Lucas Arts Rogue book!

[QueZTone]

You might not like the exact creative choices someone made when putting it together, but it looks like it was designed by a professional,

 

To be fair the choice of colours is not professional at all, they're blunt red and blue tones and the typography is appalling and not interesting at all.

 

What would you have preferred?

 

something more sophesticated.... an example are the covers of Ballastic Publishing's art books..

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm glad they actually do publish something like this..

[Sven_Q45]

Yeah! It´s here! My very late Christmas gift. Only 5 1/2 pages yet to read of SW RC Triple Zero. And then I must start Rogue Leaders immediately!

[SyntheticGerbil]

There's a lot of factual errors in this book. I may or may not start a list of everything that's wrong. That might be too whiny, or troll like though.

 

Also anyone else bugged by the near constant "artist unknown" descriptions for some of the great pieces of work?

 

It's like they know what Peter Chan and Steve Purcell did, but did not look into crediting the others.

 

And only 2 pages for CMI?! Come on! There must have been tons of artwork for that game!

[urluckyday]

I enjoyed this book, but I agree with your points ^...it's definitely a great addition to any Lucasarts collection though...

Amazon has it pretty cheap at this time and I purchased it from them...got there in 2 days with shipping...I love this book now...I've read through it twice now!

[neon_git]

Maybe there'll be a second edition with corrections and more detail at some point. Quite unlikely I expect but still, maybe one day.

[Sven_Q45]

I payed 47,99 €. I pre ordered it on 25th November 2008. It was sold out and now you can order it again. It came on Thusday.

Now on German Amazon it costs only ca. 38 €. 34,99 Pounds. That´s the official price.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Here's my quick review:

 

Having been a long-time fan of LucasArts's greatest and most original games (The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, et al), it's somewhat disappointing to learn that I know more about the titles than the author. While it is wonderful to see glimpses of rare production art, design documents and concepts for unfinished games, it's also a shame that the original content is light and even sometimes incorrect.

 

Rogue Leaders typically spends two pages per game. That could be enough room if the type size and line-spacing was that of a normal book or magazine article, but unfortunately here it amounts to little more than 300 words per game for bigger titles, like 'Day of the Tentacle' or 'Sam & Max', and even less for games like 'Loom'.

 

Major milestones, like 'The Secret of Monkey Island' get a mere 500 words, which means anecdotes, like the fact that the designers had to help package the first printing of SOMI themselves in order to make the shipping deadline, are unfortunately missing.

 

The book doesn't really have much of a narrative, either, and instead favours segmenting each game into its own mini-article. There is some attempt at the beginning to tell the story of the companies origins, but this seems to quickly evaporate once the company gets going.

 

This segmentation really works against trying to weave LucasArts's growth into a coherent tale, and the book often feels a bit confused as to where to turn next. You'll read about Monkey Island 1 (1990), its sequel (1991), Loom (1990), Day of the Tentacle (1993) and then Fate of Atlantis (1992) -- in that order.

 

There are also mistakes to found here, too. For example, the author makes no distinction between the two VERY different Indiana Jones 'Action' and 'Adventure' games for Last Crusade and Fate of Atlantis, printing design documents from both as if they belonged to the same game.

 

The lack of a strong narrative, added to the book's lightweight writing-style, means you never feel the highs and lows of the company's successes or failures. For example, after reading about the making of the early LucasArts title 'P.H.M Pegasus' and the split it caused within the company, you never find out if the game was successful or not.

 

As a companion to the recent exhaustive 'Making of...' Star Wars and Indiana Jones books, this is decidely a "lite" title, reading almost like a coffee-table book. Occassions when critical commentary is actually applied to the games is extremely rare, but its presence indicates that there could have been more.

 

Considering that articles of greater depth can be found for free on the internet, and considering this book's target audience is the die-hard fan, its light-weight style a very odd choice.

 

Why four stars, then? Simply because access to never-before-seen historical material, what there is of it, rises this book to the above-average. It's only a shame that Rob Smith wasn't able to create a definitive, exhaustive and authorative story of the life of LucasArts, because this most definitely is NOT it.

 

A quick note to adventure-game fans considering this book: Over a third is dedicated to the "golden age" of LucasArts, the rest focuses on the plethora of externally-developed Star Wars games.

[ThunderPeel2001]

What would you have preferred? Some faux leatherbound pirate tome like the Lord of the Rings DVDs? Something cheezy like the archaeology themed LucasArts Archives compilation? I don't think there's really a solid unified aesthetic that screams "LucasArts" actoss its entire existence. They have their purple color scheme, but it is pretty understated and wouldn't catch an eye on a bookshelf.

 

I think we both would agree that a Steve Purcell/Peter Chan bit of artwork with a massive "Rogue Leaders" splashed across it Indiana Jones/Grim Fandango 40's style would have been much better, surely?

 

While the cover is certainly eye-catching, the choice of images for the lenticular are certainly a bad match, too.

[Lagomorph01]

Finally found it last Thursday, at the American Book Center, right before I met Tom Cruise (just had to mention that).

 

Do you know how difficult it is getting this book in the Netherlands?

Well, I've got it now, although I had to pay € 54,-- to get it.

I've gone through the pictures a couple of times now, and I'm gonna start reading it tonight!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Finally found it last Thursday, at the American Book Center, right before I met Tom Cruise (just had to mention that).

 

Do you know how difficult it is getting this book in the Netherlands?

Well, I've got it now, although I had to pay € 54,-- to get it.

