Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [1992, MegaDrive/Genesis] Review - It's a Pixel THING - Ep.#59

As a huge Indiana Jones fan, I was immediately addicted to the ZX Spectrum version of the Last Crusade released after the premiere of the movie, back in 1989.

This new Indiana Jones adventure was available for practically every single 8 and 16 bit systems available, and, on a few 16 bit computers, there was also a graphic adventure edition that I consider to be one of the best point and click adventure games ever made. One of my first videos was about the DOS and Amiga versions of the point and click graphic adventure of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so, if you’re interested to see one of my early reviews, just click on the rectangle.

I’ve, just recently, played the Megadrive/Genesis action game of the Last Crusade that was released 3 years later.  It has some pretty nice tweaks and little details that differ from those home computer ports from ’89.

So, let’s start it up and have a taste of Indy’s whip!

Produced in 1992 by U.S. Gold, it’s an obvious adaptation of the third Indiana Jones movie that I consider to be the best, and it was adapted from that older home computer video game that was released about the same time as the movie itself and took advantage of that. The Action Game of the Last Crusade can be really frustrating and extremely difficult when we try it for the first time, but if you’re an Indiana Jones fan like me, you just won’t quit easily! And, if you love the movie as much as I do, you’ll also enjoy this game!

Indy can punch or use his trustful whip to stun and get rid of all the enemies that prowl in all the five levels of the game. So, we’ll be searching for the Cross of Coronado in Utah, also in Utah try to escape a chase on top of this circus train avoiding the thugs and all the animals, explore the catacombs in Venice, ascend Castle Brunwald in Austria and, finally, get the Holy Grail and rescue Indy’s father from certain death.

Graphically, the megadrive/genesis version of the Last Crusade is simply the best.

Sprites of the enemies and even of Indy could be a lot better for a game that was released 3 years later that the original. But I can live with that, ‘cause the action just compensates that! As for the backgrounds, I found them pretty good and follow the scenes of the movie quite well and with a nice parallax scrooling that was absent from those early versions from 1989. That rain effect on the fourth level in the Castle of Brunwald is nicely done and, again, a better approach to the scenes of the movie.

Now, as for sound and music, some bits were adapted directly from the soundtrack of the movie but with a pretty bad result, and there’s some other tunes that have little or nothing to do with an Indiana Jones adventure. And Sega’s 16 bit console was surely capable of a lot better. As for the sound effects, those are nicely done and just do their job.

So, this multidirectional platform game is quite enjoyable, but for Indiana Jones fans only. It doesn’t bring any newer of fresher stuff to the genre. On the contrary, it brings new stuff to that 1989 original Last Crusade video game released for home computers. So, for this, I consider the megadrive/genesis version the best of them all.

I forgot to mention that in the end of some levels there’s a tougher enemy to kill, and if you’re willing to try it out and need some help to advance to the next level, there’s this combination of button strokes that will provide just that: when the LucasFilm logo appears, press A, B, C - B, C, A - C, A, B, and you’re good to go!

The game is not too bad as most gamers say, but there are a hell lot better platform games for you to enjoy! And, if you want to play an excellent game with Indy, try Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures for the Super Nintendo.

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) PC/Amiga Review

For the PC I’ve recently purchased this game through Steam, but I’ve also got the Amiga’s Kixx XL 1992 floppy re-release of this awesome title.

Inside a pretty looking big box, there’s the three floppy disks, a folded manual that includes, besides all basic info, the Translation Table that is simply the copy protection codes that are asked when you start the game. Also inside comes a Kixx XL complete catalogue of their re-releases back in 1992. And, finally, the crown jewel: Dr. Henry Jones diary, like the one we see in the movie. I haven’t read it yet, but I believe that it’s filled with interesting stuff. It has hand drawings, sketches, newspaper pieces, letters and even the map showing the canyon of the crescent moon! It looks like it was written by hand. It’s just amazing the awesome stuff that used to come inside these big boxes back in the day.

Back in 1989, Steven Spielberg brought us the third movie of the Indiana Jones adventures, my favourite one. The Last Crusade transports us into the quest for the Holy Grail, where we have to fight against the Nazis and avoid Hitler getting his hands on the cup of Christ.

The graphic adventure point-and-click game was released for PC, Atari ST, Macintosh and the Amiga. There were also a CDTV edition of the game, but it had any graphical improvements over the original. It only included extra musical content on the CD.

It was published by Lucasfilm Games, the defunct LucasArts, and it was the third game to use the SCUMM engine. It follows closely the film’s plot and, sometimes, go beyond that.

Being a graphic adventure, it misses almost all the action scenes of the movie. These were present in the extreme difficult Action Game version that I played to exhaustion in my ZX Spectrum: the caves, the circus train, the Venetian catacombs, the jumping from window to window in the castle of Brunwald, the zeppelin and, finally, the traps and puzzles of the temple of Petra, in Jordan, where the holy grail is being kept. Although, the graphic adventure game had a few arcade fight sequences that could be avoided by picking your dialogue carefully.

The Spectrum version of the Action game received the best reviews and was number 2 on the charts because of RoboCop. As seen on my last post about Ocean Software, Robocop was number one for 18 consecutive months.

Lucasfilm Games introduced, in this graphic adventure, the possibility to complete the game in several different ways. They called it the IQ Score, or Indy Quotient. By doing this, George Lucas game studio found a way to maintain players interested in finishing the game more than once. This was one big problem with Sierra’s adventure games and made all the difference.

As mentioned before, this title has a built in copy protection at the start of the game. If you enter incorrect codes for three times in a row, the game goes into demo mode and when Indy is asked by Donovan to translate the tablet, he fails completely and he’s throwned outside by Donovan himself, ending the game. 

Later was also released a PC CD-ROM version with 256-colour graphics that didn’t have the copy protection.

Many of the scenes unique to the game were conceived by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg themselves during the creation of the movie. This explains the almost singular success of LucasArts in this area, not only with the Indiana Jones series, but also with their many Star Wars titles. George Lucas was always available to to give some ideas and transmit confidence to the teams behind these awesome titles.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Adventure game, is a must for all Indy fans and point-and-click enthusiasts.



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