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I think a lot of Nintendo games do this. Some of which have already been mentioned. Star Wars: Rogue Leader had different missions based on what time of day you played. Some missions would be played a night with different ships. You could also take the training level on Tatooine at four different times; morning, day, dusk and night. If you completed all four, you were awarded with a special ship to fly in other missions.

I think a lot of Nintendo games do this. Some of which have already been mentioned. Star Wars: Rogue Leader had different missions based on what time of day you played. Some missions would be played a night with different ships. You could also take the training level on Tatooine at four different times; morning, day, dusk and night. If you completed all four, you were awarded with a special ship to fly in other missions.

Lucasarts, for using Monkey Island MIDI files as proof of sound quality.

I bought a GC purely because of the games that were available.

One good reason to buy a GameCube is because Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is only available for the GC. It's got all the Rogue Squadron II missions as two player co-op missions, and a whole load of new stuff. Just look!

Other must-haves (in my case 'have-gots') are:

Ikaruga an old skool 2D shooter

The Sims works well on the console platform, and has a 'mission' mode.

Nightfire be James Bond! (at least until Everything or Nothing comes out)

It's taken a while, but I think this winter the GC has more outstanding games (either out or coming out) than the XBOX or PS2

You must have been blessed with psychic powers to make up for your obvious physical shortcomings!

Oh, let me! Gratuitous acts of senseless violence are my forte!

You're a demonic little imp, Max.

Man, there are so many good quotes from that game, I can't BELIEVE nobody's mentioned it... especially since Sam & Max: Freelance Police is coming out next year (hopefully).

I just don't bother buying the newer games. My time is usually spent on other things. Though a few weekends back I discovered transgaming's winex. I spend a few hours straight playing Grim Fandango. At the time (1998) it ran slow on the bare requirements and even had choppy sound. On my current machine it runs fine (even with the DriectX being interpreted/mapped/whatever in software). In fact it runs so fast I'm stuck in the eleveator in year 2. :(

The point is Grim Fandango was a great (ie *fun*) game to play. The characters were funny and the story carried the player forward. That's what makes it a good game. On the other had in Warcraft 3 I skipped the animated shorts between levels because I just wasn't interested in the tired two-races-at-war-story.

Each game is different and often good (or popular) games are good (or popular) for thier own reasons.

"You can't run from the grim reaper max, especially when he has a gun!" - Manny Calavera, Grim Fandango

If Microsoft's X-box division recognizes people just need to concentrate on making games fun, why haven't they been doing anything toward the end of making x-box games fun?

Their M.O. so far seems mostly to be to concentrate on making them green, and quietly hope that occationally something beautiful will fall into their lap by chance..

*insert Grim Fandango plug here* :P

...but here's hoping the new Sam and Max game is a hit. The original Sam & Max was, after all, much better than Full Throttle IMO.

I don't know if I should mention is here, but how about the Windows SCUMM engine in the LucasArts Archives(R): Adventure Collection? It is written bij Aaron Giles.

Jac

they might even start making new ones
I thought they were planning a new Full Throttle and a new Sam and Max

they might even start making new ones
I thought they were planning a new Full Throttle and a new Sam and Max

For what it's worth, there's also a new Sam and Max game on the way. And it looks pretty spiffy, too. Also, let's not forget the classic Monkey Island series. And Grim Fandango.

Yes, except for the fact that they announced the monthly prices, as well as the MSRP for the game, days ago.

Yeah, they'd never make a game like that. Especially by those hacks who made Neverwinter Nights.

I mean, really.

From the LucasArts company store:

A valid credit card and additional recurring fees are required to play this game. Fee information and pricing plans will be provided after installation of software.

Don't you just love this way of doing business? "We'll set you a client for $50, but we won't tell you how much we charge for server access until after you've bought and installed it." Giving you a 30-day subscription improves it somewhat, but it's still rather shady dealing with customers.

According to the LucasArts website "the game is intended for play only within North America". Is there a European or worldwide version?

I really like video games. My wife really doesn't like them. It even took me awhile to convice her that they were fun to play and actually ENCOURAGED some social interaction, especially between other guys. That being said, we have played a couple of games together -- something I REALLY enjoy.

The first one we played together was Escape From Monkey Island. Not really a two player game, but that was great because it didn't require quick reflexes or button mashing. Plus, it provided quite a bit of good humor. We still use lines from the game to make each other laugh. Instead of watching a movie any random night, we'd huddle around the computer and enjoy the story of Monkey Island at our own pace.

