Hey so I just finished up the episode on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Although I didn't really have any issue with the discussion of the movie, I do have to say that, as a child, I was unaccountably fond of the Atari Games arcade game based on the movie. So it was surely a bummer to have the discussion linger for so long on the movie, and for everyone to brush past the game without a lot of consideration.
Though it came out at the same era of isometric pixel-and-sprite-based Atari Games such as Road Runner, 720, and Return of the Jedi, this title (like Peter Pack Rat) operated with a standard joystick and button layout instead of a custom controller. The game actually had loads of digitized sound samples, and four distinct stages each based on scenes from the movie:
The Mines
This segment was a bit of a strange isometric/top-down maze level, with open platforms set against a cliffside, upon which you could freely walk, but off the bottom of which you could also freely fall. Indy wouldn't survive a fall more than one ladder-length high. This made for a lot of falling accidentally for people new to the game, which proved to be about as much fun as it was in E.T. for the 2600. Once you got adjusted, however, things picked up as you moved around the maze trying to find the exit and rescue all the captive children.
Interestingly, Indy didn't use his gun at all in the game and couldn't directly kill the Thuggee guards attacking him. Whipping them would stun them and drop them down a bit on the isometric map. One viable tactic was to whip the guard enough that he fell off the bottom of the walkway or platform and essentially out of Indy's hair for a little bit (depending on haw far the guard fell). Guards would survive very far falls (even "wrapping" off the bottom of the map and back to the top) and continue to plaque Indy. To this day I always remember the Thuggee guard voice sample for "stun" looping over and over when you dropped some guard out of your way: "Beeble-Beeeee! Beeble-Beeeee! Beeble-Beeeee! Beeble-Beeeee!"
There were flammable gas cans you could whip that would ignite, and these could impact the guards and kill them. Later on in these levels the maze-like complexity would really ramp up, adding slides and conveyer belts, and lava pits would be included to provide instant death for both Indy and the Thuggee guards. "Super" guards would also eventually appear, as well as Mola Ram himself, throwing flaming hearts that weirdly acted as guided missiles, seeking out Indy and killing him. Mola Ran was like the Evil Otto of the game, forcing a time pressure as he pestered you more and more the longer you remained in the level. Fortunately, all that was required to leave the mines was to find the mine cart exit, and Indy didn't need to find every captive kid to leave the level. You would, however, miss out on the bonus that was so crucial to pulling down extra lives, and be admonished that "Captives Left Behind!"
Mine Cart
Again presented from an isometric perspective (with traditional diagonal slant this time), the mine cart chase essentially played out like a high-speed maze game where the cart's path would split into two or three variants as it would its way through the tunnels under your control, while Thuggee guards in enemy carts pursued you. This made for an interesting push-pull of gameplay as you needed to go fairly fast not to have the guards catch up to you and instantly capsize you, but if you went too fast you had little chance to react to broken rails, rocks, or other obstacles that required you to lean one way or another to surpass.
Slowing down some, but not too much, gave you a better chance at dodging obstacles, or steering around them, since as the game progressed some mine cart track turnoffs just led to certain death. This slowing would allow guards in carts to catch up a bit, and you would then need to whip them out from in front, behind, or alongside your cart on a parallel track.
Like the mine portion of the game, dozens of progressively harder tracks were devised and in the game, with twists and turns that eventually moved away from the consistent slant shown in screenshots and took players in every direction but up. Like the mine portion too, the gameplay was tough enough that most players never got to see the later stages. Even with a marginal level select and a continue function, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was difficult. In retrospect, clearly way too much so.
Continuing your game brought you back to the mine section (not the mine cart or temple section) of where you left off, if I remember correctly. It was bad checkpointing. For me getting past the mine cart was generally a mix of lucky going-too-fast while whipping all around like crazy. This tactic didn't hold up as the game went on. Anyway, when you reached the end of the line, Indy would jump out of the cart to slow it, and it was always a good idea to make sure you whipped that last gas can across the tracks, or Thuggee guards racing up behind you could still kill you while you decelerated, even though you had made it through the level. Frustrating!!! After that, it was time for the third (and what I thought for the longest time was the final) stage:
The Temple
This smaller level was set in the sacrificial temple featured so prominently in the movie: that big proscenium stage, with the giant lava pit where an orchestra would other wise be seated. It featured Thuggee guards plaguing you as well as Mola Ram himself, appearing theatrically in a puff of fire and placing the Sankara stone more or less right in front of you, daring you to steal it.
