Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb

by LucasArts

Product Features

• It is 1935, and Indy must race against both the Nazis and the Asian crime syndicates to possess the legendary Heart Of The Dragon
• Travel with Indy from the jungles of Ceylon to the underwater palaces of Istanbul to the violent streets of Hong Kong
• With help from his beautiful partner Mei Ying, he'll use his whip and gun to avoid traps and survive street brawls & martial artist wars
• Leap, swim, climb and punch your way through exotic locales as you survive an adventure just like the movies!

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00005BWH5
• Item Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: July 15, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,324 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.com Review

"If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones." So says the Temple of Doom movie poster, and--Lara Croft notwithstanding--Indiana Jones is still synonymous with glory, romance, treasure, and adventure. Previous Indiana Jones games were produced by the graphic-adventure game masters at LucasArts. This latest installment is an action-oriented romp made by the Collective, the same development house that produced the critically acclaimed Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Xbox. The Buffy game engine is a good fit for Indy, as he travels the world on a quest to prevent the discovery of an ancient Chinese secret that could spell the end of creation itself.

Such a quest should be easy for an adventurer like Indy, and with game controls that are as well laid out as these, it is easy. Indy can run, jump, shimmy up ropes, swing with his whip, and duke it out with nasty villains. True to the movies, Indy also has to navigate an almost constant stream of deathtraps. Caves full of traps, ruins full of traps, medieval castles filled with traps, and guess what you find in China, yes, more traps. It gets repetitive, but the game has some clever tricks in its floppy hat. For example, skulls make noise, so Indy can toss a few and watch crocodiles target them instead of him.

Indy can execute quick punch combinations to knock his foes out, or he can pick up weapons such as a chair, plank of wood, machete, or firearm. His famous whip can be used to disarm foes. The only problem is the camera, which is difficult to keep in the right position--you have complete control of it, but it's hard to manage a camera while you're fighting a martial arts expert, a Nazi with a gun, or a poacher keen on decapitating Indy.

The graphics are good, pleasantly reminding you of some of the movies' more memorable locales. The in-game Indy mug looks like Harrison Ford down to the chin scar. Other nice touches include how Indy has to actually pick up his hat if it falls off during a fight, and the little '30s plane flying over the aged and weathered world map. The music is pure John Williams, and the voice work is handled by convincing imitators. The guy they got for Indy, in particular, sounds a lot like Ford himself. Sadly no other movie characters of note appear in the game. (I was looking for John Rhys-Davies at least, because he seems to be in every video game that comes out.)

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb does right by its license and provides hours of entertainment for anyone who's ever wanted to relive the movies starring the most exciting adventurer alive. Lara Croft, eat your heart out because if gaming adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• True to the films
• Great graphics and fight controls
• Good voice acting

Cons:

• Too many trap sequences
• Camera problems common to third-person action games

Product Description

In Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, you go on a globe-spanning adventure to prevent an ancient artifact from falling into the wrong hands!

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid, excellent game, but a few flaws nonetheless, September 19, 2003

By 

Robert Jenkins "video geek #1" (Celina, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (Video Game)

I finished playing through this game recently on my Playstation 2. As a long-time Indy fan, I must say that I was very, very pleased overall. You control the intrepid Indiana Jones as he makes his way through a variety of locales, including Ceylon, Istanbul, Prague, Hong Kong, and others. The goal of the game is to recover an ancient mystical talisman from the titular Emperor's Tomb, all the while fighting off Nazis, Chinese thugs, undead creatures, and others. Indy is present in pure form, including the fact that he occasionally loses his beloved fedora hat during a fight and must go back to retrieve it when the coast is clear. I don't know who they found to do Indy's voice acting in this game, but whoever it is did a great job impersonating Harrison Ford.

The controls are intuitive and easy to master. Indy comes equipped with his revolver, a canteen of water for health replenishment, and of course, his trusty bullwhip. During the game, Indy will gain access to a number of other items, including a variety of weapons ranging from German machine guns, to a crossbow, to a variety of blade weapons. I must admit, though, that whenever I was up against only one or two bad guys, I found much more fun in just wading in with my fists, or else breaking furniture and beating the bad guys senseless with a table leg or breaking a liquor bottle over their heads. Indy has a number of different fighting moves, so fighting enemies never gets monotonous.

