Random Game O' the Day: Indiana Jones ToD

[digitalpress]

The random game generator has chosen a clunker today, though you may choose to disagree. It's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for the Nintendo 8-bit NES.

I don't remember writing this particular slant, but judging from the screen shots, I can see where I was coming from. What's your opinion on this game?

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Nintendo NES, by Tengen) $4/R2 -
Based on the 1985 Atari coin-op. Unlicensed. SANTULLI SLANT: Never before has Atari 2600 emulation worked so wonderfully on the NES! I just don't think that's what Tengen was trying to do here. Abysmal. [Gr: 2, So: 3, Ga: 5, Ov: 3] c1988 Lucasfilm.

http://www.digitpress.com/DP/cmf/game.cmf?gameid=114461

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/nintendo/indianajonestemple.png

[Cauterize]

Good Choice! I much prefer the Amiga version though!

[SoulBlazer]

I actually LIKED this game..... O_O

DAMN hard, though. Took me forever to beat it.

[le geek]

The Atari arcade game is much better... :)

[rbudrick]

I always figured this game was just something I didn't get, and maybe everyone else did. I'm sure it has some depth and is enjoyable once you get into it, but I could never figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

I'm willing to bet it's fun once you get into it, much like Deadly Towers.

-Rob

[Arcade Antics]

I'm with Ben - the Atari coin-op is STELLAR.

This Tengen (Mindscape) port to the NES is utter crap. A shame.

[Sotenga]

I'm with Ben - the Atari coin-op is STELLAR.

This Tengen (Mindscape) port to the NES is utter crap. A shame.

I concur with you there. The arcade game is impressive, and it really captures the feel of the movie while simultaneously making a kickass game. The NES title, sadly, failed to do this on both accounts. I've owned it for a while, but I've never OWNED it... that is to say, never beat it. Don't think I ever got past stage 10, and that was WITH a Game Genie. :/

[calthaer]

I used to kind of like this game; not sure why. It *was* very difficult. Controls were kinda screwy, you never really had enough bombs to take out the quicksand and other traps, and the whole "lava at the bottom of the board thing" was kinda dumb. You could fall into it so easily.

On top of that, all the levels were timed. The whole going back and forth between the mine cars and the ladder was cool, though.

[Graham Mitchell]

Boy, people keep ranking on some of my favorites. First Deadly Towers, now this! LOL

This game is really cool once you know what you're doing. If you're looking for a "realistic" game, don't bother with this, because the strange perspective and camera angle make the game more of an Escher painting than anything else...it's tought to describe but the jumping takes a while to get used to so you can predict where you're going to land. Get over that, and the weapons system, and you'll probably notice that this is one hell of a game.

The game works kind of like the Goonies II, with a "front" and "back" half to every level, and you have to go in and out of each portion to find everything you need. The game is very open-ended, and there are counless hidden areas that allow you to jump ahead several waves. There's even one in the first level that lets you go straight to the last wave, and provides you with all the map pieces you need. Plus the "quieter" of the 2 songs is really moody, and adds a lot of tension to the game.

Looking at a still picture of this game does not do it justice, you need to see it in motion, preferably on an actual NES because sound emulation becomes a problem. The whip has a really loud "smack!" that I tend to not hear on the emulators.

The key to enjoying this game is a little patience, and I urge all you naysayers to give it some time. It's tough, deep, and well-thought-out.

[Kid Ice]

I didn't think the coin up was that great as a game, but the music and sound FX were awesome. That sound the Thugee guards make when you whip them is funny as hell. And who could forget "We walk from here!"

[Neil Koch]

Loved the arcade game (used to waste my allowance playing it at the local bowling alley) but the NES version is crap.

[IntvGene]

I'm with Kid Ice. I like this game, but it isn't the best thing ever (talking about the arcade).

The guys just seem to run around aimlessly, and the controls aren't the greatest either. It was a good game, not a great one. It was one that I kept playing for some strange reason though..

[Crush Crawfish]

I've never played it before but I saw a copy at funcoland once. It looked like someone literally lined up a bunch of raisins and then smashed the cart down on top of them. It was really gross.

[Dr. Morbis]

I'm with Graham Mitchell on this one. It does take an acquired taste, but I learned to really enjoy this game. I actually got this game as a Christmas present many years ago. As a clueless child opening the box and seeing the black odd-shaped cart for the first time, I was like "WTF is this?".

Just like Deadly Towers, this game is very difficult to get into. You have many weapons and a large inventory, but the problem with this game is that the programmers were asking too much of the player. If you are not totally stocked up and ready for wave 9, you're toast. Oh, and you also must pick up the majority of the map peices, and some randomly hidden items too, if you want to have any chance at wave 10.

