It was announced today that Disney is closing down the LucasArts studio.   So no more first party games.   Depending on how they license out the games, the properties may still live on.  However, I have a feeling that they will only leverage the Star Wars franchise and leave the rest to live only in our memories.

I thought I would write-up a little homage to some of the great games that LucasArts put out that I grew up with.

Super Star Wars Series

The Super Star Wars series was released for the SNES and it was fantastic.   I remember playing through the series in when I was in high school with one of my best friends.    We would rent the games and power through them in the weekend.   Super Empire Strikes Back was the most difficult.

When we were stuck at a level, we would take turns and put on “power” music.  Sometimes this was Star Wars music, but more often than not it was just a good rock song.   Once we started cruising through the game again we would listen to the game soundtrack.   We just didn’t want to miss anything.

Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle

I have a confession to make.   I have never played Day of the Tentacle.     I know it is the superior game to Maniac Mansion, but I’ve never played it.    Maniac Mansion however was a genre defining adventure game.   The best part is you can put you can put a hamster in the microwave (I would never ever ever do this in real life).   Don’t forget to call Edna for a good time.

I read a great article that covered the censorship that Nintendo enforced to get Maniac Mansion on the NES.   If you care at all for retro-gaming I would definitely read the link.

The Monkey Island Series

There has been no other adventure games I have spent as much time with as the Monkey Island series.   Whether you fight like a cow or use rubber chickens as pulleys – you’ll have a good time.   Guybrush Threepwood (Mighty Pirate) might actually be the greatest casualty of the closing of LucasArts.

In recent years Tell-Tale Games has done a new episodic new version of Monkey Island.   There is a chance with that this license might actually continue.   Check out their trailer here:

Full Throttle

I never played Full Throttle, but I know people who rave about it.  I’m was holding out for an IOS port, but that doesn’t look like it will happen now.

Grim Fandango

Another game I didn’t play.  There is an IOS sequel, so I might get to it.

Sam and Max Hit the Road

This is the third game on the list that I haven’t played.  It is such a cult hit I need to go back and play it sometime.   I almost bought it multiple times, but never pulled the trigger.

X-Wing and Tie Fighter

There is no game outside of Star Wars Galaxies that sucked as much of my time as X-Wing.   Some people consider Tie Fighter to be the superior game – but I call blasphemy.   I’ll have to do a follow-up article on X-Wing, there is just too much awesome to contain in this post.

I hope this post takes you down memory lane.   I hope you also experienced the awesome games that LucasArts put out.   Let’s pour out some blue milk for our lost comrades.   Hopefully the licenses won’t die in this moment.   It’s almost like a millions of adventure game players screamed out and were silenced all at once.