Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a graphical adventure game,
originally released in 1992 and published by LucasArts. It was the seventh game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine.
Fate of Atlantis featured three different paths to choose for completion of the central part of the game. At this
point, during a dialogue sequence, the player can choose between: The Wits Path (Indy has to use his brains to solve
problems), the Fists Path (lighter puzzles, lots of fist fights and action movie-like solutions to problems), and the
Team Path (features Sophia Hapgood as a reluctant sidekick and part of many
puzzles). Each path includes some new objects and locations, different characters and dialogue lines, and alternate ways to
progress through the adventure to reach Atlantis. The player who finished all of the puzzles in all three paths and all of the
alternative solutions, which requires multiple playthroughs) received the 1000 full IQ (Indy Quotient) score.
Plot
It's 1939 - the eve of World War II.
Dr. Indiana Jones brings to his friend Marcus Brody and a certain Mr. Smith a particular
strange idol from the Barnett College museum at the request of the latter. Immediately Smith points a gun at Indy and Marcus,
takes the statue and escapes.
It is revealed he's Klaus Kerner, an agent of the Third Reich, is interested in
excavations in Iceland where Indy and an ex flame of his Sophia
Hapgood found the statue. Kerner's second target is Sophia, who lost her interest in archaeology and became a psychic,
giving seminars about Atlantis and communicating with the Atlantean god-king
Nur-ab-sal.
Indy goes to New York City and meets up uneasily with Sophia while she is giving a
speech. The two find that Klaus had already been there, having ransacked her room. All her artifacts are stolen except a
necklace, which she always wears. Sophia explains the Nazis are after the power of Atlantis
because of Orichalcum, a legendary metal more powerful than Uranium. The German Army with Kerner and mad scientist Dr. Hans Ubermann
would utilize the element as an unlimited source of energy.
The key to finding Atlantis is a lost dialogue of Plato, called the The Hermocrates.
Indy and Sophia return to Iceland where Doctor Bjorn Heimdall directs them to two other
scholars. In Tikal, Guatemala they meet Doctor Charles
Sternhart who translated Plato's 'Hermocrates' in English. Inside the temple Sternhart takes care of Indy's discovery of a tomb
and a stone disk, which Sternhart recognises as a 'Worldstone'. He grabs it and flees by a secret passage. Philip Costa from
Azores, on the other hand, tells the couple, after a bit of persuasion via an eel figurine
artifact found back from Iceland, that a copy of the Hermocrates should be in one of the book
collections at Barnett College.
The documents speaks that in order to gain access to Atlantis, three stone disks, the Sunstone, the Moonstone, and the
Worldstone, are needed. According to Sophia one of two old associates, had a Sunstone, either: Alain Trottier from
Monte Carlo or Omar Al Jabbar from Algiers.
It is at this point that the player has to choose between either the Team Path, in which Indy continues on with Sophia and the
game consists mostly of dialogue and diplomacy puzzles, the Fists Path, in which Indy goes alone and the game involves more
fighting than puzzles, or the Wits Path, in which Indy goes it alone and there are more puzzles than fighting.
The Wits Path
Indy goes to Monte Carlo and meets Trottier, acquiring his business card. He
then travels to Algiers where he shows Trottier's business card to Omar Al-Jabbar's assistant,
but Indy still cannot see Al-Jabbar. After giving the assistant a red fez, Indy is able to track the assistant to Al-Jabbar's
house. Locking Al-Jabbar in his own closet, Indy "borrows" a map, several statues and a camel so he can venture to the dig site.
After bribing patrols with the statues and asking nomads for accurate directions, Indy finds the dig site and an idol like the
one from the opening sequence. He finds a note in a truck saying the Nazis are going after
Trottier in Monte Carlo .
Indy arrives in Monte Carlo and tries to warn Trottier about the
Nazis, but is too late and Trottier is kidnapped. Indy follows the Nazis' car and crashes into
it, scaring them off and saving Trottier. Trottier explains he knows the entrace to the lost city is in Thera and that he threw the Sunstone out of the car to protect it. After searching the streets, Indy manages
to find it.
Indy arrives in Thera and heads for the mountains. He finds a cave, and inside he uses the
Sunstone to acquire a stone carving. Inside an entrenching tool Indy finds a note from Sophia saying that she's been kidnapped
and taken on board a Nazi U-Boat. After trading the stone carving for a basket, picking up a net,
and using an invoice to obtain a ballon, and hot air from the mountains, Indy creates a makeshift hot air balloon, and flies it
onto the Nazis' U-Boat. Here he manages to steal the Nazis' Moonstone and create a fire in the
foward torpedo room. Using the fire as a distraction, Indy fires himself out of an Aft torpedo tube and, once on shore, uses the
Sun and Moon stones to open the Labyrinth.
