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

TLDR: "You are Indiana Jones" Yeah I sure am Gameplay: The Great Circle is possibly the most realistic Indiana Jones game in that most of the game is reserved for explorative fieldwork rather than heart pumping action. Most of the game is broken up into open areas you are meant to explore, do quests, collect items and overall gather information. Interspersed throughout these parts are linear action sections where Indy skulks around and gets into combat. The combat is simple. VERY simple. Every encounter can be beaten through countering and waiting. The easiest opponents can be beaten this way. The final boss can be beaten this way. Unless you are ganged up on, in which case you will get demolished. A big element of the Great Circle is stealth. When in enemy camps it is advised you do not do a frontal assault because you will die, which is realistic for Indy. However, this game sure isn't Dishonored. The stealth mechanics are also super simple. You basically make 0 noise, even being able to violently beat up an enemy with a club just 4 feet from another one, but as long as they don't see you you're fine. In fact, enemies seem to have no detection above their heads, leading to some humorous moments where you should definetely be seen but just..arent. On the flipside, if you are detected every enemy in a nearby radius knows your location and will swarm you. Even running and hiding can prove futile because they can track you very well and the timer for enemies letting their gaurd down is very long. There is also no "search phase" where you enemies lose your position but are still searching for you. You're either in stealth or you're not. The shooting mechanics are also horrific. Getting into a gunfight is almost never recommended. For one, Indy handles guns very poorly. Inaccurate, slow and not as damaging as you'd like and if you get hit then your entire screen shakes and you'll never hit them now. Also, once you fire a gun it alerts every enemy nearby and many of them take out their own guns in retaliation. So guns aren't a power weapon, they're actively crippling. But skulking around and gathering notes and money and taking out some enemies stealthily is fun when you aren't caught. And the combat is also satisfying as it is punchy and flashy so again, these mechanics are really bad just very very simplified. Kind of like this game is meant for your Dad who lowkey just wants another Indiana Jones movie where he's young. But this is also definetely not the type of game an older generation would be into if you ask me. But I'm a zoomer so what do I know. Anyway, the game is more fun in it's exploration and puzzles which is does fairly well. Unfortunately every tapers off at the end, because by the time you reach the final open world there isn't really much to see besides ruins and a dozen nazi camps. The Vatican and Gizeh had a lot going on there, so to see Sukhotai struggling to have content was kind of sad. And then you do some random quest and suddenly you're at the end of the game. More of that at the story section. Story: Starting out, this feels just like an Indiana Jones movie and it is very exciting. However as the run time extends it feels like they ran out of ways to stretch a movie plot to an entire game. You really notice once you're on your 4th scene where the heroes / villains hold each other at gun point. And that last act dude...not only falls off in gameplay but also plot. Voss goes from pretty interesting to totally overacting and ridiculous. The entire Gina romance feels silly because I KNOW they're not gonna get together. Am I supposed to pretend 4 and 5 don't exist? It seemed like they were gonna have some arc for Indy to understand that he keeps making running around the globe and letting the people who love him down but then they never close that plot line out. I thought it'd be interesting if Indy acknowledged his feeling for Gina but denied to advance the relationship because he knows he will hurt her and also because he has loose ends with Marion that he shouldn't neglect. But instead Gina is the one who is like "naw it wouldnt work" and leaves. I'm not even searching for something that isn't there, the game consistently hints at this being a theme and then does nothing with it. He even gets fired from being a Professor and that's just it. He's unemployed at the end of the game I guess. The entire ending felt very rushed. Suddenly we are done in Asia and need to go to Iraq, some short sequences later and the game is over. I feel like I missed something honestly. Why did the stones start another flood? Did it start another flood? Did Locus end it? It kind of looked like he went to heaven or something. Oh yeah, what about Voss' driver with the weird mask that never speaks? I was suspected he would be one of the final bosses and was excited to fight him but he just falls off the boat from an off screen fight with...Gina? I think? And what about that other guy? The dude who was super into Hitler and was afraid of heights? He dies randomly half-way through the game. No fight or anything. Just a cutscene and he's dead before he felt like he had enough screentime. But before the end of Gizeh...this game is pretty peak. I really did feel like I was watching a new Indy movie, I loved it. They just couldn't keep it going. Graphics: Genuinely beautiful game. Indy looks the best he has ever looked in video game form and so do all the other NPC's. Gina's face can be a little stiff sometimes which is unfortunate because she is the second most important character. But the people who made this game clearly had an eye for architecture and history. I particularly enjoyed seeing holy landmarks in The Vatican City such as The Sistine Chapel. Sound: Highly produced, excellent voice acting from all. Music was great. We wait a bit too long to hear the main theme though imo. However, there was a lot of audio issues in Sukhotai only for some reason. The can't simple cannot handle the checks required for Gina and Indy to talk to each other when entering and exiting the boat. I got the "Yeak in the water" conversation randomly several times when loading into the game or fast traveling. Everytime I came back to the boat Gina went "You've been fighting again" and Indy goes "Aren't I a popular fella". EVERY. TIME. The game has no glitches or bugs AT ALL until this point and then they just come all at once. It's like Bethesda couldn't keep it's influence contained for too long, it's INSANE. Extra: There is lots of extra things to do. Bunch of side quests and then theres extra small side side quests. Then your basic collectathon routine. Collect the 50 things. Find the 40 things. Find the things. It's not that hard because you can purchase maps that give you the location of everything but it definetely isn't really worth it. Especially when the reward for collecting all the Ancient Relics and doing the super puzzle is a sneak peak at the DLC. Also a cardinal SIN of this game is making every note and photograph in the game count towards 100% completion. There is over 500 notes to collect. And I'm not gonna pretend like that is interesting content. It simply isn't. But I did it. Because I'm a fucking IDIOT. Favorite Thing: In the sewers of the vatican there was a lone blackshirt sleeping in a chair so I sneak attacked him with a sledgehammer and he went AUGH and his chair under his broke and my sledge broke and he hit a box which broke and pieces when everywhere and he stayed dead for the rest of the playthrough so everytime I went down there it was extremely funny. Not My Favorite Thing: Aren't I a popular fella