LucasArts continues re-releasing their old classics on Steam today with the best Star Wars strategy game - Empire At War, plus expansion pack Forces of Corruption. You can buy it here. While it's not an adventure game, it's still one of the best Star Wars games of recent years.
Perhaps less good is the price. £14.99/$19.99 for a 4-year-old game? Even with the expansion and the Steam convenience, that's a bit of a rip in my opinion.
Source: Steam
The LucasArts Adventure Pack, a collection of four classic LucasArts adventure games (Loom, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), is now available for $4.99 from Steam, and will remain so for the next 24 hours until the weekend begins. At that point, the price will go back up to $9.99.
(Edit: Thanks to TestType for pointing-out the mistake earlier. This campaign of misinformation is all part of my plan to become a pundit on Fox News. Pretend you believe me.)
Source: Steam
LucasArts continues to offer a behind-the-scenes peek at the Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition updating process by releasing some more character concept art, this time for Governor Elaine Marley's re-imagined look. Here is the version one sketch, and here is version two.
Edit by ATMachine: Fixed the link to version two. Sorry about that.
Update by ATMachine: LucasArts have since posted version three, version four, and version five of their Elaine MI2:SE concepts.
Source: Monkey Island Facebook page
Source: Now Gamer
Gamasutra has posted an interview with Gio Corsi, the executive producer of LucasArts' Singapore studio. As you may know, LEC's Asian division is also the home of production of the Clone Wars animated series, and thus far the game development work has mostly been on Clone Wars spin-offs and handheld title - the iPhone port of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition was handled there. The interview is a bit of a dry read by my estimation, but it is a read nonetheless.
Source: Gamasutra
The 'Screen Play' blog in this week's Brisbane times recalls the heydey of the critically acclaimed and much-loved LucasArts / Totally Games X-Wing series.
In the 11 years since [X-Wing Alliance], there has been nothing more from LucasArts in that vein, and the genre itself has faded to little more than a memory. Wing Commander's final gasp was the long-delayed and ultimately disappointing Freelancer, released in 2003 after more than four years of development. The last bastion of the space combat sim is the venerable X series, which reached its fifth release in 2008 with X3: Terran Conflict, a flawed game that failed to set the world on fire, let alone the whole galaxy.
D-Rod's teaser from last year is also recalled.
The X-Wing fan / Modding community is very much still alive and well.
I still hope for 'Special Editions' of the X-Wing games at some point, perhaps leading into a whole new game from Larry Holland and Totally Games.
Source: Brisbane Times
On the official Monkey Island Facebook page, LEC has followed up their gradual releases of MI2: Special Edition screenshots (by the way, I don't think we mentioned the last two on the front page) with some gradually released character concepts. You can see Herman Toothrot's transformation from 1991 sprite to 2010 sketch, but you'll no doubt be most interested in the various passes they made at Guybrush's revamp (v1, v2, v3, v4) before landing on the final version, especially with regard to his age and similarities to his CMI counterpart.
Update by ATMachine: V5 Guybrush can now be found at Kotaku. For those who've been having trouble viewing the previous Guybrush concepts, the link also contains color-corrected versions of those, which should alleviate the problem. Be sure to right-click on and "View" the images to see them full size!
Source: Monkey Island Facebook
Steam is launching for the Mac platform today and among the first batch of games are four LucasArts adventures: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom, and The Dig.
Each game will be available for $4.99 though you can also buy all four in a bundle at $9.99 for a limited time.
Thanks to Mac enthusiast clone2727 for the tip.
Source: Shacknews
There are not one but two new interviews with Craig Derrick to report, Derrick being the LEC producer who you know from any media coverage on the titles as the guy who shepherded The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition as well as the upcoming remake of LeChuck's Revenge. The first interview being by NXT Gamer and the second by SuperHappyFunTimeShow, they both contain info you'll likely find valuable. Case in point: Wally's voice actor was secured for the remake.
What voice actors from the original game have been drafted in to work on the remake and how much new voice over work has been created for the game, assuming that part of the development is complete?
The original voice cast from The Secret of Monkey Island: SE has been brought back for Monkey Island 2: SE. We have Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood, Earl Boen as LeChuck, Alexandra Boyd as Governor Elaine Marley and Lelani Jones as The Voodoo Lady all returning, plus we got Neil Ross to return for the voice of Wally B. Feed, a role he played in the original Curse of Monkey Island back in 1997!
Broaden your mind by reading both interviews in their entirety at NXT Gamer and SuperHappyFunTimeShow.
Now this is a shock. Darrell Rodriguez, former President of the company, has left LucasArts today along with several members of his executive team. Kotaku reported the news, along with this note:
The moves, announced earlier today at a Lucasarts staff meeting, do not impact the company's development teams, or other aspects of its publishing business outside of the top brass.
I'll believe that when I see it. Traditionally a LucasArts president leaving coincides with a massive shift in their business plan, and a lot of cancellations and "staff reorganization".
Should we be afraid for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition? I wouldn't have thought so as that's pretty much in the can, doesn't cost anything in shipping materials and the first did really well. Other Special Editions though or re-releases we'll have to wait and see.
