Video games I play (and maybe some other stuff)

Listen, I’m going to preface this post with a disclaimer – I do not enjoy the works of Indiana Jones (potentially even Harrison Ford for that matter)

However, when Indiana Jones and the Great Circle released in late 2024, I was keen to give it a go. And I enjoyed it. I really, truly did enjoy the opening to the game and the initial steps in the Vatican – then it hit me: the openness of the map.

Having that whole area littered with black clad idiots that you were trying to dodge while exploring, solving puzzles and trying your hardest to take pictures of fountains was just too much for me.

I struggle with first-person games – there it’s out there. I don’t like them. Games like Fallout, Outer Worlds (1&2), Wolfenstein, Skyrim and loads more having fallen foul of my dislike of it. One thing that I hate more than first-person games is stealth in first-person, it’s always just a week bit janky and unbelievable and this hampered my enjoyment of Indy back when it released.

When looking at my hour count, I think I had got about three hours deep before bouncing in 2024 but I’m a new man in 2026. A man that has been given a challenge to play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and I’m glad to say that it has been completed.

I’d love to come here now and say I was completely wrong about my assessment from 2024 and that my mature brain has enjoyed it more but the reality Is the opposite.

This game peaks in the first open area (The Vatican) with the other two areas (nae spoilers here) are a complete drag. It’s interesting enough but nothing quite hits as well as that first area does. Not even the numerous areas to find trinkets, artefacts and other shite can save it. The fact that most beginning missions for each area start with a fetch quest of items to come back to is just so poor.

I’d have preferred to have had the one open area, say The Vatican, but then the rest of the game is just a globe trotting adventure without the need for other open zones and things. A tighter experience that feel more like a rollercoaster ride rather than a on rails thing, or something like that – a love tunnel? – or is that something completely different?

The story limps over the finish line. Again, it peaks with the first area and (sort of) loses itself at around the half way point – I won’t say too much but aye. Voss (the big bad guy) is fun to watch and Gina is a welcome relief as a companion but that’s about as good as it gets. Troy Baker provides a decent Harrison Ford impression for the game but dips in and out as the game goes on.

Probably the best part of the game is the fact you get to wrap various items around the skulls of nazi’s. Punching them has never felt so good but hitting them over the head with pretty much everything you find in the world is funny from the very first one to the last – a welcome tonic in 2026.

I kept thinking to myself in the 15-20 hours that I spent with the game that this is probably a very good Indiana Jones game but not a good game and I think I’m happy with that statement.

Happy to say it’s complete and gone from my life, happy to finish another game in 2026.

2 out of 5 berries/4 out of 10 nazis punched