Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo
There is absolutely no reason to assume that LucasArts won't be able to harness new talent and deliver the modern equivalent of those masterpieces.
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Whatever philosophy fueled Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts of old, it's long since gone. There was a time when Lucasfilm/LucasArts was renown for barely releasing a single flop of a game. Look at their portfolio today and compare that to their titles from 1985 to ca. 1998. I'm not merely talking about the games we're now refering to as LucasArts adventure games - that this place was fueled by an unique ethos was apparent from its very early releases like "Rescue on Fractalus!"
It all started to change mid-way through the 90s (Afterlife, Indy Jones Desktop Adventures) and gained momentum once the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy was due, with more and more movie tie-ins being produced to cash-in on Lucas' most reknown in-house license. By the time "The Phanom Menace" was about to disappoint millions of movie goers, 90% of LucasArts' portfolio was a farce, an endless list of mostly mediocre merchandising tie-ins pretending to be something it barely qualified as. Interestingly, X-Wing had been the first Star Wars game developed by LucasArts itself. That was in 1993, nine years after Ballblazer had hit shops.
New CEOs and business plans have come and gone, but LA is still playing catch-up to the rest of the industry giants it once was able to toy around with. It speaks volumes that the best games that carried the LucasArts logo during the last decade weren't even developed in-house. It's kind of like with Atari, the brand recognition is still being capitalized on, but it's standing for something so radically different they could as well dump it altogether. So, even considering that the humans who made these games of old have long since left, there are other reasons for not being all that thrilled about this. However, that doesn't mean that this new company behind this popular brand is doomed to be recognized for being a medium profile publisher and mediocre at best development studio of video games forever. Because that's what it is in a nutshell, even if we tend to get all warm and fuzzy inside about their new-found respect to their heritage. By all means though: Probably as good an opportunity to turn that trend around as any.
