I've been replaying my favorite game from when I was a kid, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, and I gotta say, it holds up well. The platforming is fun, the environments, despite the limitations of the N64, are beautifully designed and iconic. and the treasures are visually ultra-satisfying: Golden idols and big chunky gemstones in bright primary colors There's a part where you refract light through different colored crystals, and it still turns me into drooling awestruck baby. This and The Mummy are probably what gave me my treasure obsession and led me to become a sculptor.

The plot is that you're scouring the ancient places of the world looking for the scattered tombs of four Babylonian alchemists who built a machine that would access...Heaven? Hell? The Warp? I haven't got to the end yet, but it all seems very Lovecraftian. You're also trying to find this machine before the Soviets do, so they provide an enemy for the gunplay and a target for Indy's hilariously virulent anticommunism. All in all really fun game and a prime example of that 1990s Lucasarts magic. I'm actually learning Unreal Engine now because I want more of this game and goddamnit, I'm willing to do it myself.

Anyway I think that would have been a cooler movie than Temple of Doom.