Well, PS2 players can relive these problems, along with a graphical cut or two. Previous purveyors of the Xbox version of the game lamented the fact that it was all-too easy to miss jumps over gaps when you weren't completely lined up with a ledge, or gimped a leap over a gap. This is particularly satisfying later into the game where the shock troop of every single Indy venture, the Nazi, is customarily slapped and thrusts off parapets in a variety of amusing ways. As you'd expect, you can use these expanses to great effect when engaged in fisticuffs planning attacks so you hoof enemies off ledges. Hey, this isn't Tekken 4, and the animation is sometimes a little stilted, but you've got to remember the huge environments you're exploring as well. The Collective have termed this fighting engine "Brawler." Pummeling with hands and feet, and switching the timing and button presses can result in a plethora of moves, such as grabs and combo attack strings. These bad guy goons may tend to glitch into walls occasionally, but they can be effectively dealt with in a variety of combat situations, such as through the use of fists, melee weapons, or long-ranged attacks. Instead, you're actually using your items on more than one occasion you have weapons that double as maneuvering apparel (such as the whip which can be hatched to swing across long gaps and also slapped across the britches and necks of the bad guys that populate the levels). There's none of the "identical doors, one of which can't be budged until you power up" nonsense that plagues Lara's European Vacation. These aren't as well-rounded as, say, the Xbox Buffy game, but there's a dual focus on the game here to make large, impressive, and mainly outdoor environments with logical puzzles to solve. Then you realize you're wandering around a giant ancient shrine, and you begin to forgive the lack of fluidity in the animation, and start performing all of Indy's maneuvers and begin to learn his fighting capabilities. Right away, you're struck with how juddering his antics are when he's grabbing, shimmying, and wandering around. There were some tense moments early on in the game where I realized developers at The Collective hadn't done its job properly when it came to animating Indy with a true sense of believability. However, my love affair with Indy didn't start out as abject babbling excitement. The very reason for buying an action-adventure game - the action and adventure part - is dealt out with gay abandon in The Emperor's Tomb. The Emperor's Tomb features much more in the way of fighting, cunning puzzle solving, and few cheap deaths.
But before I describe Indy's adventure in more detail, there's one vitally important point to remember if you're weighing both these games. Yes, you won't be investigating endless tenement buildings.
Yes, that's at least two more areas of the globe than Lara. Indiana Jones has a longer, more exciting, better researched romp through the jungles of Ceylon, then moves to Prague, Istanbul, and then across to China. If you only buy one heavily marketed action game featuring an archeologist this summer, make it Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. It does everything that Lara's done in the past. Fast-forward six years, and while Eidos scratches its collective heads wondering what the hell it just shipped, LucasArts has quietly shipped the PlayStation 2 port of its rather good Xbox adventure. Remember the pants you soiled when that T-rex strode into view? LucasArts gnashed its teeth, and attempted its own Indiana Jones outings, but none matched the novelty of Tomb Raider. So, Lara Croft, described by Core Design as "a sort of female Indiana Jones" started off with an incredibly cool quest in 1996.
It is with a sense of irony that I note the following: The action-adventure bandwagon has come full circle, returning home with Doctor Jones at the reigns.