Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a technical masterclass - with only a few bugs separating it from perfection.
www.eurogamer.net
So I had no idea MachineGames was the developer on this project. I've liked all their work so far except
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. Oh, well I guess I haven't played their 10-level campaign for
Quake 1,
Dimension of the Past. Never played
Cyberpilot either, which I believe is a VR game. I just recently returned to and finished
Doom 2, Legacy of Rust. So yeah, this new
IJ game is their first big game since
TNC. And it appears that once again they are using an idTech engine, this time 7 (at least according to Wikipedia), so we know this is a native Vulkan game. This is actually a fork of idTech 7 called "Motor", apparently. And this is also the first major game since
Doom Eternal to use some version of idTech 7. This game wasn't on my radar before, but I guess I'll be paying a bit more attention to it now.
From the DF article:
"First and foremost, unlike prior MachineGames titles, all cutscenes featured in this game are rendered in real-time, which is a positive step."
"Speaking of camera work,
The Great Circle offers users two aspect ratio options: a full 16:9 option, the default, and a ultra-wide cinematic option. Using the cinematic option gives you a wider aspect ratio that more closely matches the film - the 16:9 option crops the left and right of each shot."
"I also wanted to highlight the quality of the voice work - Troy Baker steps into the role of Indiana Jones and, listening to them side by side, I was kinda floored by how closely it resembles young Harrison Ford. Of course, it's not just Indy. The entire cast is brilliant and, like prior Machine Games titles, original languages are often included. Sections in a European city feature that area's language, while the villain speaks German and accented English - and his performance is honestly striking."
So the game natively uses RTGI, which is part of the reason the game requires hardware ray-tracing, very interesting. And this is just for the console version. Even on XBSS! "It's a marked leap from previous games based on id Tech..."
"Beyond the more linear opening, most of the game takes place in huge open-ended maps. This isn't an open world game by any means, but the levels are still larger than what we've seen from MachineGames in the past - something more like a large
Hitman map, with realistically spaced points of interest."
"Thankfully, the frame-rate is virtually unwavering at 60fps during actual gameplay on both Series X and Series S. Combining large levels, RTGI and a 60fps update rate is no mean feat! Loading times are also amazingly quick - there's virtually zero visible loading in the game at all, making it feel completely seamless."
"Beyond that, I think this is one of the best licensed games I've ever played. It's rare that a developer so perfectly understands the source material on which it is building a game, but it feels like the folks behind Indy truly love and respect the property. The storytelling is, quite frankly, significantly better than the last two films, and it's much more grounded too."
"The big takeaway for me here is that, after spending so much time with the game, it really hit home just how much I had wanted such a game to exist in the first place.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is one of the first video games I ever purchased with my own money and I cherished it. I enjoy other Indy games as well, but
The Great Circle honestly outdoes every one of them - it truly channels the spirit of Indiana Jones in game form and it's well worth your time."
Digital Foundry presents the best settings to use for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PC.
www.eurogamer.net
Related video:
"...what you get is still an excellent PC release, not so much limited by graphics power but rather the VRAM allocation of your GPU."
"...the game runs fast enough already, even on hardware of RTX 4060 class. Yes, even though it's using RTGI in excess of console quality."
"...the VRAM allocation of your GPU is crucially important as the game looks built around a 12GB baseline. Users with 8GB or 10GB cards may run into issues with the texture cache setting. So, for example, at 1440p, a 10GB RTX 3080 can't use the ultra texture cache option without massively degraded performance. Therefore it stands to reason that 8GB users will have an even worse time of it. However, context is king. You need to understand how the texture cache works but dropping from, say, high to medium doesn't uniformly degrade texture quality - it simply adjusts the size of the cache. The lower the cache size, the more aggressively the game shunts texture data in and out of RAM."
"There's a basic rule of thumb here: the game prioritises textures close to the player, and the more VRAM you have, the higher the texture cache setting you can feasibly use. The higher the setting, the further out the higher detail art presents within any given scene. I've put together a nice table on this page that gives realistic texture cache settings for the VRAM your card has - but 8GB really is the minimum and you also need to be careful of the shadow setting."
"...8GB GPU users are also advised to use medium shadow quality and low hair quality to maintain optimal performance."
"...an RTX 4060 only has 8GB of VRAM but I can run the game at 1440p resolution using DLSS in balanced mode and with the texture cache, shadow and hair quality settings suitably adjusted, I can the game locked to 60 frames per second very easily."
"This is a great PC release, but there are some issues and suggestions I'd like to talk about. The game's level of detail is somewhat low out of the box, even on max settings, so perhaps it is no wonder that the game runs so fast, but the pop-in is noticeable. The developer console lets you change this, so typing in 'r_lodscale 5' removes pop-in and LOD changes pretty much altogether. It comes with a GPU cost in terms of performance and memory but I think it's a good option to add to the game for higher end users."
A couple reviews I skimmed:
Putting the Great in Great Circle
www.destructoid.com
- "The story of
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set in the year 1937, between the events of the original
Indiana Jones film,
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the third film,
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."
- "Look, I’ll say it, this may be the best
Indiana Jones story yet."
- "At its core,
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a stealth-focused game."
- "Oddly enough, the gunplay in
The Great Circle feels very tight and well-designed." Well I mean look what engine it's based on. Of course the gunplay is well-done.
- "I have to hand it to MachineGames, every puzzle was unique and assuming I missed out on some through the optional content, there are a ton of puzzles in
The Great Circle. For the most part, they get more and more creative as well, as you progress further through the game. There are a couple that were tricky to solve, but using a Camera item you get early on, you can take pictures of key parts of the puzzles, and Indy will essentially think out loud, which provides you with clues on how to proceed through the puzzle."
- "Aside from the early pacing issues, I did encounter a handful of bugs. Nothing game-breaking, thankfully, but they often ranged from silly to annoying."
- "
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is an incredibly authentic Indiana Jones experience, and MachineGames really makes you feel like you are Indiana Jones. If you’re looking for an epic journey of exploration with a fun and mysterious story, that’s exactly what you’ll get with
The Great Circle, and with a high level of polish to boot."
Smart, fun and so very Indiana Jones, The Great Circle is a stealth action tour de force that marks a bold new era for MachineGames.
www.eurogamer.net
- "At long last, there's an Indy game that nails both the puzzles and the kind of action we know so well from the films, and it does so with wit, charm and a real eye for spectacle. There are moments here that feel so inherently Indy that you almost can't believe they haven't been lifted straight from the cinema screen itself, and everywhere you look is a constant surprise and delight. I'd be hard-pressed to name a more entertaining game I've played this year..."
- "For those left disappointed by
The Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, this is Indy as you remember him."
- "The next Tomb Raider and Uncharted games certainly have their work cut out for them after this, as will whatever MachineGames ends up tackling next. But one thing is certain. Indy's legacy feels well and truly restored with
The Great Circle, and that's the kind of mileage we can all enjoy for years to come."
Heard the game is about 20-25 hours.
So yeah, the game wasn't on my radar at all, until I found out it was made by MachineGames, and that they are using a fork of idTech 7. So color me curious about the game now. I'll check it out eventually, but I'm not in any real hurry to get around to it. I just hope it turned out better than
Wolfenstein: TNC. I liked all their Wolfenstein games except that one. Yes, even
Youngblood I found to be more enjoyable!
I have one friend playing this game, so we'll see how he ends up feeling about it.
