Lucasarts adventure game background art compilation triggers mass nostalgia
It’s easy to misremember the locations and characters of the old Lucasarts adventure games. I recall wandering through the vast caverns of Atlantis, stepping over streams of molten gold to activate titanic robots. It’s only when you go back and see the original art that you realise how much the artists did with so few pixels. Redditor Hovercastle has compiled 604 pieces of background art from some of the very best Lucasarts games, including Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Dig, Loom, the first two Monkey Island games and Sam and Max Hit the Road.
The whole collection can be viewed online, or downloaded. Because they’re displayed at their original resolution, they seem tiny on modern monitors. Have a flick through and be prepared for a bit of a nostalgia shock. We’ve picked out a few favourites from Monkey Island 1 and 2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and The Dig below.
Lucasarts hiring for new “aerial combat title”
The Lucasarts recruitment site has put out an ad, spotted by Gamespot, looking for a senior gameplay engineer for an aerial combat title. Among the requirements listed, experience in flight sims, “especially space-based shooters” is down as a plus. Lucasarts are of course responsible for some of the best space shooters ever made, X-Wing and Tie Fighter. Dare we hope?
There are also listings for an open world RPG, an action/adventure game and a first-person shooter, intriguing given Lucasarts’ history with the Dark Forces series. None of these projects have been officially announced, so we’ll have to wait and see what Lucasarts are brewing, but we know what we’d like to see. How about it, who wants a new X-Wing game?
Editorial: How to save adventure games
This feature originally ran in PC Gamer UK issue 225.
Adventure games suck. Sorry, but it’s true. This isn’t a lunk-headed action fan telling you this, nor a snotty RPG fan who wants to solve every problem with a sword. No. This is coming to you from a guy who considers beating every Sierra and LucasArts game ever made to be an amateur claim. If it exists, I’ve likely played it, or at least know of it. Broken Sword? Zork? The Last Express? Kingdom O’Magic? Les Manley? I’ve finished great adventures and rubbish adventures, and make no mistake, adventures are my favourite genre of all time. They’re what got me into gaming, the genre I’m most nostalgic about, and one still bursting with incredible untapped potential even today. Even so, today, they suck.
And that’s something that can change. That’s why I get cross. Adventure games deserve to be great once again. The catch is, they have to earn it, and almost none of them are even trying.
Saturday Crapshoot: Maniac Mansion (TV)
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, it’s the TV show even many adventurers thought was only a joke – the Lucasarts classic that went from the smallest screen to… a slightly bigger one.
One of the many puzzles in Day of the Tentacle, the 1993 sequel to the 1987 adventure Maniac Mansion, is fixing a broken down time machine by getting enough money to replace the diamond at its core. The hero, geeky teenager Bernard, blinks at this, asking the mansion’s owner, crotchety mad scientist Dr. Fred Edison, why he needs to bother. The guy owns a mansion. Isn’t he already rich enough to just order one? Sadly, it turns out not. Not only is Dr. Fred broke, he’s never even seen a penny from a big TV show that was made about his family, due to him forgetting to return the contract.
Fixing that problem with time-travel makes for a fun comedy puzzle, but when I first solved it, I figured that was all it was. Like most non-Canadians/Americans, I had no idea that the TV show he was talking about actually existed. But did we miss out, or escape? Let’s finally find out…
Star Wars: Galaxies servers to close on December 15th. SOE: “It’s the right time for the game to end”
Venerable MMO Star Wars Galaxies will shut it’s doors on December 15th of this Christmas after eight long years. Bowing out at the same time another Star Wars themed MMO takes centre stage.
Details on the closure within.
Star Wars: The Old Republic dev diary shows an entire mission on Tatooine
Bioware have released a new dev diary for Star Wars: The Old Republic, showing a single mission on Tatooine from start to finish. We get to see exactly how the conversation system will work when completing missions in groups, and get a first look at land vehicles. For more in-game footage, check out the Eternity Vault Raid video, and why not treat yourself to the tremendous intro cinematic as well? You’ll find the Tatooine video below.
