOG is evil. It's like the Bunnings of video games.

 

It's showing as $2.03 for me right now, so I bought it too - been pretty busy this month.

 

I have the Amiga 11 disk version, the sheer amount of disks always put me off installing it. Maybe i'll fire it up on WHDload or finally HD install it