Inside, Indy finds a deceased Doctor Sternheart and takes his Worldstone. He finds a map room which leads to an old subway,
which he powers up with orichalcum. The train takes him all the way to Atlantis.
The Fists Path
Indy travels to Monte Carlo and meets Trottier, obtaining his business card. He
then travels to Algiers, and saves Omar Al-Jabbar from a Nazi soldier. With the map and the camel Indy gets from Omar, he reaches
an Archeological dig, where he finds the Sunstone. Stealing a hot air balloon from a nazi guard, Indy flies to Crete.
In Crete, Indy follows a diagram and uncovers a Moonstone. He uses both the Sun and Moonstones
to open a labyrinth. Inside, Indy finds a deceased Sternheart and takes his Worldstone. He
uses his brute strength and his trusty whip to get past several traps and Nazi guards, and finds Sophia in a hole, from which he
frees her. They find a map room which leads them out. They then travel to Thera.
There, Indy and Sophia hire a boat and Indy dives down, looking for an entrance to Atlantis. However, the boat was a set up, and a Nazi U-Boat
arrives, after which Kerner kidnaps Sohpia and leaves Indy to die underwater with only 3 minutes of air. Indy manages to find the
entrance to Atlantis just in time.
The Team Path
Indy and Sophia go to Monte Carlo and trick Trottier out of the Sunstone,
before heading to Algiers, where they confront Omar Al-Jabbar, a shopkeeper. Omar reveals that
there is a dig by the Germans going on somewhere in the desert. Indy steals a touring balloon but the balloon is shot down by one
of the Nazis, guarding the dig. At the digsite they discover a mural that gives Indy directions for Crete, the Palace of Knossos as an Atlantean colony.
At the ruins of Knossos, using the hints from Hermocrates, Indy and Sophia dig out a hidden
Moonstone. Working with both disks they open an entrance to the Labyrinth. There they find the
body of Doctor Sternhart, who starved not being able to get out from a certain chamber. Indy takes from him the Worldstone. After
a lot of searching they reach a map room containing a detailed model of Atlantis.
Meanwhile, a Nazi submarine surfaces off the island, and the Nazis enter the labyrinth. They kidnap Sophia but Indy manages to
get on the submarine and impersonate a crew member. He quietly frees Sophia and gets the stolen disks back. Then he steers the
ship towards an underwater entrance and dock, which is none other than the entrance to Atlantis itself.
Atlantis
Sophia is again kidnapped when they arrive Atlantis. After a lot of exploring and puzzle solving to rescue her from a prison
and enter Atlantis' second ring, it is revealed that Nur-Ab-Sal guided Sophia to Atlantis through the medallion, in order to
reclaim his old kingdom. His ghost possesses Sophia completely. Indy takes the opportunity to snatch the necklace and hurl it
into a pool of lava in Nur-Ab-Sal's throne room.
Indy and Sophia continue on to the heart of the city, a massive chamber full of lava with passageways leading up and down. The
two manage to navigate the chamber to the city's centre. In the Colossus - a huge machine in
the centre of the capital, which gave the Atlanteans god-like powers, they are ambushed by Ubermann and Kerner. Kerner decides he
is the most worthy one around to transform into a god. Based on Plato's tenfold error, Ubermann feeds the machine with 1 bead
instead of 10, which turns Kerner into a grotesque dwarf. He jumps into the lava and is dead. The Nazis then force Indy to stand
in the machine as an experiment.
Jones manages to convince Ubermann to be overpowered by anger and his own lust for power to let him down and him be
transformed by the machine instead. He feeds the machine 100 beads and the machine turns him into a being of pure energy, who
then explodes, activating the volcano that has been asleep for millennia. As the city is
crumbling, Indy and Sophia make their way to the submarine and take it to the surface. The city collapses deeper under the water,
while Indy and Sophia watch the sun set on the smoke. And then they kiss.
If Jones does not convince Ubermann to use the device, Jones himself undergoes the transformation and explodes; trapping the
Nazis (and Sophia as a result) in the ruins.