The goal of the stage was for you to grab a Sankara stone from the base of the statue over the lava pit. Your first run through the temple would end up very easy due to the wooden bridge you see in the front over the wide lava pit opening, in the shot above. That lava trapdoor would open and close on a specific timing, and for your first foray into the temple you could just pause a moment for the floor to close, run up over the wooden bridge, grab the stone and duck out through an exit door on either side of the temple easy peasy.
Subsequent runs through the temple would burn the wooden bridge away before you could use it, and so you would have to run around to the side of the proscenium to use a wall-post to whip-swing across to 'center stage" and then cross back to the middle, to time your trapdoor-dodging stone-grab. All this while Mola Ram sends flaming hearts flying across the screen at you in unpredictable, zig-zag patterns. You could whip the flaming hearts out of the air (for big points) but it wasn't easy. Still, it was the only way to survive once one started honing in on you. With a simple map design that never changed, this level mixed things up a bit with how many enemies (and flaming hearts) it threw at you. Speaking of flaming hearts, the
secret final stage!!!
The Bridge
You can see a brief flash of this stage if you stand and which the whole teaser loop for the game. To reach it you have to conquer the loop of the other three stages for three loops: one for each stolen Sankara stone. Once you do that, when you decelerate and exit the Mine Cart Stage, instead of the temple its time to go the big rope bridge and escape!
This level is again straightforward, as you move left to right against an onslaught of Thuggee guards and just so many flaming hearts. If you succeed, however, you reach the Sankara stone and enact the climax of the bridge scene from the movie. Sadly, though, there is no animation of a bunch of overly-zoomed crocodiles tearing up what appears to be a small red handkerchief, like in the movie.
Yay! You beat Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom! But not really! Because it's got a lot more mazes for you, and like Star Wars from Atari the climax of the movie is just the climax of one quick cycle through the game, and there are many more cycles through the stages awaiting, with ever-increasing difficulty.
Dangerous Ports
This game was actually ported to a whole lot of platforms, with results that vary greatly, but only from bad to worse. None of the old home computer ports play as well of course, but the candy-colored NES port is really very low-effort, coming from Tengen and not playing or looking very good at all.
Myself, having still an Atari 2600 at the time, really wanted a port of the game to that platform. I mean, we had Raiders of the Lost Ark on 2600! Young me couldn't figure why the superior Atari Indiana Jones game couldn't come to the platform as well.
Just based on some quick reading it looks like the Atari ST port was the best of the bunch. But it doesn't look like any ports of this game were expanded adaptations that flashed out and deepened the gameplay like something like Ninja Gaiden for NES compared to the arcade version. They're all just variously inferior ports of the original game. SO if you're gong to play it, play the arcade game!
Play. The. Game!
Archive.org has the arcade original available to play. I feel the Retronauts crew didn't give it a fair shake, which is by no means a cardinal sin or anything, but hey I recommend you give the game a try yourself:
https://archive.org/details/arcade_indytemp
Movie-licensed arcade games are, of course, not a thing we're going to see much of in the future. For a time there, via Robocop, Terminator, and even Batman Forever, we had a few. I can't even find a dedicated list of them on the internet. Maybe this could be a topic you could hit, to revisit this game a touch while discussing some of the others. It seems like by the time you guys got the the games discussion, everyone was a bit tired out, and the games got short shrift.
I was always fond of this game, and the opportunity to listen to a crew of retro video game experts discuss it isn't going to come about very often. With classic video games as your main sphere of expertise, I'm really not certain why so much of the episode was spent giving a modern take on the movie itself. Ah well. C'est la vie. Maybe I have helped fill some nostalgia gaps with this post here. Thanks and have a good one!
