Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom brought the atmosphere of the film of the same name from 1984 to arcade machines just a year after its premiere, at a time when the movie's whip-and-hat adventures were still building the reputation of one of the most successful adventure stories of the decade. Atari Games built the game around a series of action sequences in which Indy fights his way through temple complexes, escapes mine cart chases, and frees enslaved villagers, with his iconic whip remaining his main weapon, used by the player both to attack enemies and to swing across chasms.

The gameplay alternates side-view platforming sections with fast sequences where obstacles and enemies must be dodged at high speed – very much in the spirit of the film chases for which the movie is famous. The graphics use the colorful raster backgrounds typical of the mid-1980s, and the musical themes reference the film's score, albeit in the limited form the sound chips of the time allowed. The individual levels flow smoothly into one another, so the player goes through a compact, abbreviated version of the film's story.

The game never achieved the fame of the later Indiana Jones titles on home consoles, but it remains an interesting example of how quickly Atari Games managed to turn a fresh film license into a playable arcade machine. For fans of collectible brands, it is a nice record of the early era of film adaptations in arcades, when studios competed to see who could bring a game to market first.

Why play it: It offers fast platforming action inspired by a beloved adventure film and shows what a film license turned into a coin-op machine looked like in the mid-1980s.