World of Warcraft has a long tradition of including homages to other media in totally awesome, unexpected ways. I could — and people have — filled pages of the ‘net with these Easter Eggs, so I rarely bother even mentioning them.
Other times however, Blizzard adds something to their magnum opus that is just too damn cool to not point out.
To wit: Harrison Jones, an Indiana Jones stand-in who joined the game with the recent Cataclysm expansion.
It would be easy to just add a new dude with a fedora and whip, but Blizzard really went all out. The game now includes an hours-long quest line that basically retells Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as a whole new class of Nazi analogues for you to fight (and begrudgingly work for thanks to a certain Belloc-themed Blood Elf, and a Goblin best described as the love child of Heinrich Himmler and Trent Reznor).
I try hard not to just infodump my adventures in Azeroth onto the average person, but sometimes shit in there just gets too cool and if I don’t publicly geek out about it I’ll likely pop an o-ring.
I lolled my way though this ENTIRE questline. It never really gets old either. right down to *spoiler alert* when you find Brann in the Coffer of Promise. Best media tie-in I’ve seen yet.
Harrison Jones actually existed in the last expansion too, doing a questline in Grizzly Hills (http://www.wowhead.com/quest=12082).
He’s also an Archaeology trainer in Stormwind, and reenacts his classroom scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Awesome awesome tie-ins. 🙂