This game is so difficult that it was one of only two of my childhood-owned games that I could not beat in my youth (Adventure Island was the other). I had to use a walkthrough from gamefaqs to beat this game, and it still took me many many tries. You can't continue past wave 9. If you get a game over on wave 10+ it boots you back to wave 9. And wave 10 (or is it 11) is one of the hardest levels to figure out blindly in the history of gaming. I don't know how the FAQ writer did it.

My biggest gripe is that B jumps and A whips. Having B jump instead of A is a cardinal sin for a NES game as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, good game if you can get into it, but the high challenge is only for the most absolute die-hard gamer.

[SoulBlazer]

Wait a second....

TENGEN?

Joe, I'd swear on a stack of bibles that the NES game was publshed by Mindscape.

Can anyone support this? :)

[Graham Mitchell]

Wait a second....

TENGEN?

Joe, I'd swear on a stack of bibles that the NES game was publshed by Mindscape.

Can anyone support this?

You'll notice that literally every Mindscape game has a copyright date and the word "Tengen" after it on the title screen? (think Paperboy). I don't know the details but I think that, when Tengen was a legit licensee, Mindscape was just Tengen releasing more games. I think the deal was that Nintendo had a limit to the number of games per year that they could publish for the NES. With some of the mores successful third-party publishers, Nintendo granted them the ability to publish more than said number of games under a different name. This is how Konami begat Ultra, and I believe Acclaim (sadly) was also allowed this privelege.

Thus, my theory is that when Nintendo booted Tengen, they booted Mindscape too. Atari (which is who Tengen and Mindscape really were) probably felt there was still some money to be made off of Indiana Jones and reissued it in the black-cart variant. Therefore there are 2 versions of this game, much like Gauntlet and RBI baseball.

If anybody wants to shoot down this theory, go ahead, but this is always what I assumed had happened.

[NeoZeedeater]

Tengen/Atari Games just licensed the game to Mindscape. It says "Licensed to Mindscape" on the title screen.
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/nes/01/indianajonesTEMPLE.html

Mindscape was a legit Nintendo licensee and a separate company from Tengen.

[Kim Possible]

I keep trying to like this game, but its just too crappy. Its not terribly hard, just frustrating to keep jumping into the lava when you don't mean to and sometimes hard to tell if you have completed a level or not.

I'll probably keep trying to like it until I beat it, but I'm not sure if I have that much patience.

I think it might be better than most of the levels in Last Crusade, though.

[SoulBlazer]

Okay, I was just confused by the Tengen part and it's been a LONG time since I played this.

Joe, is this based off the Atari Games arcade port? Maybe the next issue of the DP guide should say something like 'based off the arcade version by Atari. Licenced to Mindscape for the NES. 2 differernet versions exist -- one released by Tengen and one by Mindscape.'

[Graham Mitchell]

This game is so difficult that it was one of only two of my childhood-owned games that I could not beat in my youth (Adventure Island was the other). I had to use a walkthrough from gamefaqs to beat this game, and it still took me many many tries. You can't continue past wave 9. If you get a game over on wave 10+ it boots you back to wave 9. And wave 10 (or is it 11) is one of the hardest levels to figure out blindly in the history of gaming. I don't know how the FAQ writer did it.


That part in the last level where you have to walk across the lava monsters to get to the stones will forever remain in my memory as one of the most challenging things I've ever tried to do in video games. It's tough because you pretty much have to go through the entire game without skipping waves to have enough weapons to do it successfully. I've never actually done it myself, but I've seen it done.

To me, that's one of the great things about the game. It's undeniably difficult, but you can't blame the crappy camera angles or control for that; it's just tough! (Though I'm sure everybody's bitching about falling into the lava, but you can learn how to navigate that. It just takes some practice and premeditation.)

[Dr. Morbis]

That part in the last level where you have to walk across the lava monsters to get to the stones will forever remain in my memory as one of the most challenging things I've ever tried to do in video games. It's tough because you pretty much have to go through the entire game without skipping waves to have enough weapons to do it successfully. I've never actually done it myself, but I've seen it done.
That's wave 9 (of 12). As difficult as that level is, level 10 is exponentially more difficult. After completing wave 9, you go to a map screen where you get to shake your head in bewilderment while continously going "WTF man, WTF". Then once you leave the map and start the level, you can NEVER SEE THE MAP AGAIN!. And if you die on Wave 10, you lose ALL 3 Sankara Stones and must arduously try to recover them (if you can find their 3 separate locations in one life) THEN find the secret door (if you made sense of the map). And the door's location only shows on the screen if you got an impossible to find hidden item in an earlier wave. Oh, and this level is divided up into 6 screens that you have to somehow navigate through using the random warp doors.

If you manage to finally beat this toughest level in gaming history, you will no doubt die on wave 11 which, isn't that easy itself.

*Whew*

[kainemaxwell]

Spent many quarters playing this in the arcade when I was a kid, and still enjoy playing it on MAME. The NES versions, they try to capture the arcade feel but fall short.