Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade - US Gold/Lucasfilms RRP œ24.95
 
                  Reviewed by John R.Barnsley 
 
You've read the book, seen the film, no doubt played the arcade 
game.........well, even if you haven't, here comes the Adventure 
Game!! It is very slightly advantageous to have seen the film but 
certainly not necessary as, although the plot is relatively 
similar, many new additions have been incorporated by way of 
logical - sometimes devious - puzzles and there's certainly 
enough here to keep the adventure fans busy for many nights.
 
The packaging consists of SIX single-sided disks, a copy of The 
Grail Diary (which is not exactly CLEARLY written!), booklet of 
translator tables and a special red acetate strip viewer, the 
latter being necessary to read certain random codes from Indy's 
notebook when prompted. You have just 3 chances to get it right 
or the game will proceed in so-called 'demo mode' (Save & Load 

features disabled) and vital information and clues will be missed 
as the game progresses. This is a common copyright protection 
procedure and it certainly works!
 
Your quest, as Indiana Jones, is to seek and rescue your lost 
Father, Henry, and locate the genuine Holy Grail before the Nazis 
seize it for the Fuhrer's treasure collection. Some characters 
will help you on your travels across Europe and some will 
positively impede you - one lady in particular is a wolf in 
sheep's clothing!!
 
The adventure is entirely mouse-controlled - with the exception 
of the fight scenes, where defined keys are used - and the player 
selects the input/action from a table of key words and actions 
below the graphic display window and combines them with other 
words or items to construct the required input. Where the 
opportunity to talk to other nearby characters arises, so the 
'TALK' icon will be highlighted, and the 'TRAVEL' icon likewise 
becomes available where and when appropriate. The use of other 


defined keys in place of the mouse is optional but I think you'll 
find this latter option more confusing! Current inventory is 
displayed in contrasting colours at the bottom of the screen.
 
A useful tip whilst finding your way around each location and 
looking for suitable objects is to select the 'WHAT IS' icon and 
move the cursor cross around each scene - notable objects will 
thus become highlighted on the command line, sometimes allowing 
you to manipulate them. There is a fair amount of scenery, 
though, so be prepared for a long session!
 
Before seriously attempting to solve this adventure, TWO 
important aspects must be understood:
 
(1) Your Father's Grail Diary, which you will find buried beneath 
the regular post in your office, is an essential aid in 
understanding the majority of the puzzles encountered. You will 
be allowed to look at this diary at selected locations and be 

subsequently presented with a full-screen view of 2 of its pages 
which will yield vital graphic, numeric and poetic clues, 
although somewhat cryptic.
 
(2) A good work-out in the College Gymnasium is good training for 
future fights! (Read your game instructions to take full 
advantage of this training).
 
There are many 'set pieces' - as I like to call them - where the 
program goes off on its own for a while, but once you have seen 
them, pressing the ESCape key will cut them out and speed things 
up somewhat............which leads us neatly into the major 
criticism of this software - SLOWNESS OF PLAY!! Not only is the 
adventure spread over six disks but different sections of some 
scenes/events are further spread over several disks. This 
wouldn't be that bad if we had something to watch on the screen 
while all this disk-swapping/loading was going on, but 
NO.........complete blackness!! Just as the drive finishes 
loading in the next part you are prompted to insert yet another 
disk. Whilst checking this game out for the first time, I had all 

six disks spread over the back of the computer with two 'SAVE' 
disks as company and, to be quite honest, I lost track on more 
than one occasion of what I was doing in the adventure!!

SAVE and LOAD routines are relatively easy to carry out yet I 
cannot understand why, when loading in a restored game, EACH DISK 
- from which different parts of your saved game came from - has 
to be loaded in separately. On one occasion, whilst restoring a 
game, I had to change disks six times: 3, 4, 5, 2, 5 and 
finally 4!!
 
However, having expressed my personal disappointment of its 
implementation, there is very little else to fault this game. The 
puzzles are many and varied, requiring the combination of more 
than one object on some occasions. The animation is neat and 
effective though not as refined as, say, the latest Sierra games 
(though it's more puzzle-orientated than the latter!). Pleasant 
music is included and this ties in nicely with appropriate 


scenes. There is also a liberal sprinkling of humour to savour as 
you progress.
 
Overall, it is a worthwhile addition to any adventurer's 
collection, especially if you liked Zak McKracken & The Alien 
Mindbenders. Coming soon from the same source is Maniac Mansion 
which I am told is in a similar vein. I do hope they reduce that 
infuriating disk-access time!