It was Good Friday when I startedIndiana Jones and the Great Circle. And a good Friday it truly was, as I finally got my hands on Indy’s latest adventure after patiently waiting for MachineGames to finally make the leap of faith to PS5. My parents were coming to visit me and my wife for the Easter weekend and I was, once again, thinking about how to fill the time. I’d probably take my dad to see The Amateur, but what about the other 46 hours of the weekend? Well, at least one of them would be devoted to showing off Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

If ever there was a game perfectly targeted at my dad, it’s this one.

By ‘targeted at my dad’ I mean that he would enjoy watchingmeplay it, not that he would actually give it a try. Unfortunately, he’s not that much of a gamer.

Growing Up With The Joneses

Like most kids born since Raiders of the Lost Ark released in 1981, I grew up on the Indiana Jones movies. Temple of Doom was the first one I remember seeing, and it’s still the one I’ve watched the most, but any of the original three are a good time. I’ll stick up for moments in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, too. My dad introduced me to the Indiana Jones movies, and his favorite video games are noticeably Indiana Jones inspired, too.

He loved Myst and Riven when I was growing up, and what are Cyan Worlds’ adventure games if not Indiana Jones’ puzzle set pieces — like the Well of Souls and the Grail Temple — in game form? There’s a reason the most popular Indiana Jones games prior to Great Circle were all point-and-click adventures. Okay, the main reason is that they were developed by LucasArts, which made point-and-click adventures. But thesecondreason is that Indiana Jones lends itself to this kind of adventure.

My dad also likes watching me play theUnchartedgames — for their combination of graphical prowess and Indiana Jones-style pulp storytelling. Over Christmas break, I replayed the first two-thirds of Uncharted 3 at my parents’ house and my dad was geeking out over how good it looked. Mind you, this is a 14-year-old game in the lightly remastered form given to it by The Nathan Drake Collection. It’s not exactly photorealistic by 2025 standards (and he’s also watched me play the much better-looking Uncharted 4, so…shrug). Which had me all the more excited to show him Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which looks legitimately incredible on my PS5.

Way better than I thought it would based on trailers and video reviews.

Mind Over Matter, Brain Over Brawn

Though my dad likes the Uncharted games, he always gets annoyed when I get caught in a shootout — especially when, as inthe boat set piece, the shooting goes on for hours. That aspect of the games is just boring to him and he’s always wished there was a version of the games where you didn’t have to waste time in combat. Indiana Jones fits that wish to a tee, since Indy can get through much of the game without shooting anyone. Dad wouldn’t enjoy slinging bullets. But hitting a Fascist in the head with a violin? That mightahemstrike a chord.

In the end, he liked the bits I got to show him, but the timing wasn’t quite right. I was playing through the pre-Vatican City section of the game, before I had really gotten to the meat of the puzzles. I was as eager to show my dad Great Circle as Satipo was for Indy to toss him the golden idol, and I may have jumped the gun in the process. Maybe at Fourth of July, I can show him some of the sick underground puzzles I’ve found in Gizeh?

Now if only MachineGames would add a way to play it as a walking simulator…