Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Cartridge
May 20, 2008
With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coming up quickly it seems only right to look back at the history of the Indiana Jones video games. British Gaming Blog has put together a list of the character's digital adventures that spans from an Atari 2600 game up through today's modern consoles.
Yar's Revenge creator, Howard Scott Warshaw (know by the insignia he left in his three games, HSW) was asked by Atari to create a game loosely based on Indy's first flick. "Since Warren Robinette had done such an amazing job with "Adventure" there was no point in doing another adventure style game (in my opinion) unless it was a quantum leap forward from where he left off," says Warshaw.
A sort of pseudo point and click adventure, Raiders asked the player to use two controllers; one to move Indy and the other to flick through your inventory. While there was plenty of action, and snakes, the main core of the game involved blowing up walls with grenades, parachuting to safety and digging up the Ark.
After Raiders was a huge success for Atari, the game grabbed Steven Spielberg's attention and he asked Warshaw to create a new game: E.T.
Sparked by nostalgia while watching the original three Indiana Jones movies last weekend, I dusted off Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures for the Super NES and took it for a spin. It wasn't such a great game when it was new, and over the years it has aged terribly. The game brags that it contains all three of the character's greatest adventures, although quite a few of the memorable scenes from each film did not make the cut for the game. The controls tend to be a little wonky, too. Nevertheless, I keep coming back to the action determined that the next time will be fun. It's the same kind of blind optimism that compels me to drag out Back to the Future II and III once or twice a year.