Indiana Jones it ain't
Now this has to be one of the most bizarre concepts behind a game ever. This was actually a promotional title that was developed to help push sales of some new digital signal processing chips but while it might be interesting for the story behind its creation, the actual game itself is less than stellar. The rather contrived storyline finds the titular hero trying to save a planet (cunningly named after the product the game is trying to flog) from some evil time thieves. What this translates into in terms of gameplay is a sort of maze/puzzle game made up of various mini-games where you leap around a sort of hop-scotch style level or wander around a semi-3D maze and other such delights. The action is punctuated by some truly bizarre conversations and snippets of some extremely techy talk which is likely to go over most people's heads, thanks to its arcane nature but which will educate the keen player as to the nature of the company's products. Really, Engineering Jones is only even vaguely noteworthy as a thing of historical curiosity, being as it was the first game designed to tie in directly and introduce a new product. If you discount this simple fact though, you are left with little of any great interest. The interface is easy enough to pick up, with simple controls, while the visuals at least are vaguely appealing. There's a sort of Purple Saturn Day or Captain Blood look to them, although lacking in the real style of such games, but ultimately the gameplay just isn't strong enough to recommend this to anyone but a true historian.