I've gone through the pictures a couple of times now, and I'm gonna start reading it tonight!

 

Wow, tell the story of you meeting Tom Cruise.

[Lagomorph01]

Wow, tell the story of you meeting Tom Cruise.

 

He was here, in the Netherlands, for the premiere of Valkyrie.

When he arrived he first started talking to the press, and then came for his fans.

We shook hands, talked a little, he signed a photo and I gave him my business card (me being a small time actor myself).

After that me and my friends had our picture taken with Tom.

 

It wasn't a big time interview or anything, but it was really special.

I'm normally pretty sober about these things, actors are people too, that kinda stuff.

But it was so weird just shaking hands with him, he's just such a big personality.

 

Here's the picture.

I'm the one farthest to the right.

[Sven_Q45]

it's somewhat disappointing to learn that I know more about the titles than the author. While it is wonderful to see glimpses of rare production art, design documents and concepts for unfinished games, it's also a shame that the original content is light and even sometimes incorrect.

Yes, I almost only interested in the adventure games. And there are a few interesting things I didn´t know. But I know more about the adventure games, too. I thought there comes more. There is too much general knowledge. And yes the articles are too little.

But I´m glad to continue reading.

[Gabez]

Haha, I love the way you gave him your business card. Way to network!

 

Pretty cool to meet him, though. I do like the Cruister; I don't care what they say.

 

Having been a long-time fan of LucasArts's greatest and most original games (The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, et al), it's somewhat disappointing to learn that I know more about the titles than the author. While it is wonderful to see glimpses of rare production art, design documents and concepts for unfinished games, it's also a shame that the original content is light and even sometimes incorrect.

I guess that's what our Secret History articles are for!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Haha, I love the way you gave him your business card. Way to network!

 

Pretty cool to meet him, though. I do like the Cruister; I don't care what they say.

 

I guess that's what our Secret History articles are for!

 

Yeah, but as great as they are, he had a lot more access to stuff than you -- including the ability to interview everyone

[Laserschwert]

I was a little confused by the fact that the pencil sketch for this poster...

 

 

... was actually credited to Steve Purcell, whereas the finished painting clearly has a "Chan" on it. Did Steve do the drawing and Peter the final painting?

[Lagomorph01]

I think it's just a mistake made by the book.

I read that it was by Purcell, and it made me think how he changed his whole drawing style.

His style is pretty familiar to me, and I didn't see anything that resembled it in the picture.

Now that I see that this one is made by Chan, I just think it's one of the little errors in the book.

Chan did most of the artwork anyway, including the box art.

Is there a high res version of this one? I'd like it as a poster.

[Laserschwert]

Obviously you don't know my poster thread over at the ScummVM-forums

[Lagomorph01]

Wow, that's a really great thread!

I love you and I want to have your baby.

Until then, I'm gonna get printing these out.

 

How did you get the ones without the lettering?

[Thrik]

That writing-less MI2 poster is highly approved by Thrik. ;

 

Is there actually a good place in the UK you can get these printed and mailed?

[Laserschwert]

Wow, that's a really great thread!

I love you and I want to have your baby.

 

How did you get the ones without the lettering?

 

You want my baby? Aren't the posters enough??

 

I did the ones without the lettering mostly by myself, using several different sources to touch those parts of the images up. It was quite a lot of work, but I think it was worth it. I'm currently working on "Maniac Mansion".

[Sven_Q45]

I forgot. I´m ready. LucasArts was yesterday but LA is still outstanding...

[Jeff]

I had a 30% off coupon at Borders and was going to pick this up yesterday, but they didn't have it and the coupon was in-store only so no ordering. :/ Still want to get it eventually.

[andygeers]

I bought the "Rogue Leaders" book the other week, and it's great to see all the concept artwork and stuff and read about the history. For my tastes, though, there was far too much about the later Star Wars stuff that I'm not so interested in. It's a good coffee table book, but not so sure it's worth the price tag

[SyntheticGerbil]

Yeah I finally finished reading the whole Rogue Book, and it just sounds like a company cheerleader who has a Star Wars fetish wrote it. I'm not even trying to exaggerate here. It kind of made me sad, but at least I have all this great (early) artwork in the book.

 

I really didn't see the point of going on and on for pages about Star Wars games developed by second and third party developers the last 100 pages of the book while some of the greatest LucasArts Adventures games got only one or two pages. This is extremely unforgivable when there are at l east 8 pages featuring artwork from Lego Star Wars/Indiana Jones games! Do those games seriously warrant a gallery of art needing to be printed? Not to mention (again) they aren't even developed by LucasArts.

 

There was also a few weird knocks against Grim Fandango and Tim Schafer about how they were interfering Hal Barwood's plans for a new game. Give me a break.

 

And Defenders of Dynatron City did have both the comic and show released, the book is wrong to say they were cancelled.

 

Anyways, ARTIST UNKNOWN.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Hooray! Someone else has finally read it and agrees with me. It's nice to own, for sure, but it's a wasted opportunity

 

There was also a few weird knocks against Grim Fandango and Tim Schafer about how they were interfering Hal Barwood's plans for a new game. Give me a break.

 

One thing: It was a single comment and if it's true then I feel sorry for Barwood -- it's not really a knock. A game where you play entirely as C-3PO sounds something inventive and unique for the Star Wars universe - and it could've be excellent if was done well. (Not that I'd take it over, Grim Fandango, of course!) Just bad timing, really... LucasArts afraid of being too "creatively risky" with TWO whole games.