Hi guys,

I'm about to embark on my first ever playthrough of Indiana Jones on N64, a game I've been waiting YEARS to experience and only now have finally obtained a copy. I've been doing a little research on the game, as I do with many of the games I wish to play, and I have read numerous horror stories of the game crashing and glitching and soft-locking and what have you.

What I'm looking for is the experience of those who have played and/or beaten this game, with some quick, simple do's and don't's to help me avoid serious pitfalls. For example, I know the game has a quick save feature, which I have read it is important to utilise often. However, I have also heard that saving at the WRONG time can softlock the game and make it unbeatable. So I need to know when is safe to save, and when not to. Also, any other major problems I can skirt around or mitigate would be great.

I'm actually really excited to get started soon, even if I have tempered my expectations somewhat!

On my last playthrough I didn't experince any of these issues. On the river level there is a place were you put 4 candles on a pedestal. If you have less then 4 then save and quit, wen you return the candles would be back in your inventory not where you placed them.
Are these glitches that people complain about the same as the glitches in Ayden Chronicles? Where they are emulator issues that don't happen with original hardware?

Hmm, good point, I'm not sure about that actually. All I know is that whenever the game's brought up, at least someone starts to mention something about glitches!

River level, candles, duly noted!  

I've always owned it since it came out and I don't mean a former rental. The game has serious bugs with it because it was released basically borderline unfinished.

The major problem with the game that's at any time on any stage without any variable possible to help it is a memory hole of some sort. You'll get to where the thing gets corrupt or dumps more into memory than it can sort or organize and the game will crash as you play. You'll sometimes get a warning slowdown or little else, or it just slams dead on the spot and it sucks. When it dies it can be stuck or you get this rainbow spread of pixels and just weird stuff happening, audio can get stuck too, and only flipping the power off stops it as reset won't even help. There is no fix, so just remember, save and save often, make it your job to remember to save every 15-30min, whatever you're comfortable with.

There is a crash bug I know from reading around and I remember from back then too so I have checked it more recently, but one of the earlier stages you end it by riding this like one man cable car over a ravine, but you can't just get in it. There are these like crates in the way, and I guess if you just try and move the one crate blocking you by logically doing the easiest thing, pulling it, the game will lock up 100% of the time and you lose all your work from that stage. If you end up doing a mix of pulling and pushing from walking to the other side of the crate though, the problem doesn't happen which is just weird.

As I remember none of this will change things if you are or are not using the 4MB RAM expansion module too. Shame it can't be so easily fixed as the game is a superior release to the PC version and one of the best used games that optionally uses the added RAM in a very positive way.

Yeah, I heard something about that block pushing puzzle. I'll definitely check out the right strategy to make sure I don't get stuck at that bit, thanks!

I looked it up, it needs to move 3 times so you can get around to the cable car to finish the stage. Pull - push - pull. If you pull it twice or third time is the charm with pull 2 causing the trap to spring, the game dies.

Geez, what a game-breaking glitch. Imagine how many people tried that part again and again and eventually said fuck it lol.
 

If you power off and on often enough to reinitialize memory you might be able to stay ahead of crashes from memory leaks. For regular saving, set a timer on your phone. When it goes off dismiss it without acknowledging it so that it will go off again in 10 minutes or whatever. That will be your reminder to save often.  

Yeah the whole game is a love-depression thing. I did some digging as this site is huge on the game too, seems I'm not the only huge Indiana Jones fan who put up with this amazing atrocity. If it is to be believed and I see no reason why not, if this game mostly got shelved to peddle the Star Wars license given Episode 1 came out at the time with 2 coming up, I can see why it is that broken. If you take a team and greedily put it on one game while basically demeaning and diminishing the other to a single worker and a piddly web release followed by a blockbuster rental platform doing the minimum Nintendo order on it, it's no surprise. The only real surprise would be that Nintendo gave up caring about their own technical standards and did not demand at least that bug was fixed, but even more so the rainbow pixel splatter hard lock bug that requires the power switch to get pulled to stop as reset gets stuck too.

You'd have to wonder if Nintendo at the time hard up for releases waiting on the Gamecube would let a lot of bad stuff slide just to have a shelf presence, though it's just so much more insulting it had to be such a popular franchise title to get rubbed so badly.

