Matt Charlton

Further to my blog post back here it would seem that Lucasarts might be regretting disbanding their adventure game team (most of whom went on to work for telltale games).

They’ve decided to jump on the Steam bandwagon in order to distribute/reawaken their old catalogue.

Starting this Wednesday,games from the back catalogue will be released on Steam for purchase and download.

Lucasarts released this press release:

Future Back-Catalog Announcements to be Made at http://twitter.com/lucasartsgames.
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Back by Popular Demand, LOOM, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and
Star Wars Battlefront II Headline List of Games Soon to be Available via Direct
Download!
LucasArts Continues Initiative to Revive Classic Gaming Titles

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – July 6, 2009 – Fans have asked and LucasArts has
delivered!  Today the company announced a new initiative in its effort to revive its
classic and beloved franchises by making its games available for the first time ever as
digital downloads online.

In this first round of releases, ten fan-favorite LucasArts PC games will be made
available Wednesday, July 8 on Steam®, Valve Corporation’s delivery and management
platform for the PC.  Scheduled for release are classic adventure titles like LOOM and
The Dig and hit action games including Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars Republic
Commando.

The complete list of games to be released on July 8 via Steam includes:

• Armed and Dangerous™
• Indiana Jones® and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones® and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
• LEGO® Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure
• LOOM™
• Star Wars Battlefront® II
• Star Wars Republic Commando®
• Star Wars Starfighter™
• The Dig®
• Thrillville®: Off the Rails™

“This effort is going to make it possible to introduce a whole new generation of gamers to
LucasArts’ classic games,” said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts.  “It also gives
more people a chance to play our games by making them available long after they’ve
disappeared from store shelves.  We hope our fans are as excited as we are about our
plans and we can’t wait to share what’s coming next.  This is just the beginning.”

This series of launches continues LucasArts’ new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio
of beloved gaming franchises.

LucasArts previously announced the return of the classic Monkey Island® franchise with
two new projects due to be released in the near future. Tomorrow, July 7, Telltale will
premiere the Tales of Monkey Island® game series on PC, delivering a completely new
epic storyline and swashbuckling flair that will unfold across five monthly episodes.  The
first Tales of Monkey Island chapter is expected to release for WiiWare™ in the coming
weeks as well.

The Monkey Island celebration continues on July 15 when LucasArts publishes The
Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, a completely re-imagined version of the first
game in the series that adds updated high definition graphics, a re-mastered musical
score, and full voiceover to the classic adventure game originally launched in 1990.  The
Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be made available on Xbox LIVE® Arcade
for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and PC via
Steam and other online distribution channels.

Future announcements about the re-release of LucasArts’ back catalog titles will be made
through LucasArts’ Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lucasartsgames.

About Steam
The leading online platform for PC games and digital entertainment, Steam delivers new
releases and online services to over 20 million PC users around the world. For more
information, please visit www.steamgames.com.

About Valve
Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based
in Bellevue, Washington. For more information, please visit www.valvesoftware.com

About LucasArts
LucasArts, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd., is a leading developer
and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide for video game console
systems, computers and the Internet. Based in San Francisco, Calif., as well as on the
Internet at www.lucasarts.com, LucasArts was created in 1982 by George Lucas to
provide an interactive element to his vision of a state-of-the-art, multifaceted
entertainment company.

LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. © 2009 Lucasfilm Entertainment
Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or TM as indicated. All rights reserved.
Nintendo trademarks used under license.  WiiWare is available only through the Wii console.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m a little disappointed with this initial run of releases.  I had a feeling that this might be what the announcement teased by @lucasartsgames on Twitter was going to be but I had hoped that we might be seeing a Full Throttle 2 or Day of The Tentacle 2 (maniac mansion 3) maybe even a revival of the X-Wing series.  I remember hearing the news that Full Throttle 2 had been canned – and Sam and Max 2.  I was distraught.  Telltale games did a good job with Sam and Max but it just didn’t feel right.  I hope they do a better job with the new episodic Monkey Island games (first one is out tomorrow – woo!)

Joystiq have the following quote up from Lucasarts president :

“We have the plans in our back pocket and if things go extremely well, we’ll roll out those plans and put them into action.”

He also hints at possible iPhone releases.

Who knows – if theres enough interest in the back catalogue, they might look to bringing back some of the classics.  I’ve seen it said that the Adventure game genre is dead – that’s bullshit.  It’s alive, well and waiting for the next best thing.

I am rubber, you are glue.

Towards the end of November the Fall update for the Xbox 360 will be released. 

Traditionally this has contained a large number of bugfixes with the occasional new feature.  Last year saw the support (finally) for xvid avi files and a number of other things. 

Over the last few months it has become apparent to anyone using an Xbox 360, particulary for marketplace purchases that something isn’t quite right.  Due to the way that the spoke and menu selection systems work, once you get a lot of content, it can be very hard to navigate through and find exactly what you want.  Browsing XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) titles can be very tedious. 

Details on what exactly will be changing can be found here:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/nxe/

We’re getting avatars and allsorts :p

Towards the end of last week, Major Nelson – Microsoft’s Xbox Live Directory of Programming posted a tweet with a teaser to keep an eye on his blog because news of how people can get the NXE would be appearing shortly. 

Sure enough on Friday night I checked majornelson.com and found the details and a link to the survey you had to fill out.  I signed up and started to fill the survey out, then noticed I needed my console ID.  I was in York and the 360 was back in Bradford.  FAIL.

I gave it up as a bad job and by the morning signups were full anyway.  Oh well, I can wait a few weeks it doesn’t matter.

When I got home today, I decided to have a look, just to see if the signups were still closed.  I clicked the link and signed into Microsoft Connect to see the same error message as other people have been seeing.  The only difference was I had a link in the side bar to “available surveys” – the NXE one was there, probably because I’d started it but not submitted. 

Filled out the info and sent in – we’ll see if I make the cut when the emails get sent out at the end of the week. 

It’d be nice to get to grips with the new features before everyone else.  Will also give me a chance to write a half decent review, which would be fun.