MadCap's Game Reviews - "Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb"

The adventure series of Indiana Jones needs no introduction, but I'm going to give one anyway because padding (truly, the greatest horror of all)! Indiana Jones was the brainchild of Steven Speilberg and George Lucas before the former stopped denying the stupider ideas of the latter. The first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was intended to be a homage to the old pulp adventure serials that the two had watched and enjoyed in their youth. In particular, the iconic look of Indiana Jones was inspired by Humphrey Bogart's outfit in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and that and other serials had a heavy influence on the plots of the original trilogy.

But where does The Emperor's Tomb come into play? Well, directly in canon before Temple of Doom, my personal favorite in the franchise. It's 1935 and Indy begins a trek through the jungles of Ceylon to - in the style of Raiders - recover an artifact. After making his way through a ruined temple, matching wits against ivory hunters, and dealing with a great white crocodile, Indiana does indeed manage to recover the artifact...which turns out, unlike the Idol of the Havitos...to be intrinsically important to yet another quest he finds himself on when a Chinese official and his lovely assistant arrive to inform him of - the search for the tomb of China's first sovereign Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. And thus, another epic adventure begins as Indiana travels from New York City to Prague to Istanbul to Hong Kong...and to Hell itself in his quest!

...well, one of them. Chinese got a lot of Hells.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Cthulhu Saves The World"

"Box Art"

Cthulhu is a name that everyone knows.  Wait, you don’t? Okay.  Created by writer H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu is a giant squid god who waits beneath the sea to spread madness and chaos when he awakens.  Regardless, he’s a pretty big part of the culture, being the subject of various stories and even a few episodes of South Park (no, I’m serious).  He’s also been the subject or a part of many a video game, such as Call of Cthulhu, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, and Scribblenauts.

Of course, out of those three games, I’ve only played the third one and the Great Old One’s appearance in that game is actually very much similar to how this game goes.  An indie game available for download from the Xbox Live Arcade from Zeboyd Games, the game details Cthulhu arriving on Earth to bring chaos and destruction.  However, almost as soon as he arrives, a mysterious stranger in silhouette uses some magical ritual or another to deny Cthulhu of all his grand evil powers and leave him washed up on a beach somewhere.  Thus, having read the text dialogue of the Narrator (and showing us that the Fourth Wall will soon be in many, many pieces), Cthulhu begins an epic quest to regain his lost power by becoming a true hero.

Waaaaait! Where have I seen this beThor?

This game just gets me for the humor.  Cthulhu himself is just hilarious, and makes cracks about just about everything from the style of gameplay to the various NPCs we run into, and even his own mythos.  He starts taking on followers because, in his words “The great Cthulhu requires groupies! You shall do.” And he doesn’t really quite grasp the whole ‘true hero’ concept, but he does try, bless him. And outside of the Great Old One, there’s plenty of humor in all sorts of places, such a follower called Umi – a water mage – wondering (in a completely not ironic way, I might add) what it must be like to be named after your profession.

The game itself is a shameless throwback to the early 90s style of JRPGs, with everything from the Final Fantasy-esque battle system to the soundtrack.  It’s really neat and well done and shows a lot of love and respect for its inspirations, which I have to say I really admire in developers.  Always nice to see developers paying homage to where they came from, so long as it’s not shoehorned into the game in some way that’s ludicrous (oh, hey there, Duke Nukem Forever!).  In this case, the influence is everything to this game, and it shows. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Zeboyd isn’t afraid to poke fun or invert some of the clichés of JRPGs. 

Now, mind you, I don’t usually care for JRPGs, but this game really got my attention and I really enjoyed it.  It shows the real effort and thought that went into crafting it, even if I’m not big on the turned based combat.  Really, that’s my only gripe about it, and it’s not really that big of a deal.  The game still works and its enjoyable, which is all I can ask for.

…so, I have my Indie cred now, right?

I mean…Minecraft, and now this…so…I have it, right?

…Right?

Cthulhu Saves The World is now available for download from the Xbox Live Arcade, and from Steam on PC from Zeboyd Games.

This review is based on the Xbox 360 version.