I have not looked at the game much in the last 10 years or so, but what I can remember was that only that crate pull push pull thing was the only 100% reproduceable crash bug which should have been fixed. The rainbow mess or just random lockups that could happen too, that's more of I would think a stability issue in accessing the system memory or allocating it where it was needed as something, some variables causes those hang ups. They'd be maybe a little harder to track down but should have been. I wanted to give up on the game so much because of that garbage, but I just would save and save often trying hard to commit any moves or discoveries to memory so I wouldn't lose much time at all after I realized it wasn't infrequently random and entirely annoying.

Would resetting the system suffice to reinitialise the memory, or would it require a full power down to accomplish?

That's exactly why I want to find all this stuff out before I play, because I REALLY want to like this game! I figure that if I have the fullest possible knowledge in preparation, so I know what to expect and can also temper my expectations, then I will hopefully get the best experience I can!

Resetting is probably enough, but games don't always reinitialize memory when they reset. It's why the last track or racer you played with in Super Mario Kart might still be selected when you reset and why the High Score doesn't disappear in Super Mario Bros. What will likely happen is that all the important stuff gets written to memory again and the memory leak will start over, same as a full power cycle, but it really depends on how the game was programmed.

This is all assuming there even is a DK64-style memory leak...

I know I didn't work on the game, but I'll add this, resetting alone won't fix it. I already said as much anyway, when the type of memory bug going on here starts you probably won't see it as it goes into a progression you will notice before it dies. But once it does go over only the power switch works, reset button is dead to trying to stop it, so resetting I don't think would be enough to clear anything in advance. Just play the game and save often, when/if it fails, flip it off and back on again to continue. That's really the only working advice outside of the crate thing.

Oh boy, shit just got real! Found my first candle on the River level!  

Only one crash so far, a soft lock I was able to reset out of. Really enjoying the game actually, loads of puzzles, platforming and cool action so far, plus an interesting story, which I normally don't really care about when I play games. Neat!  

Lol, LITERALLY just after I posted that, I had my first hard crash, no reset possible, lol!

Oh well, not bothered, I've been saving basically constantly, especially after picking up items and treasure, so c'est la vie!

I know I keep bringing it up, but that river level sucks! It has been a while since I last played and I can still remember the frustration of trying to get down the different paths on the river and having the current make me just miss the path I wanted. Then having to start the process over just to miss the path again. The ground based levels were enjoyable Tomb Raider clone.

Yeah, I know what you mean. The control is really weak on the boat, and you are basically screwed if you hit any of the rocks. I have found that hugging the walls and holding on the brake most of the time helps to avoid the rocks and try to get down the right paths.

I am down for the night, so I'm not playing right now. I managed to find three of the four candles so far, just the blue one to go. I think I know where it is, there's a big room with barrels hanging from the ceiling that go up and down. I think I've got to jump across them somehow, but I haven't figured it out yet! I'll give it another go tomorrow, and see if I can work it out then.

Good game so far tho, very happy with my purchase!  

Isn't there an unlimited supply of boat patch kits near where you get the inflatable boat? Just bring a bunch and then the rocks aren't really a huge concern.

I have very fond memories of this game on the PC as a kid, years later as a teen I beat the N64 version, I don't remember many crashes. The N64 version has some nice improvements over the PC version like assigning items/weapons to the C buttons and updated visuals.

Oh right! I only grabbed one of the kits, and I haven't used it because I figured there's not much point. If your raft sinks, you just start again at the top of the river, there's no penalty to dying so you can just keep trying over and over if you need to.

I have been very impressed, at times, with the visuals in this game. Certainly, the interlaced graphics offer decent resolution with the expansion pak enabled, and the environments are nicely designed. However, the character models are low poly and seem oddly proportioned at times. For example, Indy himself seems to have a disproportionately large head on a rather spindly frame. Also, I swear one of the bad guys in a cutscene tilted his head and it looked as though his neck was clean snapped in two, lol!

Item management on the C buttons is a plus, and the combat with Z targetting is actually pretty good once you get used to it. Also, I really like the lighter! Actually one of the very few times where active lighting effects in an N64 game significantly and positively influence the gameplay, rather than being a gimmick. I really do feel like Indy when I crouch into a dark corner and flick my lighter to get a better look at some ancient inscriptions or remains!  
 

Booyah! Four candles or fork handles, either way they're in place!  

Nice to see some progress here being made on that game. I'd be tempted to try it myself again but time just isn't on my side anymore. I'd have to sell another console or two off to remove the distraction and that's not happening. Keep up with the updates it's nice to see that gem of a game going on again.

