Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb – Review and Xbox Series X 4K Gameplay

Released in 2003, Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s 
Tomb is an action-adventure game that welcomed  
everyone’s favorite professor of archaeology back 
to the video game world.
It was the first and only Indiana Jones game
for the original Xbox, and  was also released for the PC and PS2. The game  
introduced fans to a brand new story that takes us 
back to 1935, bringing us on a worldly adventure  
that takes us for a ride across the continents. 
Emperor’s Tomb starts off with Indiana Jones  
searching for treasure deep in the jungles of 
Ceylon, known today as Sri Lanka. After climbing,  
rolling, and whipping his way to the treasure, he 
returns to his teaching job in the United States,  
where he grades papers for the rest of his life. 
Oh, wait, no.
He’s almost immediately offered an  
opportunity to hunt down an ancient pearl that 
grants incredible power to whomever holds it.  
So off he goes to Prague to collect a piece of a 
mirror that he’ll need to track down the pearl.  
The story takes place before the films, but 
it doesn’t require any previous knowledge of  
the series. It’s completely standalone, so if 
this is your first Indiana Jones experience,  
you’ll be fine. Given that this

game came 
out almost 20 years ago, it looks fantastic.  
The Xbox team has done an incredible job of 
making sure we can play it on modern consoles.  
If you’re playing it on the Xbox One X or Series 
X, you’ll get to see it rendered in close to 4K,  
and it looks great. You’ll notice some blurry 
textures, but as a whole this game has a great  
look to it. You’ll visit lush jungles, underwater 
temples, Prague Castle, and so many other gorgeous locations.
Jones: Reminds me of my last date.
The game also supports widescreen, so it’ll fill the  
entire screen on modern TVs, which wasn’t common 
for games of that era. There’s also an option for  
subtitles, which is another awesome feature 
that we didn’t see a lot in the early 2000s.  
The music in this game is a treat. It takes 
inspiration from the films and also incorporates  
the classic Indiana Jones theme throughout the 
soundtrack. The sound effects are excellent too,  
from the thunderous crack of the whip, to 
the satisfying thud of landing a punch.  
The voice acting isn’t going to blow 
your mind, and there’s no Harrison Ford,  
but Indy’s voice actor does a solid job.
Jones: So, where’s your smuggler friend?
Mei Ying: Wu Han’s helped me several times, he’ll be here. 

Jones: And he’ll take us to Kai’s Fortress?  
The game starts you off with a short tutorial 
level. It’s not too painful, and it really helps  
you learn how the inventory and controls work. The 
controls are fairly tight and for the most part,  
Indy moves exactly where you want him to 
move. But I wish the ledge grabbing was a  
little more forgiving. The game is pretty linear, 
you’re usually moving from point A to point B,  
sometimes grabbing a few key items in between. But 
it doesn’t always hold your hand. There were times  
even towards the beginning, where I was completely 
lost and had no idea what to do.
Jones: Reminds me of my last date.
Most of the levels have some 
kind of puzzle to figure out. You might have  
to search around for explosives to break through 
a wall, or find coins to unlock a gate. I liked  
that the game wasn’t just running through caves 
and shooting bad guys. But I would have liked a  
little bit more clarity as to what you need to do. 
Indy’s whip can be used as a weapon, or to grab  
an unsuspecting enemy and drag them towards you. 
But the whip’s most important use is as a tool to  
help you navigate through the levels. You’ll need 
to use the whip a lot to swing between platforms.  
And they’ll usually give you a little hint with 
an icon in the top right corner. The timing is  
pretty exact, so you’ll want to get some practice 
in during the first few levels. The combat in this  
game is interesting. The focus is on hand-to-hand 
combat, and it feels satisfying when you’re doing  
a combo on somebody. It really feels like you’re 
beating the [whip crack] out of these guys. But  
sometimes it’s the other way around. They do take 
a lot of hits to go down for good, and there’s not  
a lot of bullets for the guns in the game. You 
can also pick other weapons up off the ground,  
but given how many hits these guys can take, I’m 
not sure the developers knew what a machete is.  
One of my frustrations with this game is that 
there aren’t any checkpoints in the levels,  
combined with the fact that some of the jumps are 
extremely tricky. The levels are relatively short,  
but there’s nothing worse than spending 15 
minutes making your way through a level,  
then missing some ridiculous jump or getting 
overwhelmed by enemies towards the end of a stage.  
They really throw a lot of instant death 
at you, especially in the later levels,  
so there’s some element of trial and error. 
Luckily, the load times are nearly non-existent,  
so you can get right back into the action.
Some of the deaths are complete BS.
Are you kidding me?!
I fell through that little gap between 
the train steps and the platform!  
This is actually one of my worst nightmares in 
real life, fully realized in video game form.  
Sometimes you can run right through the level, 
zipping past enemies without a care in the world.  
Other times, you have to kill all the enemies so 
that a door unlocks that lets you move on, and  
it’s not always clear when you need to do that. So 
if you find yourself stuck, try getting rid of all  
the enemies first. One little detail that I love, 
is how Indy’s hat can fall off in battle, and you  
can go pick it back up. You recover your health by 
drinking water at fountains placed in each level.  
You can also fill up your canteen as a reserve 
to take a drink whenever you’re low on health.  
I don’t know, there’s something 
inexplicably wholesome about this.  
“Hold on guys, time out. Gotta hydrate!”
Jones: Reminds me of my last date.
There’s also medkits throughout the level,
usually in these breakable crates, that fully restore your health, and they  
really come in handy. There were definitely times 
in this game when I missed the modern trend of  
having automatic healing. One level in particular 
put a fountain right at the end of the level.  
Despite being low on health, I had to run past it 
because I was getting bombarded by the enemies.  
Little did I know, the next level was a boss 
battle, and let me tell you, it was not a good  
time starting that level with very low health. 
There’s a good number of swimming sections,  
which could have been a disaster. Swimming in 
games isn’t always done right. But luckily,  
Indy swims fast and is pretty easy to control. 
And oftentimes, you’re not the only one in the  
water. I almost screamed the first time this 
happened. There’s also some on-rails first  
person shooting segments that aren’t great, 
because the aiming controls are a little stiff.  
But it does give you something different to 
do, and I appreciate that.
Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb is an action-adventure 
classic, but it’s not without its flaws.  
The platforming can be frustrating, and the lack 
of checkpoints makes this game feel as ancient  
as the artifacts that Indy is digging up. But 
if you have about 15 hours of patience for an  
old school game with a great soundtrack and 
interesting puzzles, this one’s a lot of fun.

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