Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

2024: my gaming year in review

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This entry is part 12 of 12 in the series Gaming year in review / Game of the Year Awards

Better late than never!

Every year I publish a recap of that year in gaming. 2024 was a good year in terms of new releases, spread across several different genres.

Overall, including titles from previous years (mostly old favourites that I replayed) skewed my gaming heavily towards strategy.

What new releases did I play in 2024?

Indy enjoys a quiet moment.

The new releases I played were a mix of genres — these included:

Which new releases were my favourites?

My picks for Game of the Year are WARNO and Metaphor: Refantazio, both of which I wrote about.

  • WARNO successfully iterated on Eugen’s real-time tactics formula, and gave me many hours of fun during an often-challenging period.
  • I picked up Metaphor: Refantazio late in the year, and it wowed me with its style, dungeon-crawling, and character interactions.

The runners-up

I would place Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just a notch below. This is not so much the game’s fault as a matter of personal taste — later areas moved away from the verticality, focus on freeform exploration, and gorgeous architecture that enchanted me so much in the first area, the Vatican.

Unicorn Overlord is mechanically excellent and in terms of sheer hours, was one of the games I played most in 2024. Had the writing been better, it would be higher up my list.

What titles from previous years did I discover or revisit?

After 13 years!

There were a lot of beefy, evergreen strategy games:

  • I revisited Old World and Crusader Kings III in response to the release of new DLCs. Old World, in particular, is a perennial on my end-of-year lists.
  • Anno 1800 is another perennial. I even put together a to-do list on pen and paper, as I continued working through the tremendous amount of content in the game. 
  • Inspired by the excellent new Shogun TV series, I revisited Total War: Shogun 2 — and finally won as the Oda clan, the first clan I ever tried!
  • I revisited Terra Invicta and found it coming along well, two years after it launched into Early Access.
  • I revisited Emperor of the Fading Suns (link to my original write-up from back in 2011), a classic 1990s 4X game that has been updated and re-released on GOG.
  • I kept playing Rule the Waves 3, a 2023 release.
  • I also tried Fantasy General 2, Field of Glory 2: Medieval, and 40K: Gladius for the first time (and dusted off FOG2‘s predecessor, Sengoku Jidai). While its production values are limited, Fantasy General 2 made a good impression on me.
Fighting a field boss in Elden Ring.

Non-strategy games included:

  • Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was my favourite game of 2023, and I finished in 2024.
  • I revisited Elden Ring and made it most of the way through the base game — up to the Fire Giant — as well as starting on the DLC.
  • A Legionary’s Life was the standout “short-form” game I discovered in 2024.
  • Revisiting Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord took much of the shine off (my original write-up from 2020), as this time the core gameplay loop felt much more repetitive. But what it does (spectacular battles), it does well.
  • I discovered and enjoyed Suzerain’s base game, leading me to pick up the “Kingdom of Rizia” DLC.
  • Potionomics is charming, although its central loop (brew potions, sell potions, buy ingredients to make more potions, repeat) hasn’t kept me engaged as long as some of the other games on this list.
  • I continued my snail’s-pace progress through Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
  • We Love Katamari Reroll was as charming as ever.
  • No list of ongoing perennials would be complete without Mario Kart 8: Deluxe.

Site news

2024 was a productive year for the site!

I resurrected Musical Monday, with a mix of game, anime, movie, and even classical music.

Besides games, I also wrote about books (Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series), and movies (Dune: Part 2).

On a technical note, I switched to a new theme, GeneratePress.

Upcoming releases

There’s only one game release on my radar, the imminent Civilization VII.

In terms of hardware, I am very interested in the upcoming Switch 2. If Nintendo releases it at a reasonable price and with a decent launch library (a new Mario Kart is already visible in the trailer video), then I’ll look to buy it as soon as I can after launch.

I look forward to seeing you around for the rest of the year.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — first impressions

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a wonderfully atmospheric first-person game that impressed me nearly from the start. I am enjoying it much, more than I thought I would, thanks to its focus on exploration, its rich and vivid environments, and its attention to detail.

A classic Indiana Jones moment.

What do you do in the game?

To steal a phrase, I could best describe Great Circle as an “Indy simulator”. It involves a mix of:

  • Narrative and cutscenes;
  • Stealth action — dodging or knocking out guards.
  • Navigating the environment and searching for a way to reach the next objective — for instance, across a rooftop or through a tunnel.
  • Solving puzzles, including one that required me to take out a pen and paper to solve a cypher (the cursive handwriting was the trickiest part);
  • Helping NPCs with quests;
  • Finding secrets and collectibles. These include landmarks that Indy can photograph, such as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Different areas and sequences, or different sub-locations within an area, focus on different parts of this mix. For example, the Vatican is the game’s first major hub and includes everything, whereas the preceding Castel Sant’Angelo is a pure stealth action area.

Indy disguised as a priest…
… and as a Blackshirt.
Disguises make it easier for Indy to move around.

My fear was that the game would be too combat-centric, but that hasn’t been the case at all. Playing on normal, and taking basic precautions such as sticking to cover in restricted areas and looking for improvised weapons in the environment, so far I can beat regular guards via stealth KOs or, if that fails, by mashing buttons. Optional challenges are harder — there is a boxing competition side quest where I can’t get past the second opponent. Perhaps I should come back later? (Hilariously, every time Indy is knocked out, the announcer says things such as “Defeat builds character!” and “At least you tried!” I wonder if he’s addressing Indy or the player?)

Stealth, action, and humour: how many games let you stealth KO guards by using musical instruments?

What do I like about it?

Great Circle is full of atmosphere, rewarding the player for discovery and exploration.

What made me fall in love with the game was Marshall College, the fictitious institution where Indy teaches. It feels like a warm, cosy place of learning, complete with a small museum (you can even read the placards if you look closely!), a student lounge, and flyers advertising a chess club.

That belongs in a — wait…

If Marshall College was the appetiser, the Vatican — where I currently am — is a main course. Its in-game visuals are sumptuous, from its architecture to the artwork on the walls, and prompted me to look up some of the real-life landmarks that appear in the game. On a more down-to-earth level, the little details are just as impressive: the boxing ring is crowded with cheering spectators, the intruding Blackshirts have a laundry tent (where I stole a disguise), and even the food — such as biscotti and cornetti — is lovingly detailed.

The voice acting and the dialogue also deserve praise. Again, the game wowed me as early as Marshall College, when Indy’s friendship with Marcus Brody shone through.

A final, related note is the humour.  Some of the NPC chatter has made me laugh aloud — and several cutscenes (Indy joining the boxing competition and being roped into hearing a confession) made me roar.

Conclusions

So far — I’m near the end of the Vatican  — Great Circle is excellent. Arguably, it fulfills the promise of Assassin’s Creed better than that series did — a lavish, AAA exploration of stylised historical settings.

If future areas live up to this standard, this will be Game of the Year material.

Further reading

Great Circle has excellent review scores — Metacritic 87, Opencritic 87.