A Tribute to LucasArts

As you all may have heard by now, something terrible has happened: LucasArts has been closed by parent company Disney due to disappointments with not much happening.
Sad news to be sure. Okay true LucasArts haven't really done anything of note in recent years but for a moment there, these guys were at the top of their game, delivering games that were lot's of fun and have stood strong against the march of time.

The LucasArts I knew were makers of superb adventure games. They were both real written and imaginative in their premises. They boasted puzzles that actually made sense and had a sense of humor that worked even when humor in gaming tends to fall flat on its face all too easily. These games had brilliant graphics complimented with gloriously rendered backgrounds and presented wonderfully realized worlds. And these games were designed by people who truly loved their craft and knew exactly what made a great game. Finally, LucasArts took chances with new IP - most of them paid off in dividends. They fostered talent and proved they were bursting at the seams with genuine creativity.

I spent this summer playing a lot of LucasArts adventures - namely Day of the Tentacle, the Dig, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max Hit the Road and, of course, Monkey Island 1,2 and 3. Some of these I played for the very first time. From the perspective of twenty years, these games still hold up remarkably well and they certainly are impressive - even to someone who spent the early nineties as a one-eyed console devotee. What worked originally still works very well and it's a testament to building games that are well-designed. Indeed, these games were made by people who are genuinely passionate about what they do and it shows.
And whilst the LucasArts adventures may have been a mainstay of PC gaming twenty years ago, even if I wasn't aware of it at the time, it's hard to imagine PC gaming without the Midas Touch LucasArts has provided.

So here's to LucasArts and the adventure games they made. We've never seen anything like them and we probably never will again.

Plato they say / Could stick it away

I may have returned to World of Warcraft but that doesn’t mean I can’t find the time to strike another game down from my Hall of Shame. And which title is out on their arse this time around? None other than Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis!

 As is often the case with the games I play, this is a game that I’ve waited a long time to play. I was keen on it when I first heard about in the early nineties (!!!) but it is only now that I’ve managed to sit down and have a crack at it. For a while I was beginning to worry that this game would forever be out of my reach but lo and behold it showed up on Steam (seems like signing up for it wasn’t really a bad idea).

Of course, saying I beat Fate of Atlantis doesn’t mean I am completely finished with the game itself when there are multiple paths through the game. Yes I beat the game (on the Wits path for the curious) but someday I will return to this game and try a different path. For now though there isn't much I can say about this game that hasn't already been said before: The writing is top notch and the design invested into elevates this game head and shoulders above a lot of other games in the adventure genre (seems the two years of development was truly worth it). The graphics hold up pretty well and the voice acting is great too. I went into this game with very expectations and needless to say I wasn't disappointed.

Ultimately though, this game may well be the endpoint for my interest in the LucasArts Point and Click Adventure games. I've been playing a lot of them over the past few months and I'm at a point where it may be time to try something new. Still, in my mind, playing these games have been a point of reassurance to me: For one, it proved to me that LucasArts could make something without the Star Wars brand. For two, it proved to me that LucasArts could take a risk with making a wide range of new IP. And for three, it proved to me that there certainly was a lot of creativity going on in that think-tank.
Of course, LucasArts is now owned by Disney. So not only does the House of Mouse has ownership to Star Wars but access to a incredibly rich library of games. Indeed it would be interesting to see what they will do next with it....