Avast, ya scurvvy landlubber! Be ye a fan of t’ scallywags at LucasArts, ye be knowin’ them as the buccaneers who pillaged an’ looted yer coin purse with their adventurin’ games!
Landlubbers got t’ experience being a mighty poirate in t’ enhanced version of Monkey Island in 2009, an’ those greedy buggers from LucasArts arrr lookin’ to loot and pillage again, wit’ t’ sequel!
Treasure maps close to those brigands at t’ isle of Kotaku claim a refurbished Money Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge be on t’ horizon for t’ good ships Xbox 360, PS3, iPhone an’ PC.
Arrrrr! Time to hoist t’ main sales and prepare for plunder me hearties!
LucasArts has confirmed via a recent statement that they are currently aiming to have the BioWare developed / E.A. published Star Wars MMORPG The Old Republic on store shelves by “Spring” 2011.
“While we have not announced a specific date, we can confirm that we are targeting a spring 2011 release for Star Wars: The Old Republic,” said the statement. “We’ve got a lot of exciting updates and reveals planned throughout 2010, including the first-ever hands-on testing for the game”
Time to start getting excited, people
Once upon a time, adventure games were the proverbial kings of PC gaming, entertaining gamers everywhere with a heavy focus on well-written stories and trong, realistic characters. Adventure games had their best run during the late 80’s and early 90’s, before suddenly dying out. So what happened to the adventure games, and where are they now?
In this three part series we’ll be taking a look at the history of adventure games and possible try to predict a future for them as well.
In our third installment we take a look at the revival of adventure games, their current state and their various spin-off genres.
If you’re a gamer and Star Wars fan, you’ve more than likely heard of LucasArts, the videogame developer side of Lucasfilm. Most of us associate LucasArts with the point-and-click adventure game craze of the 80’s and 90’s, when the company wasn’t just milking the Star Wars franchise for all it was forth. And for a time, it was good. But then adventure games sort of just stopped, their market value having fallen once full 3D and the Quake era had begun. LucasArts decided to make Star Wars games instead, which has obviously payed off despite some quality issues on certain games.
So imagine my jubilations when I saw an interview with LucasArts president Darrel Rodriguez on GTTV, who promised to bring LucasArts back to their old style of game developing. Star Wars was still their bread and butter, obviously, but he wanted the company to branch out and bring more quality games onto the market. The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition had just been released on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, and more LucasArts adventure games was coming to Steam. LucasArts shut down for a week in order to generate new ideas and concepts. One of these concepts was Lucidity, which they decided to make into a full game.
Once upon a time, adventure games were the proverbial kings of PC gaming, entertaining gamers everywhere with a heavy focus on well-written stories and strong, realistic characters. Adventure games had their best run during the late 80’s and early 90’s, before suddenly dying out. So what happened to the adventure games, and where are they now?
In this three part series, we’ll be taking a look at the history of the adventure game and possibly try to predict a future for them as well.
In this second instalment we take a look at the decline and near eradication of adventure games
If you’re a gamer willing to open yourself to new and inventive ideas, consider downloading Lucidity from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The main menu introduces you to a hauntingly beautiful rendition of a well-known Swedish lullaby, Byssan Lull, whose origin is steeped in mystery.
Lucidity’s composer, Jesse Harlin wrote an interesting piece recently on how this Swedish lullaby came to be chosen for the game, as well as his opportunity to work with Swedish singer Lisa Eriksson.
The LucasArts composer provided a partial translation of the lyrics on the website which are used as a starting point for the subtitles included in the video below.
Once upon a time, adventure games were the proverbial kings of PC gaming, entertaining gamers everywhere with a heavy focus on well-written stories and strong, realistic characters. Adventure games had their best run during the late 80’s and early 90’s, before suddenly dying out.
So what happened to the adventure games, and where are they now?
In this three part series, we’ll be taking a look at the history of the adventure game and possibly try to predict a future for them as well. We begin, obviously, with the early development and subsequent rise of adventure games.
THIS IS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...
Almost every kind of fiction is based off of something else, and the adventure games were no different. In the mid 70’s, before gaming was an actual term and computer hardware would cover an entire room, the first seeds of the adventure game genre were sown by way of Interactive Fiction.
Yesterday we reported on LucasArts announcing a new original title on GTTV. That new title is called Lucidity
Head of LucasArts Darrel Rodriguez said the company wants to go back to their roots, and while Star Wars is their main bread and butter, they’re more open to experimentation. LucasArts shut down for a week and tried to get back to their old style of creativity and game development. Out of that came Lucidity.
