Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Developer(s)	Lucasfilm Games
Publisher(s)	Lucasfilm Games
Engine	SCUMM
Release date(s)	1989
Genre(s)	Adventure game
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Amiga, Macintosh, Atari ST, DOS, FM Towns

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure is a graphical adventure game, originally released in 1989, published by Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts). It was the third game to use the SCUMM engine.

1 Plot
2 Technical details
3 Trivia
4 Sequels
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Plot

At the entrance of Brunwald Castle

The plot closely follows, and expands upon, the film of the same name on which it was based. Jones, having just returned from reclaiming the Cross of Coronado (still dripping wet) is approached by Donovan who tells him about the Holy Grail and the loss of his father.

Indy then travels to some of the places seen in the movie, like Venice and the catacombs after meeting Elsa Schneider. In the process he finds his father held captive in the Brunwald Castle after passing through the mazelike corridors, fighting and avoiding guards. Then Elsa's double role is revealed when she steals the Grail Diary from Indy. After escaping, father and son pass through Berlin to reclaim the Diary and have a brief meeting with Hitler. Then they reach an airport, from where they intend to seek the Valley of the Crescent Moon, by Zeppelin or biplane. There are many action scenes, involving fists, and the biplane sequence above Europe, pursued by Nazi planes.

Several key elements of the movie—such as the Brotherhood of the Grail, Indy's friend Sallah, the Venice water chase scene and the desert battle (except for a small hidden reference)—were not included in the game.

[edit] Technical details

One of the most innovative of the LucasArts adventures, it expanded on the traditional adventure game structure by including a flexible point (IQ, or "Indy Quotient") system and allowing the game to be completed in several different ways. The point system was similar to that of Sierra's adventure games, however when the game was restarted or restored, the total IQ of your previous game was retained. The only way to reach the maximum IQ of 800 was by finding alternative solutions to puzzles, like fighting a guard instead of avoiding him. This countered one common criticism of adventures games - since there is only one way to finish them they have no replay value. Note that some of the alternative fights (such as the one with the Zeppelin attendant) were next to impossible to pass, so the maximum IQ was very difficult to acquire.

The game was originally released with EGA graphics. It was later updated with VGA graphics and a digital soundtrack for the FM Towns. The final version of the game was released for DOS. It used the FM-Towns version's 256 colour graphics and the EGA version's MIDI music. The project was led by Ron Gilbert, David Fox and Noah Falstein.

A replica of Henry Jones' Grail diary was included with earlier versions of the game. While very different from the film's version, it provided a wonderful collection of background information of Indy's youth and Henry's life as well as copy protection codes. Later versions of the game came with a much shorter version of the Grail diary which contained only copy protection codes and basic instructions. Note that this early source, gives Indy's mother's name as Mary, which was contradicted by subsequent canon.

It was also the first Lucasfilm game to include the verbs Look and Talk. In several situations, the latter would begin a primitive dialogue system in which the player could choose one of several lines to say. The system was fully evolved in The Secret of Monkey Island and remained in all later LucasArts adventures, with the exception of LOOM.

An action game, also based on the movie (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game), was released at the same time, but the adventure game met with unquestionably better sales and reviews.

[edit] Trivia

The Grail Diary replica of the package, confirms that Indy's mother was named Mary.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure also introduced the phrase "Hello, I'm selling these fine leather jackets," which became a running gag in future LucasArts games. The phrase is a reference to an in-house promotion that was going on during the game's production.

At Indy's office you can find many references to other LucasArts games such as:

The yellow crystal shard and the wallpaper crayon drawed map from Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
The oozing purple meteor from Maniac Mansion
A Sam & Max totem (Steve Purcell was involved in creating the game, four years before the game Sam & Max Hit the Road was released. This is seen just in the VGA remake though, although Indy does mention a "tribe that worshipped dogs and rabbits" in the other versions.)

All the Swastikas had to be removed from the game prior to its release in Germany. According to Boris Schneider who translated most of the LucasArts adventures, this was a very challenging task, especially with regard to the software that was available to him back then.

In the VGA version, there is a painting in the vault of the Brunwald castle which features a beach that appears as scenery in LOOM.