is a
Video Game Developer and
Publisher . The company was famous for its line of point-and-click
Adventure Game s and today mainly produces games based on the ''
Star Wars '' franchise.
The company had its beginnings in May 1982 in the Games Group of
Lucasfilm Ltd., the film production company of
George Lucas . Lucas had wanted his company to branch out into other areas of entertainment, and so he cooperated with
Atari to produce video games. The first results of this collaboration were unique action games like ''
Ballblazer '' and ''
Rescue On Fractalus ''. Beta versions of both games were unfortunately leaked to pirate bulletin boards exactly one week after Atari received unprotected copies for a marketing review, and were in wide circulation months before the original release date. In 1984, they were released for the
Atari 5200 under the label. Versions for
Home Computer s were not released until 1985, by publisher
Epyx . Lucasfilm's next two games were ''
Koronis Rift '' and ''
The Eidolon ''.
See Also: LucasArts adventure games
Lucasfilm Games released its first adventure game in 1986: ''
Labyrinth '', based on the Lucasfilm movie of the same name.
In 1987, the adventure game
Maniac Mansion was released as part of the new wave of point-and-click adventure games pioneered with
ICOM's Deja Vu . It was followed by more adventures of high quality and in the following years Lucasfilm built a reputation for producing the best games of the genre. Amongst the early LucasArts classics was the much-loved
The Secret Of Monkey Island (later followed by three sequels), an adventure game notable for the quality of its comedic script, the absurd solutions to many of its puzzles and the invulnerability of its protagonist, which was quite an innovation in a genre where choosing the wrong thing to say could often result in instant death.
The company also started producing military
Simulation games, the first of which were the naval simulations ''PHM Pegasus'' and ''Strike Fleet''. In 1988, ''Battlehawks 1942'' was released, later followed by ''Their Finest Hour'' and ''Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe''. The WW2 Air Combat Trilogy, as it was later called, was created by
Lawrence Holland 's team, who later founded their own company in
Totally Games .
In 1990, in a reorganization of the Lucas companies, the Games Division of Lucasfilm became part of the newly created , together with
Industrial Light & Magic and
Skywalker Sound . Later ILM and Skywalker Sound were consolidated in Lucas Digital Ltd. and LucasArts became the official name of the former Games Division. The logo was changed from the well-known ''Lucasfilm'' to a human
Silhouette (the Golden Man) on an L-shape.
Even though LucasArts had created games based on other Lucasfilm properties before ('' consoles, but were developed by other companies for LucasArts. The first in-house development was the space combat simulator ''
X-Wing '', developed by Larry Holland's team, which went on to spawn a successful
Series .
The CD-ROM-only Star Wars game
Rebel Assault became one of the biggest successes of the company and was considered a
Killer App for CD-ROM drives in the early 1990s. Another game that utilised the new technology of the CD-ROM drive was 1993's ''
Day Of The Tentacle '', the first LucasArts adventure game to have a full spoken soundtrack available on the game's release rather than relying on text.
After the unprecedented success of '' can be seen as a spin-off from the series, but was less well received by reviewers, who complained that the franchise was becoming formulaic.
Apart from ''Star Wars''-themed 3D shooters, LucasArts also created the western-themed game ''
Outlaws '' in 1997.
LucasArts' focus on three dimensional action games was detrimental to their line of adventures. The PC game market, traditionally the home of the adventure game, was being driven by technological change. The market wanted titles that would show off expensive new
Graphics Cards to best effect, a change replicated in the home console market as the 3d capabilities of the
Sony PlayStation and its competitors the
Sega Saturn and
Nintendo 's
N64 dictated the nature of the majority of games produced for those platforms. The adventure genre, two dimensional, focused on story, script and puzzle solving was seen as no longer popular with gamers.
However, there was a brief resurgence in the genre between 1997 and 2000. ''The Curse of Monkey Island'' was the last LucasArts adventure game to retain traditional two dimensional graphics and the tried-and-tested
Point And Click Interface . It was followed by
Grim Fandango , arguably LucasArts' finest adventure game, and the first attempt to convert 2d adventure to a 3d environment. The game interface suffered most from this conversion, with control of the protagonist becoming unweildy and less intuitive than the traditional mouse interface. However, the highly stylised graphics, superb voice acting and sophisticated writing more than made up for this flaw. ''Escape from Monkey Island'' replicated ''Grim Fandango'''s graphical engine and control system, and was well reviewed. However, since then LucasArts have continued to prioritise action games over traditional adventure games, a consistent position that led to a sequel to ''Sam'n'Max Hit The Road'' being aborted in 2004 despite rumours that it was 85% complete. This, combined with the 2003 cancellation of a sequel to
Full Throttle has led fans of adventure gaming to surmise that the traditional LucasArts adventure game is dead.
As the quantity of Star Wars games increased, many critics felt the quality began to drop; this was especially noted with the titles released since the cinematic release of ''
The Phantom Menace ''.