After we finished that, I was bummed. I had an Xbox and found that Sega was releasing a new ToeJam and Earl game. I had fond memories of the original game on the Genesis and thought it would be a great game for us. With the true co-op play, it's a little more fast-paced than Monkey Island, but still she enjoys it occasionally.

Finally, I bought Morrowind. I bought this for me to play solo, but my wife really likes to hang around and watch what's going on. Plus, it is an extremely satisfying, open-ended, huge game that I'm still just getting into.

Hope those help!

Itâ(TM)s a trap!

There is no Galaxies (not yet) or Jango Fett (I think you meant Bounty Hunter, but you already had that down) for the PS2. You should have just copied and pasted from the products page at LucasArts.

There is no Galaxies (not yet) or Jango Fett (I think you meant Bounty Hunter, but you already had that down) for the PS2. You should have just copied and pasted from the products page at LucasArts.

I loved playing Marvel Vs. Capcom in the arcade. I got really good at the massive combo attacks. While it's become old hat as they've rehashed things, I always enjoy updated graphics and new characters, assuming the core gameplay isn't destroyed in the process (i.e. going 3D because it's supposedly "better").

Does it really matter?

Ever heard of LucasFilm Games / Lucas Arts?

George Lucas opened that studio in the late 80s/ early 90s I believe. It's created some wonderful games. Maniac Mansion has got to be one of my all time favorites.

Shigiru Miyamoto got his start as an art director designing art for video game cabinets. He wasn't a coder at all. And do you think he's kept up with technology enough that he could sit down and contribute code to Wind Waker? I doubt it.

But he's a great Producer / Director. He knows how to make a game. I think that Woo could really contribute something to the gaming world. And Sega is a great match.

Does this automaticly mean his games won't suck? Nope. But I think he's got a better shot at being able to design games than someone happened to be a wonderful coder, but isn't known for being a creative artist, like say, Larry Wall (just for an example).

he'll base the new episodes off the fantastic (and much better written than his scripts) books that spawned after return of the jedi. Heck it'll probably even increase profits from his videogame division by increasing sales of the excellent Jedi Knight II game because it would create interest in the post ROTJ world. You guys DON'T think it would be cool to see Thrawn in a movie?

While people are busy grousing about Star Wars, there's plenty of other material Lucas already has access to that would make a great movie. Anyone who has played the LucasArts adventure game Grim Fandango would agree it would make a kickass feature film. Glottis > Shrek. ;)

Heh, yeah right. Lucas and Ford have kept wistfully remarking that "yeah, we'd like to do a fourth movie one of these days, that'd be great" for 15 years now without ever getting around to it.

In the meantime, Harrison Ford has reached retirement age and isn't getting any younger. Sorry, folks; I'm afraid various video games and comic books are as close to "Indy 4" as we're going to see.

According to Moby Games, he also worked on some other games, but I don't know how accurate that information is.

For another similar game which is quite recent, weak story, but amazing details... Syberia. Also Syberia 2 is coming.

DOTT is still the best there has been though, alas.

Graphic Adventures dying? I think not.

How can they say this when Lucas Arts has announced two new games in this "dying" genre?

Full Throttle 2
and
Sam and Max 2

hmmmmm. I think Im going to whip out monkey island and play through that series again...

Graphic Adventures dying? I think not.

How can they say this when Lucas Arts has announced two new games in this "dying" genre?

Full Throttle 2
and
Sam and Max 2

hmmmmm. I think Im going to whip out monkey island and play through that series again...

It's time for another interview here on Curmudgeon and this time we have with us Brian Hook, president of Pyrogon Games and former developer at id Software and Verant/Sony Online Entertainment. Before working on the seminal shooters Quake 2 and Quake 3: Arena, Brian was the original architect of the Glide API used by the 3dfx Voodoo line of video cards. After departing id, Brian worked as a Senior Technology Architect at Verant, concentrating on development of technology for next-generation massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs). After founding Pyrogon in 2000, he created the puzzle game Candy Cruncher, which we reviewed earlier this year. Two additional Pyrogon games have appeared since then, NingPo MahJong and Letter Linker, both available for Windows and MacOS X. (A Linux version of NingPo MahJong will be shipping in the near future.)

This interview covers a wide range of topics: game design criticism, OpenGL/D3D, making money as a smaller game developer, and the importance of porting software to different platforms. Indeed, something for just about everyone. It's quite long, so you might want to bookmark it and consume it in more than one reading.

