Zzap


Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
By Kixx
Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Zzap #65

Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

According to the hype, Spielberg made the third Indy film partly to make up for The Temple Of Doom - the darkest, and least satisfactory, of the movie trilogy. A prequel to Raiders, it has Indy called on to help an Indian village.

The villagers' fabulous Sankara stones have been stolen, and all the children kidnapped. There's a bit of guff about which Indy is most interested in liberating from the dastardly Thuggees - but we all know where Indy's heart is.

The US Gold tie-in game is based on a three-part Atari coin-op. Load one is where the children are held captive in tiny cages. Indy uses his whip to open their cages, stun Thuggee guards and kill snakes. He must also be quick on his feet, avoiding falling from the platforms linked by wooden ladders. There's conveyor belts to add more fun, but what Indy is really looking for is the mine cart to take him to load two.

Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom

This next stage sees Indy zooming down a diagonally scrolling track, leaning left or right to avoid breaks in the rails and switch lanes. Surviving this leads Indy into the Temple of Doom itself. More Thuggee guards and a moving bridge must be faced as Indy strives to recover one of the Sankara stones. Once he has the first stone, he follows the usual coin-op idiocy of going right back to the start. Three trips around should take him to a rope bridge and the end of the game.

First released in December 1987, Doom got a straight sweep of 'ugh' expressions off the Zzap! team. Julian Rignall "never liked the original arcade game that much - the gameplay is very weak... [but] the worst thing of all is that more time is spent battling the unwieldy loading system than playing the actual game." 41% was the overall mark and it doesn't seem that unfair now.

Stage one is fairly playable and it's good how all the levels gradually increase in difficulty, but levels two and three are much too short and simplistic to justify the multi-loading.