The Best 'Indiana Jones' Video Game (That Never Got Made)
Good news for fans of globe-trotting adventures that don't require leaving the Cheeto-encrusted comfort of the sofa cushion crater you call home, there's going to be a new Indiana Jones video game featuring an "original story" that's hopefully about some magical ancient artifact and not Indy getting MeToo-ed out of academia. Judging from the teaser, it seemingly features Dr. Jones enjoying a cup of coffee while rearranging his needlessly cluttered desk space.
Of course, this isn't the first Indiana Jones video game; the character has a long history of electronic escapades, from the Atari game in which Indy unearths a golden pixelated blob, AKA the Ark of the Covenant --
-- to the bootleg text-based game that turned Dr. Jones into a Czech anti-government protest hero. Sadly, what could have been one of the greatest Indiana Jones games was never made. The regrettably-canceled Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix was to be the follow-up to 1992's Fate of Atlantis, and would have found Indy, not unlike a future boy wizard, searching for the Philosopher's Stone. Why? Because the Nazis wanted to use the mythical rock to necromance Hitler back into existence. The ending would have found Indy journeying to South America and witnessing "Hitler's face melt and explode, Ark of the Covenant-style."
The game was scrapped partly because, while Germany was a more "lucrative" market than the U.S., they banned Nazi symbolism from toys and video games. That meant that, even though it literally ends with the Fuhrer being liquified, the game couldn't be sold there. The story wasn't abandoned completely and later got adapted in a Dark Horse comic, which retained the zombie-Nazi storyline, but changed it to focus on a fictional character who still kind of looked like Hitler.
Indy later sought the Philosopher's Stone in a 1995 novel, which, incidentally, featured a throwaway prologue in which he tracked down a Crystal Skull without having to crawl inside any home appliances.
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Top Image: Dark Horse Comics
