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
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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.

They just don’t make them like they used to.

That’s an overused term by all accounts these days and is often applied to so very many things.  Many of these things are pure nostalgic throwbacks with rose tinted glasses to a “better” time when things were different. 

I think computer gaming is one area where this is a valid figure of speech, for the most part.  I know there are some pretty damn good games out these days across a wide variety of platforms, but something keeps taking me back to the good old days. 

There are some games which I wish we could erase from history, but others where I’m really glad that conservative efforts such as ScummVM are keeping the dreams alive. 

I’ve spent most of this evening playing through Day of the Tentacle.  I remember first buying this from a computer fair oh so many years ago.  The game came with a hints FAQ that was sealed with a sticker to prevent accidental exposure to puzzle hints.  I also seem to remember a lot of fun with the sound.  Back in the days when memmaker ruled and it was all about the first 640kb of RAM. 

You had to have a special bootdisk for games that only loaded your sound card drivers and your cd-rom drive drivers, special autoexec.bat and config.sys, heh that was fun.  Probably explains why I like poking around in a Linux console so much too. 

Today’s gamers never had it so easy with their plug and play technology.  I remember plug and play when we used to call it plug and pray.  I also remember having a PC mag that detailed the upcoming processor technology named MMX (MultiMedia eXtensions).  I think the POD racing game was one of the first games to take advantage of that. 

Heh, that was back when you could have a Cyrix CPU too, wow, memories are flooding back now.

Anyway, Day of the tentacle.  It’s all about the story.  All of those Lucasarts classics – The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle.  Even the non-LA games like Beneath a Steel sky.  I can sit down and play through these games from start to finish and have fun – even though I’ve played the game a gazillion times before.  It’s like watching a really good movie.  An interactive movie.  Where I call the shots.

“if my body were being controlled by some demented, sadistic puppet-master”

Bernard Bernoulli- Day Of The Tentacle

Sure your First Person Shooters are good for a bit of mindless fun (and some are good for thinking fun – bioshock is a thinker for example), but the point and click adventure game is your thinking man’s game.  Where you can take your time to work out just what you need to do with the rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle or just who you need to speak to in order to find out the secret of Monkey Island(TM). 

You couldn’t die (for the most part), there was never a case of you doing something so stupid that you couldn’t complete your task) and you could always find a way to get ahead in navigating. 

There’s no doubt that I like a broad variety of games, but these particular ones hold a special place in my heart.  It’s a shame that so many companies felt that the time had passed and cancelled such projects as Sam and Max 2 (which turned into a bunch of episodic games, weren’t a patch on the original though) and Full Throttle 2 (WHY LUCASARTS, WHY????).

Before the PC, I remember having Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island on the Atari ST.  No messing around with memmaker on that system :p

Monkey Island is a particular favourite of mine too.  The first two are probably the only ones written in the true spirit of the whole thing, probably because they were done by Ron Gilbert.  Some of the dialogue in that game is just simply priceless.  Without a doubt the best part of the game for me is when you’re learning the skills for swordfighting. 

Guybrush Threepwood “You fight like a Dairy Farmer”

Scary pirate “How Appropriate, you fight like a cow!”

The Secret of Monkey Island

I remember my dad buying Full Throttle, again from a computer fair.  Back when games came in cd cases inside huge unnecessary boxes.  I miss those things, at least you felt like you were getting something for your £30.  It had a slightly different menu from the push, pull, give, use block I’d been used to, but it worked surprisingly well.  Again, the dialogue, story and gameplay made it an amazing game. 

Ben “You know what’d look better on your nose?”

Bartender “What?”

Ben “The bar” *THWACK*

Full Throttle

We need more games like this back in the mainstream, there’s still a market for them.  The adventure game studio provides an engine with which to build your own games and there are hundreds available for download.  You’ll even find some from Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation fame). 

Some of the games are even worth a play through.  There’s a fan version of an Indiana Jones game coming out (when it’s done, it’s not been in development for quite as long as Duke Nukem Forever though)

I can’t tell if my love for these games stems from me playing them as a child or just because they are so damned good.  I do know the world is a worse place with out them though. 

This has been my first decent content post for a while, I missed writing, hopefully it won’t be too much longer before my next post

Come back point ‘n’ click adventure games, we miss you dearly.

That pretty much sums up the last 4-5 days for me.  I’ve been pretty much zombified on and off since Friday.

Not quite sure what it was, started on Friday at work with me just feeling completely out of it.  A walk into town made me feel a little better but still not great.  Saturday morning I had full on cold symptoms, took some day nurse capsules and it never came back – thats bizarre. 

Sunday wasn’t too bad for most of the day, I felt a little woozy but nothing major. 

Monday morning I woke up and felt completely out of it, worse than Friday, Steve picked me up and as soon as I got in his car I knew I should have stayed at home in bed, the forward motion was just tripping me out completely.  I ended up getting sent home from work, caught the bus home and just pretty much sat on the couch all day.  Same thing Tuesday. 

Was back at work today as I felt marginally better, still zoned out but at least theres some colour in my cheeks.  Felt much better after a walk into town, concentration levels and mindset seemed to get better and better as the day went on.  Hopefully a good night’s sleep tonight should mean I wake up in the morning feeling spot on.  We’ll see

Couple of decent developments on the games side of things today (not like I’ve felt like playing anything recently).  Bioware and Lucasarts have FINALLY announced “The Old Republic”.  New Star Wars MMO.  Superb. 

Also, LIPS – the Xbox 360 karaoke game has been given a proper release date.  It was slated for December 26th, its now been brought forward to 1st Dec.  I love a good sing.  Hopefully the DLC will beat Singstar to the ground in a bloody pulp.  Which reminds me, when I get paid, I need to get some more XBL points cards so I can get Nevermind for Rockband.  Awesome. 

Sue’s birthday on Friday, we’re going out for a curry to the Inn-Dian, can’t wait.  Hope she has a really good day.  I keep thinking about booking the day off but I might save it and take her away for the weekend sometime in November.  That’d be nice.  Another long weekend away somewhere like Whitby.  It would give us another chance to get out with the cameras too.  Speaking of which – have you checked my photoblog recently? :-p