I planned on giving this a more positive review initially, but now being near the end of the game before the DLC, I can say that this game isn't worth the price tag it's offered.
I like MachineGames. This is coming from somebody who just played through the entirety of the Wolfenstein reboot that MG did, and enjoying them very thoroughly. While The New Order and The Old Blood had their quirks, they were representative of where the engine was at that time. Colossus blew it out of the water with how good it was and set a new precedent, one I hoped to see here again, and boy was that wrong.
Now, I wanted to give this a positive review because even now that I'm nearing the end, I can say that the story (albeit one caveat I will get into later), is and was really good. This is a quintessential Indiana Jones story, and Troy Baker, the legend that he is, breathes life into Indy that I think even Harrison Ford himself could not. If they never make another live action Indiana Jones, they can rest assured that it will have a life beyond Harrison because Troy is just that good of an actor. He sounds like Harrison. Vocal cues are similar. Intonation is similar. He's nailed every aspect of his mannerisms in his voice without copying it 1:1. 10/10 on that front, no notes there. The caveat I mentioned comes in the form of Gina.
I like Gina if she was her own separate story. But if Dial of Destiny showed anything, is that poor acting really grinds on the momentum Indy builds in the show. Gina is a character written pretty decently all things considered, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is the VA execution awful. In high-octane situations where there is a level of tension to maintain, her deliveries just suck. And I know that isn't always fair to say for people, especially foreign actors, but her emotional beats just never strike properly. She's eyecandy to look at sure, but a genuine nuisance to listen to. Let Indy shine on his own. You don't need a secondary character to prop Indy up because he does that all on his own.
Now, for my biggest issue and why I give this a negative review: This is embarrassingly badly optimized. I don't exactly have a 5090, and I have been getting frequent crashes for seemingly benal sequences. Either Proton compatibility is unstable, or this MachineGames just forgot how to properly optimize their games because I did not have this issue with Wolfenstein. For a game that in all honesty looks worse then a game released in 2017, it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hammers my system like I'm running with extreme settings and RT on ultra. This game also just plays very boringly in my opinion. If you're going to be putting yellow paint on everything MG, and like half your mechanics are half baked, the story is all I got keeping me in this game and even that has its bad moments. For 70 dollars, this game is also very ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ short. Like extremely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ short. In a normal economy, this game is worth $40 at most, and I paid $50 for the premium edition during summer sale and still feel like I overpaid. There's so many things and stupidisms that interrupt gameplay that for something that should have taken 30 minutes I end up taking 2 hours on.
Upon finishing it, this game didn't really improve and the DLC was kinda ♥♥♥♥. Definitely not worth how much it's being advertised for, so don't buy it unless it's on a steep sale. Play Wolfenstein I and II instead.
