I Love: Entering a new catacomb for the first time

What Indiana Jones And The Great Circle gets right better than anything I could have expected is that thrilling sensation of exploration. Combining its musical score, its lighting, and the way Indy moves, makes for this absolutely sensational experience whenever I enter a new cavern or catacomb or mysterious tunnel for the first time.

Indy stoops through doorways, and you can hold your torch aloft to light the way, as beasties scurry away and you semi-automatically reach the torch out to light a nearby lamp. There’s an incredible sense of being the first person to enter this location in a thousand years, of having everything laid out in front of you as yours, your discovery, and most of the time, without that being spoilt by impossibly located enemies.

This might be a me-thing, but one of my pet peeves in movies and games is when the adventurers find the lost, hidden temple, and then somehow the baddies are already inside! Tomb Raider has always been the worst for this, as Lara completes near-impossible obstacle courses through the jungle to find the Mayan ruin, and then guns down the seven people hanging out outside. No!

But not here. Here, unless there’s a narrative justification (like enemies crashing a tractor through the rocky ceiling due to their wild incompetence), Indy (and sometimes a chum) have the place to themselves. The threat comes in the form of ancient traps, tricksy obstacles, and those ghastly scorpions and the like. It’s so much better for it.