Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny may have come out at the end of last month, but I didn't see it until the beginning of this one. I like it fine enough. It was generally level in quality making me prefer it to the mess that was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but I must say that Spielberg's misfire is the more memorable movie. The highs are much higher there but its the depths of its lows that make me like this new one a little more. I'll hand over my full thoughts at the end-of-year movie rundown, but until then I've collated a bunch of Indiana Jones games no-one seems to remember anymore. It took me a hell of a long while to do, so I'll have to give Indiana Jones: The Action Games (1982-1994 Various) my pick of the month, even if most of its content is more fascinating than fantastic. It include the original Atari 2600 game based on the original movie, the Temple of Doom arcade game and its many ports, almost all platform iterations of The Last Crusade and the action side of The Fate of Atlantis. Including ports, variations and a number of other oddities, that's nearly 40 games!
My real pick would probably be Magic & Mayhem (1998 Virgin Interactive Ent & Mythos Games Ltd), a fantasy-set strategy game from the folks behind the original X-COM trilogy. Ark of Time (1997 International Computer Entertainment Ltd) is a decent point-and-click adventure that sees a journalist stumbles upon an Atlantean conspiracy. CyberBykes: Shadow Racer VR (1995 Artificial Software, LLC) is an early attempt at consumer VR, but more interesting than that is Charlie Brooker's (of Black Mirror fame) bizarre PC Zone review. To cap off the month, I've returned to the world of the Sims with SimTown: The Town You Build Yourself (1995 Maxis Inc). It's a more kid friendly version of SimCity that must've been installed on school PCs the world over.
I only have two updates this month, and both are revisions of games from last month. A lot of people have been having issues with Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion. I suspect their systems are missing one of the Microsoft Visual C++ packages (link in the FAQ) which I recommend every retro PC gamer install. Version 2 of the game's installer now launches using the offical .exe instead of one modified with the NoCD patch. It will also use Image Drive Portable to automatically manage virtual CD mounting. I've also put a limit on the framerate for The Reap which makes the game much more playable.
That's it for this month! Until next time...