The interview questions were prepared with the assistance of regular CG authors ruffin and michael.

jvm: What kinds of games do you enjoy playing the most?

Hook: That's a tough question. I guess in some ways I just have very high expectations about software these days, so most games pretty much turn me off within the first 5 minutes when I spot egregious design flaws.

That said, the games I've played and enjoyed the most recently have been No One Lives Forever 2, which I felt had some of the best production value I've ever seen in a game, and Ghost Recon, which is a hoot in multiplayer.

jvm: So you play mostly on a PC, as opposed to a console?

Hook: I should really get some consoles and play console games, but it's hard to justify the time.

jvm: Could we get an example of a game with these egregious design flaws, complete with a breakdown of those flaws? The more popular the game, the better.

Hook: That's dangerous ground =)

But a typical example I have is what I call "simulations that think they're games". To me, a game should be fun and exciting, which means that I should be making interesting decisions that lead to success based on the data I have at that time. Too many games today STILL punish you by just killing you because that's "realistic".

Hitman 2 is a good example of this. Starting with the very first mission, you can pretty much expect to go through and play that mission 20 times before you complete it, because there are timed events that you don't know about a priori. Which is a shame, because the actual mechanics in Hitman 2 were extremely fun. It was probably the one game in recent memory that I really wanted to like but which ended up being so frustrating and tedious that I couldn't enjoy it. Obviously it's a popular game, so I'm in the minority on this.

I think the games that really got a lot of this down were the 1980s LucasArts adventure games like Lo

even though it's been out for a while, in my office we still love playing Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (and the expansion pack Clone Campaigns)...it's a great time playing against each other on our network, or teaming up and playing against others on the zone...

even though it's been out for a while, in my office we still love playing Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (and the expansion pack Clone Campaigns)...it's a great time playing against each other on our network, or teaming up and playing against others on the zone...

If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it. Sure you might get bragging rights, but that's about it.

Take a look at the Submission Release (.DOC) that you must submit when applying for an Art Position ( FX ARTIST 2 ) with the company.

For those without Word or Open Office:

2. I understand and acknowledge that because of LEC's position (i) it receives numerous submissions of artwork and music from third parties, and (ii) it is constantly developing in-house ideas, formats, stories, concepts, artwork, music, and the like, and that many such submissions and/or developments heretofore or hereafter received and/or developed by LEC may be similar to or identical to those contained in my Submission. I understand and agree that LEC's use of material containing elements similar to or identical with protectible property contained in the Material shall not obligate LEC to me in any manner if LEC shall have developed or obtained such material either heretofore or hereafter independently or exclusively from sources other than from me.

If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it. Sure you might get bragging rights, but that's about it.

Take a look at the Submission Release (.DOC) that you must submit when applying for an Art Position ( FX ARTIST 2 ) with the company.

For those without Word or Open Office:

2. I understand and acknowledge that because of LEC's position (i) it receives numerous submissions of artwork and music from third parties, and (ii) it is constantly developing in-house ideas, formats, stories, concepts, artwork, music, and the like, and that many such submissions and/or developments heretofore or hereafter received and/or developed by LEC may be similar to or identical to those contained in my Submission. I understand and agree that LEC's use of material containing elements similar to or identical with protectible property contained in the Material shall not obligate LEC to me in any manner if LEC shall have developed or obtained such material either heretofore or hereafter independently or exclusively from sources other than from me.

I also wondered this a while back. Take a look at this

Click on "Official Site" for more info and system requirements ... looks like it runs on windows 95/98 compatible computers. Yay!

Ive been watching these sites it helps some but not much :(

FirstOnes They actually snorked a copy of the sirra web site. So all we can do now is drool over something that will never happen.
Ive Found Her They are making a B5 game. The pics they have been posting look semi cool.

Course the B5 first season set is selling pretty well I hear. So maybe WB will realize they have a fairly hot property. That can be exploted into a game (HA).

I have been boycoting Sierra because they no longer make the games I like. I like adventure games. They used to make some of the best. Now they make 3d FPS and boring 'family' games. I havent been really wowed by a FPS since DOOM.

The advent style game Ive been waiting on lately has been Full Throttle 2. FT2 Least Lucasarts still has somewhat of a clue about games... But some of the SW games are getting as bad as a star trek game. You just know it will be lame.