While the reasons for his departure are not known, like whether it was his choice or not, we can speculate. Since The Force Unleashed in 2008 LucasArts have not had a really killer game despite several in production, and have instead focused on "smaller" titles. Were the top brass at LucasArts annoyed at this? I bet they were. This is a real shame though, as those "smaller" titles included such things as an excellent new Monkey Island, long-wanted re-releases of old games, a new original game, and Special Editions of two games that have been crying out for SEs for years.
More as we get it. Despite messing up with Indiana Jones at the start, we'll miss you Darrell.
UPDATE 1: Apparently Darrell resigned, although there's not yet a reason why. Lucasfilm board member Jerry Bowerman (who has been high up at both EA and Sierra) will sit in the Emperor's chair until Grand Admiral Thrawn arrives to take over.
Source: Kotaku
Source: Twitter
Source: OXM
Unfortunately Secret of Monkey Island: SE can't be embedded directly into MojoX's news (but we may embed it in a feature page at some point).
But you can embed the game in your facebook profile or any HTML websites. See here for more.
Source: Facebook
Calling this their last week of such teases, LEC is now on LeChuck's Fortress as a location in Monkey Island 2 of which to share some glimpses of the special edition makeover. So far we've got LeChuck's throne room (before, after) and the bone maze entrance (prior, post hoc) to compare. Join in on the snarky ridicule of these blasphemous defamations (I kid, I kid) with fellow down-to-Earth crusaders on our forums or over on the Telltale counterpart.
Update: Guybrush and Wally over a pit of acid - pre, post.
Source: Facebook
Being that he's Steve Purcell and all, none of us gets tired of reading Steve Purcell's responses to the same questions being fielded at him in internet articles. What makes the latest nostalgic gabbing ritual with the iconic LEC artist of yesteryear by the ever-bustling Sam & Max.co.uk a little bit more enticing than the norm, however, is that it's by the fans.
Yup, after collecting interview questions in a Telltale forum thread a month or so ago, Sam & Max.co.uk webmaster "Pinchpenny" zipped the least creepy ones over to the creator of the Freelance Police, and the worthwile results can be found right here to satisfy your daily reading quota.
Source: Sam & Max.co.uk
In an interview with Gamasutra, adventure game veteran Charles Cecil (Beneath the Steel Sky, Broken Sword) discusses his own career and also shares some thoughts about LucasArts, which represented his competition in the olden days of the early nineties, back when Hershey bars cost you ten cents apiece and movies hadn't yet learned to talk. Having been part of well-received remakes of his own games on PC and iPhone, he has some criticisms about how the Special Edition of The Secret of Monkey Island was handled, as well as some general ribbing about the former tendency of the Golden Guy to hunt down and murder sternly dissuade fan tribute projects:
And it's interesting, because Monkey Island was very ambitious, and very, very good, and I love what they've done with the art. But clearly that was a group of people who were probably scared to make brave decisions. They were happy to commission vast amounts of art so you could see what went before and what went now, but sometimes you just need somebody who's gonna sit there and say, "well, actually, it doesn't work very well, so let's throw it out and start again."
And I think if you look at companies like LucasArts, who I admire enormously, their attitude towards fans who wanted to do tributes to Monkey Island is very, very different to the way that we handle it. But again, it's because ultimately we are a very small group, and we make a decision, and I think probably time will prove that we were right to be very relaxed in the way that we allowed people to create products as long as they didn't commercially exploit them -- and that's a line that I've been very clear that cannot be crossed.
But beyond that, we see it as very flattering. Broken Sword 2.5 -- I mean, great! I really admire the guys that did that. We provided them some sprites and stuff, but the rest of it they did absolutely by themselves.
Read the full story here.
Source: Gamasutra
Interview shy LucasArts boss, Darrell Rodriguez, speaks with MCV about the new directions the company has taken, and about his plans for the future.
“Star Wars is very important to us, and we understand what makes a good Star Wars game,†he says. But now we are also looking for original IP – internally and externally – and we’re really open to those opportunities as they come along.
The big change is that we listen to our fans. We listened to them in bringing back the old games, and reimagining them while providing the classic ones. We have a rabid fanbase – and we want to keep them happy.â€
You can read the whole thing right here.
Source: MCV
Shacknews have posted a screenshot from the upcoming Monkey Island 2: Special Edition, which has some of the developer commentary in action. The commentary, which is being provided by Monkey Island creators Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman (a trio some of the more "hardcore" sections of the Monkey Island fandom insist you learned about in Sunday school), will cover a wide array of topics, including the sharing of some memories and behind-the-scenes thoughts on the game.
Comment on the commentary screenshot in our comments section (hohoho!).
jp update: LucasArts' Craig Derrick comments on facebook: "Couple things about the commentary: It's a toggle, so you can press a button whenever the commentary symbol pops up and hear the guys speak. You can do this over and over if you'd like. Also, the game screen will shrink within a frame when commentary is on so that no gameplay is obstructed (unlike this screenshot). And, lastly, the commentary will work during classic mode. END OF LINE"
Source: Shacknews