In 2002, LucasArts recognized that the over-reliance on Star Wars was reducing the quality of its output, and announced that future releases would be at least 50% non-Star Wars-related. However, many of the original titles were either unsuccessful or even cancelled before release and currently LucasArts has again mainly Star Wars titles in production.
2003 saw the fruitful collaboration of LucasArts and '' continued in the same vein, attempting to adopt a similar template as the original, uniting top notch voice acting with an unfolding story which picked up where the last game left off. However, LucasArts was criticized for forcing the developer
Obsidian Entertainment to release the sequel too early, resulting in a significant amount of unfinished content being cut from the game and what many consider to be a disappointing and convoluted storyline with an incomplete ending.
In 2003 LucasArts and the Star Wars franchise also branched out in a new direction—the world of the
MMORPG , with the creation of ''
Star Wars Galaxies ''. After a successful launch, the first expansion, Jump to Lightspeed, was released in 2004. The new expansion featured the addition of real-time space combat. This was continued in ''
Rage Of The Wookies '', an additional expansion which added an additional planet for users to explore. Also, a new expansion, ''
The Trials Of Obi-Wan '' was released November 1, 2005 consisting of several new missions focusing on the Episode 3 planet, Mustafar.
In 2004, Lucasarts released '' also released November 1st, 2005 features new locales such as Episode 3 planets, Mustafar, Mygeeto, etc. in addition to space combat and playable Jedi.
In May 2005, LucasArts released '''', a third person action game based on the film. More ''Star Wars'' games are planned for 2006.
Also in 2005, LucasArts released '', developed by
Pandemic Studios .
In late 2005, LucasArts changed the Golden Man logo to a different version.
On Nov.1 2005 Lucasarts released Star Wars Battlefront II
On February 16, 2006, LucasArts released '''', a
Real-time Strategy game developed by
Petroglyph .
What games will Lucasarts release in the future? Before the release of Star Wars: Empire at War, Lucasarts announced that in 2007 it will release Lego: StarWars II: The Original Trilogy game. A new game based on the Indiana Jones franchise will be released on Next-Gen consoles (it is currently listed as a Xbox360 game). Lucasarts will most likely announce more new games in the spring of 2006. Probably Lucasarts would release next Jedi Knight game, a '''' sequel, if it is really in production. Next Jedi Knight game might be in the next Lucasarts' new games announce. There is also a good chance that the studio will eventually make a lightsaber based game to take advantage of the Nintendo's
Wii controller.
The
Lucasarts Logo shows of a 'gold colored' person with it's hands up in the air, as if a sun is rising behind him, with a purple L having the words 'Lucas Arts' inscribed in. It also seems to resemble the eye of a person, the 'sun' as the eyelid. The Logo is called 'Gold Guy' created in 1999. A newer version of the logo was created in late 2005. Without the purple L and the golden character a bit rounded.
In 2002 Lucasarts Entertainment Company released a CD filled with the best music from past
Lucasarts games. The CD is entitled, 'The Best of Lucasarts Original Soundtracks', featuring music from The Monkey Island Series,
Grim Fandango ,
Outlaws , and
The Dig .
The Soundtrack includes:
01 20th Anniversery Fanfare ''(1:31)''
02 Outlaws Theme ''(3:17)''
03 Monkey Island Theme ''(1:40)''
04 Hector Steps Out ''(:55)''
05 Smooth Hector ''(2:00)''
06 Marco de Pollo ''(2:25)''
07 Hector's blues ''(1:58)''
08 The Ballad of Doctor Death ''(4:41)''
09 Temple Gate ''(1:44)''
10 The Monument ''(2:50)''
11 Mission to the Asteroid ''(2:27)''
12 Underwater Lagoon ''(2:29)''
13 The Train ''(3:44)''
14 Pegnose Pete's Hideout (1:27)
15 Scumm Bar ''(1:40)''
16 The Mystes of Tyme ''(3:26)''
17 The Enlightened Florist ''(1:24)''
18 Bone Wagon ''(1:29)''
19 Tango ''(2:15)''
20 The Sawmill ''(3:25)''
21 Laser Drill ''(3:31)''
22 Gladius Sketches ''(3:39)''
23 Finale ''(:55)''
''Total running Time: 54:41''
The Lead Composers are:
Michael Land ,
Peter McConnell , Clint Bajakian, David Levison and Mark Griskey. Engineering and Additional Production: Jeff Kilment, Larry the O, and Hans Reumschuessel.
The Cover states: "Lucasarts Entertainment Company Presents The Best of Lucasarts Original Soundtracks'. The Cover shows of 4 boxes each with a shaded color: Top Left, Shows Character from '
Grim Fandango ' with a Red Background. Top Right, shows a person riding on a horse with a purple background from '
Outlaws '. Bottom left, shows three people in space suits digging into the ground, with a bright glow coming from the terrain; with a blue background from '
The Dig '. Bottom right, shows of
Guybrush Threepwood 's (Main character from the
''Monkey Island'' Series ) face transfixed on the background of a home with a bridge (known as 'Hook Island') from
Escape From Monkey Island with a green background. A collection of classical, tropical, western, 'mysterious', and other kinds of music.