There are many puzzles to be solved in order to advance in the game. Some of them involve finding an item to open a secret door, others involve distracting a large, nasty monster so that Indy can quickly get across a dangerous area to safety, others require Indy to have a key item in his posession so he can view invisible obstacles, etc, etc... The action-based levels don't disappoint, either. Whether you are fighting off reanimated statues, dodging flamethrower-wielding Nazi soldiers, or perched atop a Chinese mountain gondola car, trying to shoot down German fighter planes intent on your demise, there is always something new to defeat. I found that the various levels of the game did an excellent job of presenting new challenges, and the action never felt stale.

Having said all this, why 4 stars and not 5? Well, there were a few things which detracted a bit from the gameplay. One was a few graphical glitches, such as an object that is visible from one angle would suddenly disappear when Indy moved. This didn't hurt the gameplay, but it was distracting nonetheless. A more serious problem was the fact that the game crashed a number of times during play, including twice while I was fighting the final boss. There were a few other minor bugs, although nothing too serious, at least as far as I encountered. I get the feeling that maybe they should have tested the game a bit more before releasing it. Also, the graphics themselves just seemed a bit dated and primitive for the PS2. At times, I almost felt like I was playing a very advanced Nintendo 64 title.

Even though the graphics were a bit flawed, I have always felt that graphics mean little if the gameplay itself is worthy. This title has plenty and more of great gameplay value. If you can get past what few flaws there are in the game, then this game will deliver many hours of enjoyable playtime. Highly recommended for all Indy fans and anyone else who enjoys heavy doses of action and puzzle-solving.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So far, this is a top 10 game!, June 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (Video Game)

Stop what you are doing and buy Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb RIGHT NOW! It is a must buy, maybe even a keeper (we'll have to wait and see how it finishes up). The graphics are an A, the music is an A, the punches and revolver action is an A+, the story so far is good, just like a movie script, but I will wait on giving it a rating, the voice acting for Prof. Jones is an A+ (at first I thought it was really Harrison Ford, but it's not, that's how good it is!), great interaction with the environments (you can smash a chair or table and use it to fight bad guys (so even if you are low on bullets, you can find weapons to use in each room), and the missions are just the right amount of hard (I have it on normal) with good use of save points. I held off on getting Tomb Raider and reserved Indiana Jones instead and it was well worth the wait. So far, I have to put this in my top 10 games of all time and I've only just started it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Before TEMPLE OF DOOM., March 29, 2005

By 

tvtv3 "tvtv3" (Sorento, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (Video Game)

According to the Indiana Jones timeline, INDIANA JONES AND THE EMPEROR'S TOMB takes place immediately prior to the events in the movie INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. If you play the movie to it's conclusion, it fits the pieces together well. I'm not really a gamer, but have played more video games in the last few years than any other time in my life except when I was growing up with an Atari. I'm also a fan of Indiana Jones.

With that said, I really enjoyed playing this game. It wasn't terribly difficult, but there were quests in the game that were challenging to complete. The graphics acted up every now and again and didn't appear as defined as they probably could have, but I didn't have any major problems playing the game.

The game's story line goes something like this: Indy is approached by an Asia man who wants to hire him to find an item called the Dragon's Heart that is located in the lost tomb of the first emperor of China. The Nazis are looking for the item, too and mysterious employer wants Indy to find it first. Unbeknownst to Indy, this man from Asia is really in cahoots with the Nazis. Of course, Indy eventually learns of the plot is helped throughout the game by a ninja lady named Mei Ying. Indy travels from the jungles of Ceylon to Prague to Istanbul and finally to China. Along the way you get to fight and kill a ton of bad guys from ivory traders to Nazis to demon-possessed Chinamen; shoot fighter planes from the top of a gondola; spear a giant octopus; and tangle with a Frankenstein-type monster. All for fortune and glory, baby.

In the course of beating the game if you are successful in collecting all 30 artifacts (there are 3 in each level & you can go back and replay a level to collect them later if you wish) you will unlock an art gallery that displays all kinds of concept photos, sketches, and designs. Just by viewing these pictures you can get an idea of the development process because there are several sketches or photos (whole levels) that can be seen which aren't a part of the game. Besides these missing elements it is also rumored that the character of Abner Ravenwood (Marion Ravenwood's father) was to have been in the game, as well as a boat chase level.

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