PC Gamer US Podcast #273: Tell us some tales, Chuck Jordan
This week, Evan leads fellow PCGites Chris, Josh and Lucas as they welcome special guest Chuck Jordan (writer/programmer on Sam and Max, Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, and other great games) to the podcasting booth. We talk with Jordan about his history with LucasArts and Telltale and ask him all of our adventure-game questions. He also helps us tackle the week’s big news stories, like ArmA III being announced and Guild Wars 2′s new profession!
Lego Star Wars 3 is out in the US, new screenshots to celebrate
How good can Lego men really look? They’re little low-polygon men that live in a world of cubes. Somehow, in spite of this, Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars looks fantastic. You’ll find the latest selection of screenshots below, packed full of Jedi riding giant Lego lizards, and lightsabers aplenty.
Saturday Crapshoot: Mortimer
Or, to give it its full no-way-will-that-fit-in-the-title name, Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. In the UK at least, it’s a strong contender for Lucasarts’ most obscure PC game. In the US, I think it’s a little better known, but still far from being a classic. Partly, that’s because it’s an edutainment game. It’s also because it wasn’t very good – though it is very pretty, and has lots of charm and character. Mostly though, I think it’s a question of karmic payback. Look at this game. Doesn’t it look sweet? Doesn’t it look innocent? Wrong! Mortimer is the work of the Devil himself.
Brace yourself. If you keep reading, you will be exposed to ear-worms you will never bleach out of your brain. PC Gamer cannot be held responsible for anything you might still find yourself humming in fifty years time. Uh-huh. Oh yeah. Uh-huh…
Watch 16 minutes of Star Wars: The Old Republic footage
A new developer diary has appeared on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic site. It shows off the multiplayer conversation and battle mechanics, and features a dude who looks and smells like Yoda, but tastes like… chicken.
Click more to watch.
Ron Gilbert would love to see updated Maniac Mansion
Speaking at GDC last week, Ron Gilbert said that he’d love to see a new and updated version of Maniac Mansion, similar to 2009′s Monkey Island re-releases, which brought the classic adventure game back with revamped graphics and voice acting. Gilbert created the original Maniac Mansion in 1987 and has been contemplating the changes he would make to his first game.
10 Cancelled PC Games We Still Want To Play
Every year, thousands of games are pitched, hundreds are released, and just as many… simply vanish. In most cases, we never even hear about them. Sometimes, the code can be on the verge of hitting the shelves, only for the company to fold or the publisher decide to cut their losses. We’ve been on a nostalgic trip through our back issues to remind ourselves of the ones we were most disappointed not to get the chance to play, both because we thought they were going to be great, and because we just really, really wanted to see what the hell some of our favourite developers were working on.
Here’s our list. Share your biggest non-release regrets in the Comments…
Indie Indiana Jones adventure game releases demo
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth is a fan made Indiana Jones adventure game inspired by the Lucasarts classic, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. The game features new artwork, it’s own soundtrack and a new adventure in which Indie must get his hands on the elusive fountain before the Nazis. If you fancy some classic retro adventure gaming an updated version of the demo has just been released. Read on for more details.
Lego Star Wars 3 footage shows epic battles
The Lego Star Wars games have always done a great job of bringing Lego’s blocky brand of slapstick to the Star Wars Universe. With Lego Star Wars 3, they’re adding another element: scale. Huge ground wars will let you lead troops of units, and even bigger space battles will pit you against colossal capital ships. Combine that with a revamped graphics engine and Lego Star Wars 3 is starting to look pretty special. Check out the developer diary, embedded below, for some footage of the huge new battlefields in action.
Star Wars: The Old Republic PvP detailed, video
Bioware have released a video detailing ‘Warzones’, a series of player vs. player scenarios that will have Imperial and Republic forces fighting for changing objectives across set battlefields. They’ve released a video detailing one such scenario. Set on Alderaan, it shows Republic and Imperial forces fighting for control of a devastating super weapon. You’ll find the video below.