Lucidity tells the story of Sophie and is described as a puzzle platformer. The main character is basically like the Lemmings of old, continously walking through the levels. As Sophie moves through the dreamscape levels the player places different pieces like stairs, platforms and trampolines to help her move along. Plot wise it’s been described as Little Red Riding Hood if Red decided to walk through Alice’s Wonderland.
According to project lead David Nottingham the inspiration for the game came from childrens books, creating a 2D title with a flat paper texture effect and multilayered backgrounds.
Lucidity comes to XBLA and PC sometime in December.
Today on GameTrailers TV, LucasArts will be announcing a new game. It might be a Star Wars title, though that’s only my assumption.
GTTV host Geoff Keighley confirmed this in a twitter post, which was then doubly confirmed by LucasArts:
“LucasArts will announce a brand-new original game on this week’s GTTV – with first footage. More details soon.”
LucasArts are notorious for sticking mainly to the Star Wars franchise for years, but hopefully we’ll be getting something new this time.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be a big game, if ever there was an understatement. According to new information released today, the game will have “ten times more lines than Knights of the Old Republic” and “40+ novels worth of content”.
That’s a lot of words.
- - The Old Republic will have ten times more lines than Knights of the Old Republic
- - On any given day, there can be a dozen people working on voice-over — not including actors
- - By the time the game ships, they will have recorded 1,000 four-hour VO sessions.
- - The game’s entire script has 40+ novels worth of content
- - The’re working with hundreds of actors in five cities: New York, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto.
According to the latest update on LucasArts’s twitter page, which had been promised a big announcement today for the last few days…
“So lets see who will be happy: LucasArts has partnered with Steam. Digital adventurey goodness.”
We can only hope that this mean LucasArts entire back catalogue of adventure games will end up appearing on the service. These are very joyous days indeed!
In a nice inventive twist, BioWare has released an audio timeline detailing the history of the The Old Republic, to familiarise fans and newcomers alike with the franchise’s broad history.
The history lesson is told by “Master Gnost-Dural, Keeper of the Jedi Archives”, voiced by actor Lance Henriksen.
This particular pieced is entitled Timeline 1: The Treaty of Coruscant. Expect many more of these to come before the game’s release.
You can watch it here.
The recently revealed Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings will feature a co-op campaign, with Indy fighting alongside a “previously unplayable character”. There’s no news of who this character will be.
The game will be developed by LucasArts and shipped for DS, PS2, PSP and Wii, but no release date has been unveiled.
Staff of Kings will pit Jones against rival Magnus Voller in the hunt of the mythical Staff of Moses.
There will be plenty of puzzles, gun play, brawling and whipping. The Wii version will take full advantage of motion control for the whip. Hopefully they manage to get it right.
Indy will also use various vehicles to get around, like planes, tanks and elephants.
And yes… There will be nazis present.
We’ve even got some screenshots too, but no idea of which version the images hail from.
Long ago (’bout 10 to 20 years) there lived adventure games, above all else known for their strong narratives and thoughtful puzzles.
LucasArts and Sierra On-Line set the standard for quality adventure games, with the Monkey Island series, the Gabriel Knight trilogy, Police Quest and last, but not least, Grim Fandango. But whatever happened to them? LucasArts dropped Adventure games in favour of milking the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, while Sierra simply stopped producing them after Gabriel Knight 3.
In recent years the Nintendo DS has sparked a new interest in adventure game content, with games like Trace Memory, Ace Attorney and Hotel Dusk. The Wiimote is also well suited for the genre, which was proven by 2007’s Zack and Wiki, but it seems developers are unwilling to take a stab at completely reviving the genre.
- Why were adventure games suddenly given up on?
- Would it be possible to completely bring them back, or have they been supplanted by other genres, like MMOs and RPGs?
LucasArts has released downloadable contents packs for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed , which contains various playable characters, all from the Star Wars universe.
The first character pack lets you switch from the Apprentice skin to Luke Skywalkers, Obi-wan Kenobi and Clone Wars characters Kit Fisto and Ki-Adi-Mundi.
The second pack will feature a brand new mission in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and is due out later in the year.
The character pack is out today on both Xbox Live, and PSN says LucasArts.
Full included characters are listed after the cut.
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