Slashdot Mirror
LucasArts announces Sam & Max sequel
Altima(BoB) writes "LucasArts announced today a sequel to their 1993 cult classic adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road. This follows a recent announcement of Full Throttle II. The press release explains:
It's due first quarter 2004 for Windows PCs, no other operating systems or platforms mentioned, but it looks promising. Personally, I think that LucasArts' adventure games have been long overdue a comeback, anyone who's played them can attest to their top-notch writing and humor."
Finally Lucasarts is doing something other than milking the rapidly drying "cash-cow" that is Star Wars.
:)
I can't even bring myself to count the number of awful Star Wars Games I had to disdain and refute in order to hook my wife (successfully) on Lucasarts' fine adventure games -- thanks to the great character design on Grim Fandango.
Lucasarts has really good innovators and well done art (Steve Purcell rocks), and it's more than high-time that a decent adventure game came to for.
I for one am sick of the endless parade of "free form" games (i.e. the Sims), the neverending re-release of the "yet-anotherFPS" engine games, and the D&D based games that have more bugs than characters (NWN). <\RANT>
So, back to slashdot thinking... this gonna run on Linux?
Ok, just to rant just a little...
Sam and Max was a great game. I'm looking foward to the sequel. Sam and Max, in fact, was a great game, orgininal, funny, and just overall fun to play.
And it wasn't a sequel to anything.
Which makes me wonder; Are there any new games that are orgininal, funny, unique, that are worth playing? To read sites like Slashdot (or others), one would assume not, that the only games of note being realased are either
a: A sequel to a popular game
b: A new game based on a popular graphics engine
c: A new game being released on linux.
Don't get me wrong, it's always nice to hear about a release based on the above three things. But what about a new game that nobody's heard of before that's really, really good?
Do they not exist, or are most popular websites either uninformed of them or decide not to publish them. As it stands, the only ways you can find out of there is a good new game that you've never heard of is to:
a: Be impressed at the software store by the shiney box, plunk down $50 for something that may end up sucking
b: Read the game review websites and magizines, which seem to be staffed by, and cater too 12 year old boys
c: Hopefully hear from a freind through word of mouth about a game.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking slashdot. It's not really in their scope (or in my expectation) that they tell me about the next new, hot thing in gaming. But does anyone out there know of a place to find this out? I mean, a place smart enough to distinguish the next Sam and Max from the crap?
The Internet is generally stupid
... by Infinite Machine, and is apparently coming out on PC AND X-box? Is Lucasarts Publishing this for Infinite, or is this a completely different project...?
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I would rather see Loom 2. Damn that game was cool, for its time. I remember how blown away I was by the music and graphics.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
I think it's great that LucasArts is creating sequals to these games, but new gamers will have absolutely no idea what they're playing a sequal to. You cannot go back and play these games without building a computer specifically for the task, or using the SCUMM engine, which LucasArts is trying to sue out of existence.
While I look forward to these releases, the sad fact is this is a long time comming. It's just further evidence to me that someone making decisions at LucasArts just 'doesn't get it'. This seems like a move by a company struggling to release a good product. I'm sure they have no shortage of money with all their star wars releases, but they've been really letting their fans down in the last 5 or 6 years with BOATLOADS of crappy games all based on Star Wars, and nothing original at all.
I hope this move begins a new day at LucasArts, where they diversify their game line a bit, perhaps stop being so sue-happy, and maybe even write their own emulator to run their games in windows operating systems, so new gamers can learn why we all liked LucasArts so much in the past. I feel bad for anyone who hasn't had the chance to play The Dig, DOTT, Sam & Max, or Full Throttle, or any of the Monkey Island games.
(first, this is old news people. I saw concept drawings of this @ E3)
Tim Schafer was the gamedesigner who was behind most of Lucasarts adventure games, sadly he left Lucasarts after making "Grim Fandango"(best game ever btw, no contest) to create his own company(Which havent created anything yet).
Anyone ever seen Tim and or read/hear him interviewed, know without a doubt that "Tim" is a nutty charecter.
The latest monkey island certainly was good, but it lacked the distinct nuttyness of Tim. Most of the funny-stuff in the last monkey, was actually "recycled" from the older games.
Tim came up with stuff like insult swordfighting, for the first title. In the second title, it was spitting contests and more. Plus he created a shiteload of memorable charecters.
In the newest one(who lacked tim), we have insult armwrestling. And most of the charecters are just taken from the first three titles.
With that said, Monkey 4 was great. "Moooonkey cooooombat" still cracks me up (the look like complete idiots when fighting/dancing with eachother), and certainly they still have alot of creative people @ lucasarts.
But, i played ALL lucasarts Adventures. From Tentacle and up, and Monkey4 defently lacked alot in the wackyness department.
I fear that Sam and Max without Tim is like Monty Phyton with out John Cleese. Which just wouldnt be right.