Alternate Ending
If Indy left the ghost of Nur-Ab-Sal in Sophia, then instead of Ubermann experiencing the final transformation,
Sophia/Nur-Ab-Sal does. Ubermann is knocked into the lava pit by the exploding energy of Sophia. Indy escapes on his own and is
left wondering why Sophia didn't listen to him.
Characters
Main Characters
Indiana Jones:The main character. Well known adventurer and archeologist. The player
plays as Indy for the majority of the game.
Sophia Hapgood: Known Psychic and part time archeologist. Indy's love interest and
companion. The player gets to play as Sophia a few times throughout the game. She can either survive or die at the games
conclusion, depending on the player's choices.
Klaus Kerner: An agent of the Third Reich, Kerner is interesting in harnessing the power
of Atlantis for use in weaponry for the Nazis. He kills himself by jumping into lava after he is turned into a mutant by the
Colossus.
Dr. Ubermann: A nazi scientist, who obsesses about harnessing the power of Atlantis. He dreams of becoming a God. He is turned
into a being of pure energy by the Colossus and explodes. Alternatively, he is knocked into the
lava by the dying energy of Nur-Ab-Sal/Sophia, depending on the players choices.
Other Characters
Marcus Brody: Loyal friend and confidant of Indiana Jones. Found in the opening sequence
at Barnett College.
Biff: Bouncer at Madame Sophia's show in New York. Indy's experience (or avoidance) of him
outlines his potential path (team, fists or wits path)
Dr. Bjorn Heimdall: Archeologist at a dig in Iceland. He freezes to death, over committed to his work.
Dr.Charles Sternhart: Archeologist, scholar and caretaker of the temple in Tikal, where he
steals the Worldstone. He dies of starvation after being trapped in the Labyrinth in
Crete.
Felipe Costa: Information and antiques trader, who resides in the Azores Islands.
Alain Trottier: A businessman and trader from Monte Carlo, who has a Sunstone
(or, helps Indy obtain it in the fists path).
Omar Al-Jabbar: Merchant and businessman from Algiers.
Production
- The cover art for the game was designed by William L. Eaken, the Lead Artist on the project, trying to emulate the style of
Drew Struzan, who painted the artwork for all three Indiana Jones movie posters.
- The game was re-released on CD-ROM with a full voice-over soundtrack in 1993.
- The adventure game was released simultaneously with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The
Action Game loosely following the same storyline and belonging to the arcade-adventure genre.
- A four-issue comic book mini-series written by Lee Mars
and based on the game's storyline was published before the game's release by Dark Horse
Comics.
- LucasArts had planned on developing this game for the Sega CD, but canceled the game
after its Sega CD edition of The Secret of Monkey Island failed to be much
of a commercial success.[1]
Trivia
- The game is breaking the established LucasArts adventure game tradition of not allowing the player to die (though it was also
possible to die at some points in their earliest adventure titles: Last Crusade, Maniac
Mansion, and Zak McKracken). After the
player's death, a short "what happened" summary and a score appear. To the player's advantage, most of the time the game
conveniently alerts the player of impending danger so that he or she can play more cautiously.
- Game resource editing programs like ScummRev have revealed that there is an unused room in
the game code that didn't make it to the final version. This room is Sophia's bedroom, and lies next to her ransacked office. In
the final version, all that takes place in Sophia's apartment is an extended dialogue in her office. In the bedroom, some objects
can be identified with ScummRev; this indicates that the programmers intended some puzzle or additional action to be solved by
the player, apart from the office dialogue. One of the usable objects is labeled as Chuck the
Plant, which is an inside joke at LucasArts and a nod to several previous LucasArts games.
- Hermocrates, an alleged book of Plato which would conclude
Timaeus and Critias,
supposedly discussed Atlantis much further than in the two others.
- Atlantis in the game has, according to Plato's descriptions, a cyclical structure (three homocentric rings around a central
'capital') with the capital in the centre, in the old times locked away from the public districts from all but a few chosen. Many
places resemble giant industrial factories, some of which can still be activated. The most mysterious thing, he encounters, are
the disfigured horned human-like skeletons scattered around; the nearer the capital, the more of them.
Sequels
The ending credits include announcement of a near-future appearance of 'perhaps much younger' Indy, apparently referring to
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a TV series that aired
after the game's production.
The planned sequel, Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, was
discontinued by LucasArts in 1995.
LucasArts also released two 3D action titles using the Indiana Jones license: Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (which also features Sophia Hapgood)
and Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. A third as of yet
untitled game is in development currently for the PS3 and Xbox
360 [1].
References
See also
External links
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