Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom


by Donald J. Campbell, John Prince
U.S. Gold Ltd
1987
Your Sinclair Issue 24, Dec 1987   page(s) 76

US Gold
£8.99
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

I'm afraid you'll have to leave your sub-machine guns, photon torpedoes and lasers outside, 'cos your only weapon is a whip! Your mission as Indiana Jones, is to free Mayapore's children from enslavement in the mines beneath Pankot Palace, and find the three Sankara stones.

Indiana Jones, the game of the coin-op of the film, loads in three parts, each of which is subdivided into three levels. Level one has you running round a platforms and ladders game, beating the hell out of the resident Thuggee guards and rescuing the kiddies.

Then, without even time to straighten your hat, you leap into a runaway mine car. Pursued by yet more of those dastardly Thuggees (just who's responsible for these daft names?) you must ride to the Temple of Doom where you'll find one of those stones you were after. Do all this three times, and you're awarded a bonus level.

Graphics are hardly inspiring, with some very dubious animation in places. The programmers have taken the easy way out and done the whole thing in glorious monochrome, so it's a bit flat.

Although there are s'posed to be three separate levels, the second and third are over and done with so quickly you can't really include them. What it boils down to, then, is a rather crude Willy rip-off (don't even think about that one!) with a couple of rather pointless mini-games thrown into pad it out a bit.

While Indiana is quite good fun for the first few goes, I can't really imagine anyone going wild over it. After lashing a couple of Thuggees to death the urge to reach for the reset button is almost overwhelming.


Graphics: 6/10
Playability: 7/10
Value For Money: 6/10
Addictiveness: 5/10
Overall: 6/10

Summary: Three-part zaparama that's really only worth it for the initial platforms and ladders stage. Proceed with caution.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

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