Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Kali Ma. That priest's cry from Mola Ram was still ringing in my head in 1989 when I first fired up this game. The film was fresh then, dark and a bit terrifying — and I expected the game to somehow capture that atmosphere. What I got was an arcade port from Atari.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom from 1989 is a straightforward action game for MS-DOS loosely based on the 1984 film. Indy trudges through a temple, freeing enslaved children, dodging Kali cultists, and trying to survive. No deep plot complications — just a moving sprite in a crouched corridor.

The game plays as a top-down 2D/isometric action title where you crack your whip at enemies, collect keys, liberate prisoners, and find your way forward. Keyboard controls on PC were standard back then, but far from pleasant — movement feels a bit sluggish, the whip has quirky range, and you get stuck way too often in places you didn't intend. Function keys handled settings, which was pretty normal in 1989, though nowadays it's almost a miracle it works at all. The difficulty is ruthless in places, checkpoints scarce.

What the game managed was to soak up something of that chromatic, dark temple aesthetic — visually it was solid work for PC graphics at the time, and the Sound Blaster audio had its own eerie charm. The problem is the gameplay doesn't age well. Replaying levels quickly reveals there's minimal variety here. Atari originally released this as an arcade cabinet, and the PC port is exactly that — a port that lifted the visuals from the original and left everything else behind, which happened plenty back then.

Today it's mainly for those who remember it and collectors chasing the vibe of a time when Indy had no fourth film and the arcade cabinet was still a status symbol. If you want a full-fledged adventure with the same icon, go for LucasArts' Fate of Atlantis — that's a different beast entirely. This Temple of Doom is just a historical artifact: it's got its age, it's got its scars, and if you fire it up in your browser knowing what it is, you'll get a pleasant half-hour of nostalgia out of it. Don't expect more than that.