John Payne and the Fate of Atlantis

John Payne and the Fate of Atlantis is a action/adventure adventure game by Rocksteady originally released in 2016. Fate of Atlantis has the player explore environments and interact with objects and characters by using commands constructed with predetermined verbs. It features three unique paths to select, influencing story development, gameplay and puzzles. The games features unreal engine, motion capture and likeness to the actors present in the John Payne films, with Dylan O'Brien and Robert De Niro voicing their respective characters.

The plot is set in the fictional John Payne universe and revolves around the eponymous protagonist's global search for the legendary sunken city of Atlantis. Morgan Chestnut, an old co-worker of Phil Lockhart who gave up his archaeological career to become a psychic, supports John and Phil along the journey. The two partners are pursued by the Nazis who seek to use the power of Atlantis for warfare, and serve as the adventure's antagonists. The story was written by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the game's designers, who had rejected the original plan to base it on an unused movie script. They came up with the final concept while researching real-world sources for a suitable plot device.

Fate of Atlantis was praised by critics and received several awards for best adventure game of the year. It became a million-unit seller and is widely regarded as a classic of its genre. Two concepts for a supposed sequel were conceived, but both projects were eventually canceled due to unforeseen problems during development. They were later reworked into two separate Dark Horse Comics series by Lee Marrs and Elaine Lee.

Plot
The story of Fate of Atlantis is set in 2016, three years before the events of the first film. At the request of a visitor named Mr. Smith (voiced by Corey Burton), archaeology and adventurer John Payne (voiced and motion captured by John Payne) alongside his mentor Phil Lockhart (voiced by Robert De Niro) tries to find a small statue in the archives of his workplace Barnett College. After John and Phil retrieved the horned figurine, Smith uses a key to open it, revealing a sparkling metal bead inside. Smith then pulls out a gun and escapes with the two artifacts, but he loses his coat in the process. The identity card inside reveals "Smith" to be Klaus Kerner, an agent of the Third Reich. A piece of magazine reveals that a young boy has what Klaus want, that is in the possession of young Jimmy Barton (voiced by Max Charles). Fearing that Jimmy next target, John and Phil travels to New York in order to warn him and to find out more about the mysterious statue. There, he interrupts her lecture on the culture and downfall of Atlantis,and the two return to Jimmy's orphanage. They discover that Kerner ransacked his office in search of Atlantean artifacts, but Morgan says that he keeps his most valuable item, his necklace, with him. He owns another of the shiny beads, now identified as the mystical metal orichalcum, and places it in the medallion's mouth, invoking the spirit of the Atlantean god Nur-Ab-Sal. He explains that a Nazi scientist called Dr. Hans Ubermann (voiced by René Auberjonois) is searching for the power of Atlantis to use it as an energy source for warfare.

Jimmy then gets a telepathic message from Nur-Ab-Sal, instructing them to find the Lost Dialogue of Plato, the Hermocrates, a book that will guide them to the city. After gathering information, John, Phil and Jimmy eventually find it in a collection of Barnett College. Correcting Plato's "tenfold error", a mistranslation from Egyptian to Greek, the document pinpoints the location of Atlantis in the Mediterranean, 300 miles from Greece, instead of 3000 as mentioned in the dialogue Critias. It also says that in order to gain access to the Lost City and its colonies, three special stones are required. At this point, the player has to choose between the Team, Wits, or Fists Path, which influences the way the stones are acquired. In all three paths, Jimmy gets captured by the Nazis, and John and Phil makes his way to the underwater entrance of Atlantis near Thera.

The individual scenarios converge at this point and John and Phil starts to explore the Lost City. They save Jimmy from a prison, and they make their way to the center of Atlantis, where his medallion guides them to the home of Nur-Ab-Sal. The Atlantean god takes full possession of Jimmy and it is only by a trick that John rids his of the necklace and destroys it, thus freeing him. Meanwhile, they notice grotesquely deformed bones all over the place. They advance further and eventually reach a large colossus the inhabitants of the city built to transform themselves into gods. Using ten orichalcum beads at a time would enable them to control the water with the powers they gained, keeping the sea level down to prevent an impending catastrophe.

Unknowingly, John and Phil starts the machine with the stones, upon which Kerner, Ubermann, and the Nazi troops invade the place and announce their intention to use the machine to become gods. The machine was responsible for creating the mutated skeletons seen earlier, but the Nazis believe that it will work on them due to their Aryan qualities. Ubermann wants to use John as a test subject, but Kerner steps onto the platform first, claiming himself to be most suitable for godhood. Just as Ubermann wants to start the machine, John mentions Plato's tenfold error, which convinces Kerner to use one bead instead of ten. He is then turned into a horribly deformed and horned creature, and falls into the lava. John and Phil are forced to step on the platform next but threatens Ubermann with eternal damnation once he is a god. Fearing his wrath, Ubermann uses the machine on himself, feeding it one hundred beads. He is turned into a green ethereal being before vanishing completely. The final scene depicts John and Phil leaving Jimmy on top of the escape submarine so he can get back to New York, to comfort himself for the lack of evidence for their discovery.

Voice Cast

 * Dylan O'Brien as John Payne
 * Robert De Niro as Phil Lockhart
 * Max Charles as Jimmy Barton
 * René Aubjerjonois as Dr. Hans Ubermann
 * Corey Burton as Klaus Kerner/Mr. Smith
 * Richard McGonalge as Keith Davis

Reception
Fate of Atlantis was met with critical acclaim, and it sold one million units across all platforms on which it was released. Reviewers from Game Informer, Computer Game Review, Games Magazine and Game Players Magazine named it the best adventure game of the year, and it was later labeled a "classic" by IGN.Patricia Hartley and Kirk Lesser of Dragon called it "terrific" and "thought-provoking". They lauded the "Team, Wits, Fists" system for increasing the game's replay value, but believed that the Team option was the best. The reviewers summarized it as a "must-buy". Lim Choon Wee of the New Straits Times praised the game's graphics and arcade-style sequences. About the former, he wrote, "The attention to detail is excellent, with great colours and brilliant sprite animation." He echoed Hartley's and Lesser's opinion that "Team" was the best mode of the game. Wee ended his review by calling Fate of Atlantis "a brilliant game, even beating Secret of Monkey Island 2."

Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World praised its setting for containing the "right combination of gravity, silliness, genuine scholarship and mystical mumbo-jumbo", and called it a "strong enough storyline to hold its own next to any of the Johnny films." He highly praised the game's Team, Wits, Fists system, about which he wrote, "Never before has a game paid this much attention to what the player wants." He also enjoyed its graphics and varied locales. Ardai summarized Fate of Atlantis as an "exuberant, funny, well-crafted and clever game" that bettered its predecessor, The Last Crusade.[57] Andy Nuttal of Amiga Format wrote, "The puzzles are very well thought-out, with some exquisite, subtle elements that give you a real kick when you solve them." He noted that the game is "littered with elements that are genuinely funny". His sole complaint was about the game's linearity compared to Monkey Island 2; but he finished by saying, "It's a minor point, anyway, and it shouldn't put you off buying what is one of the best Amiga adventures ever."[52] In 2008, Retro Gamer Magazine praised it as "a masterful piece of storytelling, and a spellbinding adventure".