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First batch of LEC oldies now on Steam 08 Jul, 2009, 17:35 / 35 comments

By Jason


It was announced, and now it's here. Available on Steam are ten games from LEC's back catalogue. The graphic adventures on offer are Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom (Talkie), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and The Dig. All four of these are being sold at an incredibly reasonable $4.99 a pop. The sales of these releases and next week's Monkey Island: Special Edition will be a very large factor in how much LEC will continue to invest in its old IPs.

So if you were ever pissed at LEC for abandoning their old properties, you need to do your part to show them that it's a good thing that they're changing their ways. We're aware that most of you probably own most of the classic adventures, but if there are any that you don't, or any that you acquired through suspect channels, then don't be an idiot - now's the time to score that copy and show your support. Between these, TMI and the Special Edition, LEC is investing a lot in the possibility of reviving their classics - if they're disappointed in the result of testing the waters, you don't want to be the one to blame.

The other games include Star Wars Starfighter, Star Wars Republic Commando, LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Armed & Dangerous, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Thrillville: Off the Rails. Additional Steam releases of this sort are forthcoming and will be announced on LEC's twitter feed, so keep an eye on it.

Update: Look at the good example benny has set for you, observed by elTee.
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35 Comments

  • icanseestars on 13 Jul, 2009, 08:52…
    Star Wars Republic Commando is broken with current ATI GPU's crashing when starting a game, its down to the bump mapping used in game it works for some turning that to low but the game looks terrible afterwords and it doesn't work for others.
  • Icebox on 09 Jul, 2009, 03:53…
    I Collected Them All!
  • noah on 09 Jul, 2009, 02:41…
    Hmm...the Steam version of Crusade appears to emulate Tandy sound. Has anyone managed to enable (the superior, IMO) Adlib sound? I tried putting an 'A' in the launch options under the properties menu to no effect.

    Also, it looks like FoA internally emulates General MIDI. Changing soundfont banks on my soundcard didn't seem to impact the game's music in any way. Looks like DOSBox + MT-32 is still the way to go. :D
  • clone2727 on 08 Jul, 2009, 21:07…
    Someone also got Loom and posted a file listing on the ScummVM forums. Seems they put the audio track into an cdda.sou file, which makes a lot of sense actually. The moving of the index files to the executable doesn't...
  • Izzy on 08 Jul, 2009, 20:41…
    Wow 4.99? Thats a steal! Now lets see if we can get Grim Fandango in there!
  • Laserschwert on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:52…
    I assume they aren't multilingual, right?
  • Laserschwert on 08 Jul, 2009, 19:00…
    And, by the way, am I blind, or why can't I find LC on Steam?
  • Giygas on 08 Jul, 2009, 19:26…
    Maybe it isn't available in Germany. (Which would have been a really dumb decision IMO)
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 19:29…
    From browsing the Steam forums, it sounds like that might actually be the case. Crazy how much trouble a swastika will get you in.
  • jp-30 on 08 Jul, 2009, 22:22…
    I wonder if you can be 'gifted' it?

    Just installed Steam for the first time and purchased Last Crusade myself (my existing version is on 5.25" floppies), and LOOM (my existing version is of dubious legality).
  • Laserschwert on 09 Jul, 2009, 08:54…
    Ah, damn, of course, the German release was cleared of all the swastikas.
  • bgbennyboy on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:58…
    Its almost identical in terms of datafiles to LC VGA. However:

    There's no 00.lfl file and 04.lfl has changed.
  • The Tingler on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:19…
    What about the music, how does that sound?
  • bgbennyboy on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:02…
    Theres only 1 byte changed in 04.lfl - its a bugfix.

    'Dooj' in VGA has changed to 'Door' in the new version.

    So to all intents and purposes its just the vga version.
  • Radogol on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:07…
    OK, my mistake. I just noticed that the EGA Indy in Venice was an error in the FM-Towns version, not the PC one.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:13…
    Yeah but there were still instances of this in the PC version. For example, the librarian sprite and the interior of the zeppelin radio room (from the outside) were left in EGA in the PC VGA. Maybe those are fixed?
  • bgbennyboy on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:16…
    The datafiles (apart from the 1 byte change) and missing 00.lfl file are identical to the VGA version.

    It also seems that the 'door' change was already made in Last Crusade FM Towns.
  • bgbennyboy on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:07…
    00.lfl is buried inside the .exe at offset 162056.

    The only reason I can think of to do this is to screw with people who want to run it through ScummVM.
  • clone2727 on 09 Jul, 2009, 16:16…
    It's also reasonable to think that MI:SE will do the same thing.
  • Udvarnoky on 09 Jul, 2009, 16:32…
    Well who knows what the resource files of THAT game will look like. I could be wrong, but just because it was built on top the old code for the sake of the toggle features doesn't mean it uses SCUMM.
  • clone2727 on 09 Jul, 2009, 17:10…
    They said it was using SCUMM, no?
  • Udvarnoky on 11 Jul, 2009, 19:56…
    Don't remember, honestly.
  • Capn_Nacho on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:52…
    FFUCK YEAH

    I'll buy 'em up when I get paid.
  • TestType on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:51…
    Would be nice to see some impressions and how these releases compare to playing them with ScummVM, especially regarding graphic options.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:59…
    Obviously, they don't have the graphic options that SCUMMVM does. They are updated versions of the original interpreters with windowed mode and a smoothing filter. See screenshot.
  • TestType on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:03…
    Ah, thanks. This is the exact same thing they had in the LucasArts Adventure pack I bought a few years back.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:05…
    Yeah it does look pretty identical to the XP-compatible Hit the Road and Full Throttle from 2002. Don't know if it was Aaron Giles again though.
  • bgbennyboy on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:09…
    It wasnt Aaron, from the exe and the about box:

    Windows update by Aaron Giles, Produced by Dan Petit.2009 update by Matthew Bishop, Tom Drake, Eric Johnston.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:11…
    Dan Pettit!
  • Jayel on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:42…
    Very reasonable prices for the classic adventure games.

    But what's up with completely spoiling The Dig with those screenshots? I would be furious if I was a first-time player!
  • Radogol on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:31…
    Very reasonable, yes. In fact, I think LEC screwed up a bit by not putting Loom at least in the casual category on Steam. It's not that hard, it's cheap, it's got a good story. I think casual players would really enjoy it.
  • Radogol on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:39…
    From the screenshots, Last Crusade looks like the FM-Towns version in the least, probably full VGA though. There is one pic in particular, where Indy sprite is okay, even though it's usually EGA in the regular 256 color version.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:42…
    Yeah ATM bought it and it sounds like it's basically the PC VGA version of the game. Which is a good one, but don't look for any kind of special feature.
  • Radogol on 08 Jul, 2009, 17:56…
    No, no, what I mean is that it IS improved, just not in ways anyone but ATM would care for ;) There's a Venice screenshot on his site in which Indy is EGA, while in the Steam version, he appears to be VGA.
  • Udvarnoky on 08 Jul, 2009, 18:01…
    Oh, I see.