A Trip Down LucasArts Memory Lane; or, the Game That Started It All

Today I consider myself a computer techie; I’m a developer by trade, a “technologist” in my free time, and a gamer at heart.

All of that had to start somewhere, right?  Well, for me, it did when, at the age of 13, my father came home talking about a PC game he saw at our local EggHead store.  He kept talking about how the game included Darth Vader and that it sounded, and looked, just like the movie.  At this age, I had only really dabbled on my dad’s IBM Tandy 286 and was hardly a gamer.  I didn’t own any PC games and only rarely played my Super Nintendo.  I was, of course, interested in Star Wars, but was by no means the nutcase that I would later become.  This was all soon to change…

Not sure what to expect…that weekend I went with my dad to witness this new game in action.

The game was setup for demonstration and we watched the introduction to the game.  My jaw dropped.  It was just like “Star Wars” only I was the pilot;  I was in the movie.  “Dad, we have to get this game!”

Later that day we returned with X-Wing and a brand new joystick.  I was hooked.  I couldn’t get enough of this game.  LucasArts had completely won over this impressionable adolescent.  My new interest in gaming grew to an expanding interest in computers in general, and it wasn’t before long that I was writing QBasic programs to confuse my dad at the DOS command prompt.  I also became a huge “Star Wars” fan; I read as much “Star Wars” fiction as I could and participated in all of the relevant CompuServ groups.  Yes, I was that kid.

Throughout the 90’s I was an avid follower of LucasArts.  I read their monthly magazine and intensely (and I do mean intensely) anticipated all of their new releases.  I’ll never forget reading – over and over again – the article in Star Wars Fan Club about the upcoming TIE Fighter.  In front of a bowl of cereal, I carefully studied each and every screen shot and contemplated the day when the game would finally be released.

It is with these memories that I now discuss my disappointment with LucasArts’ latest announcement (see LucasArts Unveils Lucidity, An Original Platformer [Kotaku]).  With the company re-releasing some of their classics like The Secret of Monkey Island and strongly hinting at a new X-Wing title, I was truly hoping for something grand – something to return LucasArts to their heyday.  Sadly, releasing an XBox Live Arcade platformer, in the same vein as Braid, does nothing of the sort.  Part of this is a personal desire for LucasArts to release the kind of quality titles that I enjoyed – no, loved – and became so used to during the 90’s.  The other side of my disappointment is that LucasArts truly hyped the announcement of this new “IP”…and all we got was a platformer?

With that, allow me to recap some of my classic, all-time favorite LucasArts titles: X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Rebel Assault (one of the first PC games to be released on CD-ROM), Star Wars: Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, The Curse of Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Dig, Grim Fandago, Full Throttle, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing: Alliance, Knights of the Old Republic (though more on part of BioWare than LucasArts).

And now I ask…where has my favorite LucasArts gone?