Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom is a 1985 action arcade game developed and published by Atari Games, based on the 1984 film of the same name, the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise. It is also the first Atari System I arcade game to include digitized speech, including voice clips of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Amrish Puri as Mola Ram, as well as John Williams' music from the film.
Ports
The arcade game was later ported by U.S. Gold to the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX and ZX Spectrum (developed by Paragon Programming) in 1987. During the same year, Mindscape ported it to the Atari ST and the Commodore 64 (different compared to U.S. Gold's version). In 1989, Mindscape ported it to the Commodore Amiga and personal computers that use MS-DOS. The most well-known home console port is the one for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES version was ported by Tengen in December 1988.
The Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo of America sought to capitalize on both the success of its Nintendo Entertainment System and the Indiana Jones franchise by porting the game to its popular console. The resulting product differed from the arcade version in several aspects, but kept the same underlying premise and style. The plot of the NES version follows the storyline of the original movie.
By December 1988, there were two versions of the game available, distributed by Tengen and Mindscape, although the software itself was identical. After a lawsuit, Tengen's unlicensed version was pulled from the shelves and Mindscape's became the standard. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom gives the player control of Indiana Jones as he makes his way through the temple in a series of 12 levels or "waves." In the final wave, the player must defeat the villain of the film, Mola Ram, on a rope bridge that recreates the final scene in the movie. Reception of the game was generally negative.
Differences in the Console Version
There are several differences between the arcade game and its console adaptation. In the original arcade version, the Sankara Stones were not all found in one location at the end of a wave. Instead, Jones had to travel through a temple every two rounds. In addition, the entire style of play is different and bestows upon the player more weapons and items for Jones to collect from the slave children he frees. Jones was also unable to jump in previous incarnations of the game.
The original arcade version was the first Atari System 1 game to talk to the players using speech capability, a feature lacking in the console version due to the limitations of the hardware. The arcade game, like the console adaptation, obtained its theme music (as well as sound effects that were absent on the NES version) from the film itself.
Skyler Miller, a reviewer at Allgame who compared the console adaptation to the original game, admitted that the graphics are "recognizable," but claims that the version is "missing the much of the original's detail and character." Miller's final judgment is to call it "a passable effort" and to compare unfavourably to the arcade version.
Source: Wikipedia, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Nintendo Entertainment System)" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (arcade game)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.
