GOG.com is at it again!

[Alexrd]

They say third time's the charm, we're hoping you agree. Today, we're uncovering a true treasure trove of long-lost intrigue, action, and peril - digital premieres, beloved adventures, (and a shooter, but that's just another kind of adventure, isn't it?) all DRM-free and ready for your loving digital embrace:

 

• Outlaws + Handful of Missions - digital distribution premiere
  
• Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders - digital distribution premiere
  
• Indiana Jones® and the Emperor's Tomb™ - digital distribution premiere
  
• Monkey Island™ 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge™ - 20% off
  
• The Dig® - 20% off
  
• LOOM™ - 20% off
  

 

There is nothing quite as satisfying as reviving the most beloved and woefully unavailable (until now, that is) gaming classics for you guys, and we're super happy to have already released 24 of Lucasfilm's greatest already. After today's big wave, even more anticipated Lucasfilm games will gradually keep showing up on GOG.com in the far and near future, stay tuned!

 

All launch discounts will last for one week, until March 26, at 1:59 PM GMT.

 

Here's the full LucasArts catalogue up until now.

[ATMachine]

Hooray!

[Jenni]

I picked all of the latest batch up. I got all of the last bunch that was non-Star Wars, and I picked up a bunch of Star Wars games in the Star Wars Humble Bundle.

 

Disney is actually doing pretty good with LucasArts so far. The decision not to go forward with Star Wars: Attack Squadrons after the closed beta (although playing it, I can kind of see why - it was fun in spurts but it would need a lot of polish to be considered good enough for people to pay money for, and I guess they decided it wasn't worth it) and pulling Star Wars: Tiny Death Star from the marketplace (this one I don't understand, as it was fun, and it seemed to be pretty popular if the fact that it kept showing up on the iTunes most downloaded list is anything to go by) are really the only things that I can think of that they didn't handle well with LucasArts so far. Everything else has been pretty darn good (and certainly a lot better than how LucasArts themselves handled the company since the turn of the century).

 

I'll admit that I've mostly ignored the non-adventure games by LucasArts up until now. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is the only non-adventure game I played at launch, and I played a little bit of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic last year as part of a thread at the Double Fine forums where everyone played a game from their Steam game list that is in a genre that they normally wouldn't play.

 

I'm going to go through and play the games I missed out on, as they've been doing a pretty good job on releasing games that have been praised by fans (and at least got decent reviews by critics, if not glowing). I started Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb now. I'm actually liking it quite a lot so far. The voice of Indiana Jones is great (he sounds a lot like Doug Lee (Indy in Fate of Atlantis and Infernal Machine), but at times he actually sounds quite a bit like Harrison Ford himself, which is great), and I really like that they strove to amp up the action to make it feel faster paced and more cinematic. I actually thought I'd dislike the move away from puzzles in order to make things less slow paced, but in actuality, the opposite is true. It actually benefits from that, at least so far, in my opinion.

[Alexrd]

(and certainly a lot better than how LucasArts themselves handled the company since the turn of the century)

 

I wouldn't say that. The only good thing Disney did with LucasArts, from my perspective, was to make its catalogue available DRM-free. Can't exactly give them credit for letting Double Fine remaster Grim Fandango. Sony seems to have played a big part in that, and I don't see the indie-LucasArts saying "no" to them.

[Jenni]

I wouldn't say that. The only good thing Disney did with LucasArts, from my perspective, was to make its catalogue available DRM-free. Can't exactly give them credit for letting Double Fine remaster Grim Fandango. Sony seems to have played a big part in that, and I don't see the indie-LucasArts saying "no" to them.

The original LucasArts turned down the offer to remaster Grim Fandango multiple times though, as the people in charge usually weren't willing to license their adventure properties. Most of the time they weren't exactly known for being open to making games outside of Star Wars (Darrell Rodriguez was the rare case, and Tim has stated that the staff at Disney and Sony have lined up in such a way that it reminds him of that small time frame that Darrell ran things).

 

It definitely sounds like it's the combination of the current people in charge at Disney/LucasArts as well as those at Sony that have allowed Double Fine to revisit Tim's LucasArts games. The Double Fine versions of Tim's LucasArts games would not have been possible without the help from all three companies, as Double Fine is developing them, Sony helped with the financial means, and LucasArts has provided Double Fine with all of the assets from their archives, including the material from the cancelled Day of the Tentacle remake by LucasArts Singapore. With these things, it's the right factors aligning at the right time, and the Disney run LucasArts is definitely a part of that.

[Alexrd]

The original LucasArts turned down the offer to remaster Grim Fandango multiple times though, as the people in charge usually weren't willing to license their adventure properties.

 

They were still in contact with them, right until Disney bought the company. Of course they are the ones who still say 'yes' or 'no' (and that credit I'm willing to give them, even though I think the pre-Disney LucasArts would have done the same), but I believe the presence of Sony is what allowed the remake to happen in the first place. Double Fine, on its own, didn't hold much weight (unfortunately).