Vulcans Fury was one I was waiting on as well. If I remeber correctly it was during a time of reorg. The game was way over budget and getting worse. They cut their losses and wrote it off. Personaly I am glad they cut it instead of shipping it before it was done. If it had shipped it may have been regarded as one of the buggiest games ever. Now it has a mythical feel to it :)


they chose to throw away the work done instead of selling it

More than likely they were more interested in the tax write off at this point. If they sold it, it became a asset. If they held onto it, it became a tax write off. So they priced it in the range where it made them money. Instead of offloading it. Who knows what goes through the heads of some corp ladder climber. They probably could have priced it about even with their write off/sunk cost. Maybe they tried to get that little extra out of em. Or maybe the other company was way under bidding hopping to scoop it up for nothing. Why they are sitting on this title is beyond me. Talk about a built in audience! They were able to SELL the extra junk they were going to stick into boxes. That should have told them something!

X-box is heavily based on PC hardware. It uses an nVidia video card with DirectX. It will be a relatively easy port.

Check here to hear it from the horse's mouth. An excerpt:

"The ultimate goal with these versions of Star Wars Galaxies is to solidify LucasArts' position at the forefront of the emerging online console game genre, and we're confident this strategy will do just that," says Randy Breen, vice president of development for LucasArts. "By offering the Star Wars Galaxies series on video game consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation 2, LucasArts will be able to bring this eagerly awaited game to an entirely new audience of players who previously may not have had an opportunity to experience it."

Star Wars Galaxy was announced for Xbox at this past E3. Official info here

having a celeron 400 with 128 megs of ram and a riva tnt2 ultra 32 meg video card kinda limits me to oldwarez, and, if anyone cares (you do, admit it) what follows is my list of 10 games that run well on such a system and still rock major bootay:
in random order
6. system shock 2
0. deus ex
4. gta3 (min detail = crappage, but hey)
1. star control 2 (still the best game ever made)
2. civ 3
9. pro pinball big race usa
7. ultima underworld 2
3. day of the tentacle (and any other lucasarts adventure games for that matter)
12. fallout 1 & 2

there's 4 years of your life you'll never get back. enjoy!

• The LucasArts Archives (Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis)
• Game Trader Zone (place to trade old/new games)

Giving George Washington the windup teeth for his dentures was the greatest!

I'm amazed that you can still buy the game. By the way, the original Sam and Max is here too!

If you haven't tried them yet, be sure to check them out. These are two of the funnest games I have ever played, especially DOTT!

Giving George Washington the windup teeth for his dentures was the greatest!

I'm amazed that you can still buy the game. By the way, the original Sam and Max is here too!

If you haven't tried them yet, be sure to check them out. These are two of the funnest games I have ever played, especially DOTT!

Even better, why not go to LucasArts' own store and buy it there? They have most of their classic games still available to buy. I've recently picked up new versions of Day of the Tentacle and Sam n Max, and I'm thinking about picking up Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Never did completely finish that one...

...an American general will have to play a really serious game of Galactic Battlegrounds.

"How about some of the Monkey Island games? I think the firstone might have been released as freeware..."

Not even close. Try looking here.
Great choices for games, especially on a long flight, but I'm not aware of a Mac port...

Everything you were saying is on target. The part where you go a little off the tracks is with the bounty hunters. These are civil suits. Not criminal. Bounty Hunters only go after felons. The government won't incarcerate you for not paying these fines. They will just put the kaybosh on your credit.

I would agree with you that bounty hunters should round up spammers, though.

Just concentrate your attack on the weak joints and it's game over.

No, I played that game. I had to shoot a magnetic grappling line at it and fly around it a few times. Then it fell over and blew up.

Just concentrate your attack on the weak joints and it's game over.

No, I played that game. I had to shoot a magnetic grappling line at it and fly around it a few times. Then it fell over and blew up.

If you liked this kind of game, you will love Adventure Game Studio. AGS is a very complete toolkit for interactive adventures. If you want to play a well-written, though short, game in AGS, try Permanent Daylight, referenced at the link above. There are a lot of games written in AGS already. The problem is not many of them are good. This is not a limiation of AGS, it's a limitation of the people who use it. Some of the games are quite impressive, and the graphics capabilities are more up-to-date than the graphics in the heydays of adventure gaming. Also, LucasArts seems to be the only company that has not forgotten the adventure game. They're even planning a release of Full Throttle II. And don't forget that the voodoo priestess has an unbreakable 5-game contract! Now if only they would release a Maniac Mansion III.