Controller in hand, this is a classic adventure game – MachineGames has brought its considerable experience with first-person action games, but pushed it so much further. In Marshall College, you’re given a truly sumptuous tutorial – Indy unsuccessfully attempts to foil a break-in (teaching you the rudiments of combat), works out which exhibit has been stolen from the museum (giving you the basics of puzzle solving), and asks you to follow clues to work out who broke in, and who they might work for (giving you some light traversal tips).
Following those clues to Vatican City, we’re then shown how the game will approach its more linear sequences – Indy needs to break into Vatican walls, getting past the fascist forces that have mysteriously moved in. It’s introduced as an exercise in stealth – levels are rammed with items you can pick up and throw to distract guards, from bottles to… violins. But you’re also taught that anything thrown can also be a weapon.
For someone who is shaky at stealth at the best of times, this is welcome news. One of the pure pleasures of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is how seamlessly it shifts gears, and this section teaches that beautifully. One moment, I’m confusing guards with clattering objects, the next I’m up on the battlements of the castle, choosing my own path towards my objective (even these more straightforward sections offer multiple routes to success), and then I’m travelling down a zipline, alerting three guards, shooting two, realizing I’ve run out of bullets, and then realizing again that, when I’m out of bullets, I can use my revolver as a melee weapon (I wish I’d understood that during the wooden spoon incident, incidentally).