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LucasArts Aims for #1
The New York Times has an interesting profile of LucasArts, the game development house attached to George Lucas' company. They discuss some challenges with being so closely associated with Star Wars, and detail their role in the Lucasfilm company as a whole. From the article: "[Ward's] most challenging days may be ahead. The videogame industry has been in the doldrums for months; video game sales are lagging as consumers wait to buy the next generation of consoles, including the PlayStation 3. And perhaps most important, Mr. Lucas has no plans to make any more 'Star Wars' movies. That means LucasArts will have to work that much harder to come up with ideas of its own. 'We are not the Star Wars game company,' said Micheline Chau, president of Lucasfilm. 'And Jim knows what he has to do.'"
I agree. I would love to see a sequel for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, or more monkey island games. 3D Action games get boring after a while.
A little off-topic, but I've realized one thing while playing Silent Hill 3: The textures are realistic, and the control is user-friendly. Why not make a detective game (Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot?) with that engine? It would rock if you could interrogate suspects and examine items, etc.
Anyway my point is, we need more story / plot / brain in today's games. The Indy graphic adventures contained all of these elements, and this is why they succeeded.