Scumm of the Earth

After years of begging, pleading and cult-like fanaticism from gamers, LucasArts are finally classifying their storied line of graphic adventures as retro-chic nostalgia pieces instead of bargain bin fodder with three interesting new releases:

- Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings came bundled with Fate of Atlantis for its Wii release.
- The Secret of Monkey Island will be remade with new graphics and voice acting for Xbox Live Arcade and PC
- Telltale will be releasing five episodic games in their new “Tales of Monkey Island” collection on PC and WiiWare.

Based on LucasArt’s most recent output, it’s an exciting time for point and click fanatics like myself. You see, after Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island failed to ignite sales charts, Lucas’ game division, LucasArts, was turned from a house of creativity to an automated factory producing the same Star Wars and Indiana Jones games continually. There have been success stories and plenty of worthwhile releases in these two product lines, but they are hollow shells of the games they used to produce.

Why I Love... Full Throttle. For Schafer’s second game, this tale of futuristic bikers and murder set-ups is staggeringly short, but packs a lot of punches into those few. With its rocket-like pace, relatively easy puzzles and plenty of action scenes, Throttle comes across as one of the most cinematic adventures in Lucas’ history.

Take Day of the Tentacle, one of Tim Schafer’s earliest projects. You play as three oddball friends (geeky Bernard, metal head Hoagie (who acts like an early prototype for Brutal Legend’s Eddie Riggs) and bizarre chick Laverne) who, in an attempt to hop back 24 hours and stop a Purple Tentacle from taking over the world, find themselves split between three different time periods.

Of course, part of it comes from Schafer’s wacky sense of humour and relentless desire to make the games he wants to make, but the diversity of ideas in LucasArts’ SCUMM catalogue meant that any game could slide in and feel like part of the family. Even The Dig, a far more serious sci-fi affair with Steven Spielberg and Orson Scott Card’s names attached, doesn’t feel out of place amongst the long line of comedy adventures, thanks to its effortless conversational flair and trademarked presentation.

But of course, Monkey Island is the monolith that towers over the collection and the glue that holds the sporadic releases together. Like Pixar’s Toy Story and Nintendo’s Mario, Monkey Island is the face of LucasArts and the company’s baby. The Secret of Monkey Island really set in stone how future graphic adventures would be made, LeChuck’s Revenge introduced the company’s dynamic music system with iMUSE, The Curse of Monkey Island showed off how good a point and click adventure could look and Escape… well Escape killed the franchise and pretty much the entire genre. You can’t win them all.

Why I Love... Curse of Monkey Island. Even though it feels almost sacrilegious to adore this game, with its lack of Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, Curse has an amazingly unique art design. With its disproportional characters, looming clouds and massively wide colour palette, every part of this game is drop dead gorgeous. It’s hilarious, too.

I’ve always liked how each manual would include a description of LucasArt’s design philosophy and assured players that each game would be logical and intuitive affairs, with no death (apart from specific releases) and no dead ends. Each point was a blessing for gamers used to Sierra’s more agonizing adventures. Here’s the “Our Game Design Philosophy” from Full Throttle’s manual:

“We believe you buy games to be entertained, not to be whacked over the head (and tossed into a dumpster) every time you make a mistake. So we don’t bring the game to a screeching halt and run you off the road when you poke your nose into a place you haven’t been before. Unlike conventional computer games, you won’t find yourself accidently stepping off a path or dying because you’ve picked up a sharp object. Anything potentially disastrous that happens to Ben is supposed to happen to him. A biker’s life is not a stroll through the mall”.

Another thing that made LucasArts special was that they weren’t set in their ways, rarely considered anything as the best way to approach design and never phoned it in. For example; in the company’s first release, Maniac Mansion (1987), you had 15 different verbs at the bottom of the screen. By Sam and Max (1993) it was reduced to just four interactions. The games also added VGA graphics, full screen animated cut scenes and voice acting as the technology became available.

Why I Love... Sam and Max. Steve Purcell’s adventure of a freelance police Dog and Rabbity-Thing duo illustrates my imagined view of America to an eerie degree. On a nationwide adventure, we learn that the USA is a never-ending carpet of dodgy tourist traps, shoddy carnivals and burger joints.

LucasArts is such a strong part of my childhood and an unforgettable presence in my gaming legacy so the vague guarantee that strong sales for the Monkey Island revivals will result in more remakes is a pleasant thought.

Ultimately though, until videogames can get over themselves, take some risks with their ideas and really begin another era of truly unique games, these remakes are nothing more than a reminder of how sober this industry has become.

(But buy seven copies of Monkey Island anyway, so we can get a Day of the Tentacle remake).