Also aside from what you said were additions, it also had an entire extra stage as well. What got me was just how amazing it is that (4MB pack installed) it runs entirely without loss in 640x480 as a match to the PC version, further it doesn't lose the quality sound track, sound effects, and the long amounts of talked out script either.

Sure thing! My progress is going to be slow, but hopefully steady, I'll probably only have the chance to finish a couple of levels per week. Just finished the 4th level today, with the ice monster boss. The puzzles are getting more interesting and involved now, but also a little more cryptic... Had to look up how to grow the plant on this level, as well as how to beat the boss!

Just on what I've played so far, I'd already say that this is probably the best action adventure game on the N64 (apart from the two Zelda games). That's not a particularly crowded field, of course, but I'm very excited to keep going, just wish I had more time! There's an island looking level now, can't wait to get started.

Btw, the amazing voice samples heard in the game come directly from the unparalleled voice compression technology developed by Factor 5, who also developed this game. Their technology is also seen in other games with a lot of speech on N64, including Pokémon stadium, Resident Evil 2 and their own Star Wars games Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo. I'd argue that next to Nintendo themselves, and Rareware if course, Factor 5 understood how to get the most out of the N64 better than anyone else.

Played a little more at the weekend, a couple of lava levels! Now, normally I'm not a huge fan of lava levels in games, but actually these levels were pretty cool. I still think the best thing about this game is the atmosphere and the adventurous feel exploring these ancient ruins, and I really do get the feeling of being Indiana Jones! The weakest part of the game is probably the platforming, and that really starts to show through in the lava levels. The maneuverability before and during your jumps is really awkward, and you never quite know where you're going to end up or whether Indy will actually grab the ledge you're aiming for. I don't want to criticize the game too harshly for this, as it is not the overriding focus of the game and if you die you can just try again, but there IS quite a lot of platforming in the game so it is a obvious flaw. The combat is also pretty weak, but this is even less of a focus, so it matters less.

Anyway, I'm on to level 8 I think now? It's called Jeep, so I'm guessing I will be driving a Jeep. Sounds fun!  

When I discovered this thread a few days ago and saw that it was actually pretty new, I registered for this forum to share my experiences!
A while ago, I bought a NTSC N64 (I only had a PAL model before), so that I could play "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine". I did eventually get to the last level, which is why I have collected some experience with the game.
However, one of the most fatal glitches I have encountered so far can be found at the very end of the game. It was the main reason for me not being able to beat the game. I got pretty frustrated as I had to start the level all over again for a few times. The glitch occured to me again and again, so I haven't beaten the game until this very day.
Maybe it helps to describe the glitch to you, but I think it's better to wait until you reach the last level, as I don't want to spoil you in any way.

That being said, I also think the save system of the game is pretty frustrating at times (actually, it has something to do with the glitch I mentioned). Depending on when you save, some achievements are not really saved. In the PC version, you can start from exactly where you left. In the N64 version, I feel like it's a bad idea to turn off the game during a level. Often I had to redo some parts because the save states on the N64 are not as detailed as in the PC version.

Like the others said, some glitches cannot really be avoided. Often enough, my game crashed randomly, leaving a colourful pixel stripe across my TV screen. It doesn't really surprise me that the game is that unstable. In fact, it was a pretty ambitious project and the frame drops indicate that the N64 is brought to its limits here. In the final level, the frame rate is so low that I died because I couldn't properly control Indy anymore (I guess it was like 5 FPS).

Welcome to NA Kogoro, good to have you on board!  

I've been getting a little distracted playing some other games recently, but last night I decided I am going to make Indy my sole focus until I beat it from now on. I would actually really appreciate if you could describe the situation you encountered on the last level, so I know what to expect. Honestly I am not to worried about things like spoilers in movies and games too much, so please feel free to spoil away so I can prepare!

I was quite surprised, the last few levels I beat I didn't experience any crashes at all! But, yeah it does feel like it can happen at any time, so I absolutely make sure to save EVERY time I pick up an item or solve a puzzle, so I'm never too far from where I left off. Actually, because I have made myself so aware of the potential problems of the game, I feel as though I have been getting a real enjoyable experience so far with it. Probably if I picked it up without having knowledge of the problems in advance, I would have been quite upset by the experience.

So hopefully this thread can continue to help others find the joy and genuine art and solid design that has gone into this game, and help overlook the flaws!