3.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a flawed experience that manages to captivate me in a way not many games can. As someone that loves the original three Indiana Jones films, I was cautiously optimistic on how a big budget Indiana Jones game would turn out with almost zero involvement from it's original creators. After the last two Indiana Jones films, I genuinely thought nothing could live up to the original trilogy, yet somehow MachineGames of all studios proved me wrong. Not only does Indiana Jones and the Great Circle fit alongside its film counterparts, but manages to create something filled with so much passion that it's hard not to love it. It's remarkable that Stephen Spielberg wasn't involved in some way because the Great Circle's story genuinely feels like its straight from the original trilogy's writers room. It all flows so smoothly together that even the exposition scenes are interesting because they're delivered with such intrigue behind them. It's one of the rare examples of exposition dumps that work because you genuinely want to know more. I was really skeptical before going into this because it's hard to picture someone other than Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones. It's one of those performances that's just so iconic and I can't imagine the pressure of trying to live up to it, but somehow Troy Baker managed it in strides. I'm convinced Troy Baker can voice literally anyone because he is fantastic as Indiana Jones and anything else he's been involved with. His young Harrison Ford impression is near perfect to the point where I forgot he wasn't actually Harrison Ford for half the game and that's one of the biggest compliments I can give. Not only is Troy Baker fantastic, but so is everyone on the cast. Alessandra Mastronardi as Gina, Tony Todd (rest in peace) as Locus, and especially Marios Gavrilis as Voss did a really fantastic job. Every character gave it their all and it shows, especially during the more dramatic scenes where characters like Voss give this intimidating yet over the top performance that perfectly fits with the rest of the series. As a game though, everything looks fantastic, I know that's not surprising with how big of a budget this had, but every environment feels lived in. There's so much detail in every city, town and village you explore that it's hard to not just stop and take it all in. All of this amplified by some of the best video game music I've heard in a while, It's not John Williams, but it is close. Unfortunately, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is incredibly flawed in pretty much every other area. It's gameplay in particular is frustratingly clunky that at points it's hard to even justify such a high score. Between its stealth mechanics that just don't work, to its broken AI and jarringly bad hand to hand combat, it all just kind of falls apart sometimes. There will be several moments where I'm trying to stealth and an enemy will either walk right past me or they'll have hawk-like vision and see exactly where I'm at. Sometimes I'll be able to knock out an enemy with 3 other guys around him without being seen and other times I'll be able to take out everyone with no problem. The AI is completely hit or miss and it's frustrating just how inconsistent it can be sometimes. I had several "soft-lock" moments where my game would save in a spot that sticks me directly into enemy lines as soon as I respawn, forcing me into combat even when I reload to a checkpoint. I could go on and on about more specifics, but I feel you get the idea that this game is really buggy in its current state. But outside of what I just mentioned, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a genuinely fun time. Its one of those increasingly rare big budget single player games that feel like they have an actual soul behind them and I wish there were more games like that still releasing. I highly recommend maybe waiting a month or two before checking this game out so MachineGames can hopefully fix a lot of its issues, but as a whole this is one of the best games I've played this year and I truly hope this isn't the last Indiana Jones game we'll see.