More evidence that LucasArts can’t make an in-house game to save their lives? Or just another example of 3D being a bad idea? Discuss.
Whatever the case I just hope Sam and Max sees the light of day.
Whoops.
And next week on Short Attention Span Theater, we have… um…
Wow! Look at that pretty cloud!
Welcome to yesterday! :)
Is this a good time to discuss what a mess LucasArts is generally right now?
Their stuff is either another iteration of licensed crud or totally whacked out, and everything seems to be running on 3 year old technology.
Dunno. They seem to be on a bit of a rebound, with more hits than misses released lately. They also look like they have quite a few interesting titles coming up in the future, so I’m puzzled as to why everyone’s ready to bury them now.
Lucasarts just hasn’t had many strong titles over the last few years. It’s a dramatic change from years ago when they were putting out X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and some of the great adventure games. For awhile, just about every game they put out was topnotch. Now a topshelf game from them is the exception.
They’ve farmed out a lot of development now though, and that’s helping. Knights of the Old Republic and Rogue Leader were two major games for them in sales. I think their quality level is actually coming back up because they’re trying to work with outside folks more.
Still, RTX Red Rock was poorly reviewed and that’s Hal Barwood’s latest. Gladius could go either way. The internal stuff is where the problems are. So basically you buy the Lucas games made by Raven, Factor 5, Bioware, etc. and skip the things they do in house.
–Dave
Yeah, me too.
Well, Hal’s done some great stuff, but everything he’s touched hasn’t been gold. Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures, or Yoda Stories, anyone?
Anyone know what happened? Back in the mid-90s, Lucasarts was synonymous with quality. Now the opposite seems to be true… My question: what the hell happened?
Aleck
They lost a lot of talent. I can’t give the specifics or the reasons why, but both Larry Holland and Tim Schaefer left. It doesn’t seem to have turned out for anyone, judging by the lack of success all around.
It’s really time for a new X-Wing/TIE Fighter game.
Anyone know what happened? Back in the mid-90s, Lucasarts was synonymous with quality. Now the opposite seems to be true… My question: what the hell happened?
Aleck[/quote]
The same thing happened to Microprose. They used to be king in their day, but after Spectrum Holobyte came in their quality control fell apart. Now they don’t even exist anymore.
Speaking of Tim Schaefer, does anyone know what he’s doing now?
Tim Schaefer is working on Psychonauts for Xbox. No clue if that’s the only game that’s keeping him busy though.
Larry Holland never left because Larry Holland and Totally Games were never a part of LucasArts (any more than Bioware was ever a part of Interplay). Holland did do Bridge Commander for Activision (after X-Wing Alliance) but he’s doing Secret Weapons Over Normandy right now for LucasArts. The big talent bleed, imo, from Lucas came when Chin left after Jedi Knight. I think JK: Dark Forces 2 was the last really good in-house LucasArts game.
It really, really, is time for a new X-Wing vs TIE Fighter game specificially. The original came WAY before broadband penetration. I think MS should make it an Xbox Live exclusive (but I’d prefer it on PC myself).
What is up with Psychonauts, anyway? Wasn’t it going to ship this year sometime? Haven’t heard ANYTHING about it in months and months – and didn’t see it mentioned ANYWHERE in any E3 coverage, which surprised me greatly.
Is Tim in trouble? Or is all well and they’re in hunker-down mode? I hope the latter…
NOW you’re talkin’!!
Let’s add Grim Fandango to that and we’ll agree :)