
STORY / GAMEPLAY
The story is based in Europe, 1938, and now the Nazis are after the most powerful talisman of all - the Holy Grail. Indy is asked to help a wealthy industrialist find this eternal life-giving grail. Any doubts he may have had about accepting the challenge are wiped out when he discovers that his father Henry, a grail expert, has gone missing while on the trail of the grail, so to speak. There's a lot of humor to find during your quest, both in dialogue and the cute little messages that appear when you die or get captured. This game features action sequences, in which Indy can fight his way out of situations instead of using his wits! There are no complicated sentences to type in, you just pick and choose options which makes the adventure environment easy to get into.
This is because the game uses the SCUMM engine, which was fully evolved in The Secret of Monkey Island and remained in all later Lucasfilm adventures, with the exception of Loom. The point-n-click interface offered by SCUMM was one of the most sophisticated ever seen at the initial time of the game's release, serving its purpose adequately. Literally, it was the third game to use the SCUMM engine. However when the game was restarted or restored, the total IQ of the previous game was retained. A replica of Henry Jones' Grail diary is included with earlier versions of the game too. While very different from the film's version, it provided a collection of background information of Indy's youth and Henry's life. The diary is also necessary to solve puzzles near the end of the game, most notably to identify the real Grail. Later versions of the game came with a shortened version of the Grail diary.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade plays and looks good, and will offer you some pretty hard puzzles to solve though you wont get stuck for ages. If you enjoyed the famous film, you'll like the game although it is not a meaty adventure, but does have its moments.
GRAPHICS / SOUND
With the many locations and various other characters to interact with, the adventure really comes to life. The Macintosh version initially released for the 68k color based systems offering 16 colored nicely detailed scenes with some nice little animation touches here and there (same as the PC floppy EGA version contained only 16 colors), while a later Mac version supported up to 256 colors on screen (same as the PC floppy VGA and FM Towns version) which looks more convenient in terms of visual quality and with a different in style inventory and actions menu. Surely the graphics are nothing to sing and dance about, nor are the music and sound effects, but all make a nice pack and add to the game's story and atmosphere. The sound uses the original Indiana Jones film theme at the intro, along with some sparsely dumped sound effects here and there. It is worth mentioning the CD-ROM version for the Macintosh (and PC DOS) released, which offers the original film's soundtrack at the intro, along with a few nicely composed tunes in certain scenes.