Emperor's Tomb
- Thread starter bungle92
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INDYfatigable
New member
Cartoony? Do you mean fakey? Or just funny?
Grizzlor
Well-known member
So despite ET being released 20 years ago, I finally got around to playing through and finishing the game (on XBOX)! Figured, I'll bump an old thread to be authentic in my brief review.
Graphics/Music/Sound: These were pretty good, especially for a game of that era, although you could tell the developers took a lot of shortcuts, and reused tons and tons of objects throughout. Enough sharks for Jaws part 700. The voice cast was fine, with Vivian Wu and Keone Young instantly recognizable to me. The late David Esch was a passable Jones, though he's no Doug Lee. The actor playing Wu Han was terrible.
Story/Dialogue: This is where the game really suffers (IMO), in addition to game play (next). When the game was announced as "Emperor's Tomb," as most I was very excited about a potential TOD prequel game, going on a great adventure to find the remains of Nurhaci, with trusted sidekick Wu Han, maybe Shortround, and others. Instead they wrote a prequel to that prequel, which was really devoid of substance and about as compelling as a fart. The writer had Dr. Jones giving lines one could never expect Harrison Ford to utter.
Gameplay: Well, like the story, the game itself is fairly "long" but only because of the absurd difficulty produced by poor controls/camera, such as trying to get Indy to do a double whip swing. My Lord was that a pain in the arse. I played I think on the standard difficulty, and it wasn't very hard, aside from certain maneuvers. I didn't bother hunting down artifacts as I find that stuff to be a waste of time from that gaming generation. The puzzles weren't too tough either.
I found the game to be fun but dull and without my character.
Graphics/Music/Sound: These were pretty good, especially for a game of that era, although you could tell the developers took a lot of shortcuts, and reused tons and tons of objects throughout. Enough sharks for Jaws part 700. The voice cast was fine, with Vivian Wu and Keone Young instantly recognizable to me. The late David Esch was a passable Jones, though he's no Doug Lee. The actor playing Wu Han was terrible.
Story/Dialogue: This is where the game really suffers (IMO), in addition to game play (next). When the game was announced as "Emperor's Tomb," as most I was very excited about a potential TOD prequel game, going on a great adventure to find the remains of Nurhaci, with trusted sidekick Wu Han, maybe Shortround, and others. Instead they wrote a prequel to that prequel, which was really devoid of substance and about as compelling as a fart. The writer had Dr. Jones giving lines one could never expect Harrison Ford to utter.
Gameplay: Well, like the story, the game itself is fairly "long" but only because of the absurd difficulty produced by poor controls/camera, such as trying to get Indy to do a double whip swing. My Lord was that a pain in the arse. I played I think on the standard difficulty, and it wasn't very hard, aside from certain maneuvers. I didn't bother hunting down artifacts as I find that stuff to be a waste of time from that gaming generation. The puzzles weren't too tough either.
I found the game to be fun but dull and without my character.
Damon
Member
What I loved most about the game is the setting. China is just such a great place for Indy to be, both visually, but also thematically. And having him fight Triads and even samurai and the undead later on is so much fun. While the dialogue isn't the best, the story manages to throw a ton of enjoyable ingredients in a pot, binding them together by a simple but effective narrative. I mean, giant crocs, nazis with fantasy-tanks, monsters, dragons... Emperor's Tomb certainly shares the same balls to the wall crazyness that ToD had.
IndyBuff
Well-known member
I too went back and played through the game again earlier this year. It's still quite fun, though I will admit it's showing its age in some areas. The combat and platforming feel clunky at times, plus the story just gets downright insane by the end with all of the supernatural stuff. I agree that the China setting is awesome, and as someone who has always had a fascination with the real life history of Qin's tomb, this concept was a great idea for an Indy adventure.
Fate of Atlantis will always be my peak Indy game, while Emperor's Tomb is my favorite of the 3-D adventures. It has its flaws but there's still quite a bit of fun to be had.
Fate of Atlantis will always be my peak Indy game, while Emperor's Tomb is my favorite of the 3-D adventures. It has its flaws but there's still quite a bit of fun to be had.
