LucasArts

Mo’ Monkey Island

Martyn Zachary 6 Comments

Lightning just struck in the form of Telltale’s all-new episodic series, Tales of Monkey Island. Now sporting a spotless track record and a tremendous presence in the adventure gaming marketplace, Telltale were able to license the franchise from the smouldering ruins of LEC. We couldn’t be happier that the new series also paves the way for the imminent return of Michael Z. Land, the creator of the magnificent iMuse, as well as of Dominic Armato, the one and only voice of Guybrush Threepwood.

Here’s what Ron Gilbert has to say of the situation:

This next year is going to be very interesting.  Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer all have games coming out.  Someone check the scriptures.  Might be a good time to start hording canned goods. 1)http://grumpygamer.com/8280380

Canned goods aside, that’s not nearly all; Telltale’s series is further complemented by LucasArts’ new, self-revised “Special Edition” version of the original Secret of Monkey Island.

This new rendition, then, contains hand-painted HD graphics and re-mastered, re-recorded audio; It also gives you the ability, if you so desire, to switch between the new “Special Edition” and a “Classic Mode”, which allows you to play the game as it always was.

Sounds good? Yes! My only concern for the Special Edition project – cries and whispers of rehashing aside – is that, frankly speaking, the 1080i Guybrush looks like a twat.

Who would have thought?

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Indiana Jones and the Stuff of Kings

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One of the more disappointing title announcements in my recent memory came when LucasArts finally revealed Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings to the public – amidst heated rumours of the game having been altogether scrapped:

The fact that it still remains perfectly unclear whether the next-gen version of the game is still in production or not probably contributed to the relatively chilling response to the title (Some of us are already losing hope, while some remain stern!), and with the recent lay-offs at the company, even a more successful announcement would probably have been proved to be too little, too late.

Admittedly, the title is slated for release on the current mainstream platforms (Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation2, and the PSP), but I can’t help but compare the screenshots, in gentlemanly fashion, to an earlier game in a similar vein…

The prerendered trailer makes the announcement that much sourer because of the fact that we can all still remember our euphoric response to LucasArts’ then-revolutionary application of the Endorphin/Euphoria physics engine, and the smashing 2006 E3 footage for the game.

Oh, and the “Fate of Atlantis” unlockable is Wii only.

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At the Fountain of Youth

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WIP Screenshot
WIP Screenshot

If we were to gauge general goodwill and public appreciation with freeware indie game projects, one of the candidates for the top spot would have to be Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth. The well-liked and respected team have surprisingly managed to duck the guns of the ruthless LucasArts legal team and managed to release a succesful demo of considerable length some years ago, to illustrate the breadth and quality of their project.

What separates the project from its most immediate fan game peers is the impeccable taste applied to the artwork of the game, combined with the developers’ pursuit to maintain a closeness to their source material (The team hopes to tap the original actor that played Indy, Doug Lee, for a fully voiced demo) all the while offering an all-new scenario and setting.

The FOY Cast
The FOY Cast

Hopefully this is not too bawdy of me to reveal that the team does post exclusive sneak peek material in the game’s forums. One of the more recent posts includes a fantastic example of the various characters that appear in the game. The all-new character art maintains a lively, organic quality that was almost missing from The Fate of Atlantis.

Can you recognize any of the real-life “cast” counterparts?

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Insecticide Review

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments

Over the course of the last few months we’ve found ourselves marvelling how very little press (apart from a slew of niche sites we frequent) and attention Crackpot Entertainment’s Insecticide has garnered.

insecticide_01
Talk Talk

The developers, after all, consist of several nigh-luminaries of yore, responsible for much of the heyday of LucasArts Entertainment Company: Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, that sort of stuff, and with LEC now a mere shadow of its former shelf, we might quite possibly have our next best thing in the form of Insecticide.

Here’s hoping the absence of press is not a prophetic sign, as Crackpot was solely founded with the intention of developing this film noir -tinged “bi-sodic” bugfest: In a GamaSutra interview, developer Larry Ahern indeed notes that Crackpot currently has no other products in the pipeline.

The game then! What we have here is an action-adventure – 50/50 split – and seen from the 3rd person perspective, over the small shoulders of the streetsmart rookie bug-cop Chrys Liszt and narrated by the hard-boiled sleuth Roachy Caruthers. The partners are called in to investigate a murder at the Nectarola Soft Drink Company – a corporation that has an exhaustive monopoly over the city’s soft drink manufacture. As the mystery begins to unravel, these hard-shelled investigators delve deeper and deeper into the seething underbelly of the city of Troi.

(more…)

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