Lucas Archives Volume 1

The adventure games at the core of this collection are well worth the price of admission. First, there's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, a classic with good voice acting, terrific style, and a compelling story line that can play out in several ways. This was one of the first games to give players the choice of either fighting or thinking their way through puzzles, and we played it through three times before moving on to the other CD-ROMs in this collection.

The other titles certainly didn't disappoint. Sam and Max Hit the Road lets players guide Sam (a detective dog) and Max (his rabbit sidekick) through a series of twisted adventures. Don't let the talking-animal theme fool you--this is a cartoon for adults with plenty of over-the-top humor and some tricky puzzles.

Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle is another hilarious game, pitting three goofball characters against a mad purple tentacle bent on world domination. A time machine mishap leaves one character in the present, while one is whisked back to the past and the other is sent into the future. All three must work together, solving puzzles that will affect the characters in other time periods and let them progress. You can even access the original version of Maniac Mansion, an entertaining adventure in its own right, by using a computer terminal in this game.

Don't miss out on this incredible gaming bargain. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Classic adventures all hold up well despite their age
• All three games use superb voice acting instead of text messages

• Extras, like the screen saver and demo CD-ROM, are pure fluff
• These older DOS-based games can be tough to configure

It is possibly the greatest game I have played.


Lucas did co-invent the genre...and has just backstabbed it   March 11, 2004
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Those 3 games are the cream of graphical adventure,
from the golden era of the genre. If you buy this, you
should be able to run it on modern OSes with tools like
ScummVM.

Though, on March 3rd, 2004, Lucasarts decided to cancel
"Sam and Max - Freelance Police", the sequel to the
extremly good and funny "Sam and Max - Hit the road".
This sequel development was doing well, the game was
beautiful, funny, and approved by the characters creator,
Steve Purcell.

If you love the genre and/or Sam&Max, please express
yourself on this Petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/LACOSAM/
Email Lucas: pr@lucasarts.com

And visit: http://www.SaveSamAndMax.com/

..and off course, SPREAD THE WORD

Best regards.


Do these old games work on today's PCs ?   January 25, 2004
 18 out of 18 found this review helpful

For fans of LucasArts' classic DOS adventure games, LUCASARTS ARCHIVES VOL. 1 is a must-buy. This six-CD set contains full versions of the 1992 game INDIANA JONES AND THE FATE OF ATLANTIS, and the two 1993 masterpieces DAY OF THE TENTACLE and SAM AND MAX HIT THE ROAD (the latter will have a sequel coming in 2004). If you are unable to buy this set here, you can still order the three games directly from LucasArts as of today -- go to www.lucasarts.com/companystore and order "The LucasArts Archives: Adventure Collection."

Since these games were made for the DOS environment, they run best on a DOS PC with legacy Sound Blaster support. On a Windows XP machine, where DOS mode is nonexistent, one needs a third-party DOS emulators such as the free and open-source DOSBox, VDMSound, and SCUMMVM (which was made specially for many LucasArts games). I managed to run the three games in this set (and also other DOS games) on an XP Home PC with Audigy sound card using these DOS emulators, with SCUMMVM giving me the greatest success. So, in short, these old games CAN be run on your new PC. LucasArts provides no support for its DOS titles, but one can get help from user-support forums such as vogons.zetafleet.com .

Also included in this set is a CD containing Star Wars-themed screen-savers, a CD containing a three-level demo of REBEL ASSAULT, and a CD with playable demos of other LucasArts games -- FULL THROTTLE, DARK FORCES, TIE FIGHTER, REBEL ASSAULT II, and THE DIG. None of these three discs is really essential. The only reason to get this set is to have the three classic adventure games.

All three adventure games run in 320x240 resolution and 8-bit color, with speech, sound effects, and MIDI music. They all use the so-called SCUMM interface that enables point-and-click actions with the mouse. The two older games, INDIANA JONES and DAY OF THE TENTACLE, still rely heavily on text during gameplay -- you see a text description when you point at an object, and you click on large text buttons to perform actions such as "Look", "Give", "Pick up", etc. SAM AND MAX, however, is fully graphical -- all the actions, including conversations, are icon-based.

All three games are memorable because of their humorous stories, nice drawings, and puzzles that are enjoyable but not ridiculously difficult. THE FATE OF AN ATLANTIS is the first game to feature the Indiana Jones character, and it is a fun adventure about treasure hunting. DAY OF THE TENTACLE features a wacky and outrageous story about a mad scientist and his evil creations, the living tentacles, which try to use time travel to conquer the world. SAM AND MAX HIT THE ROAD is about a free-lance police team, a dog and his rabbit sidekick, trying to find a missing pair of circus freaks, a big-foot and a giraffe-necked human.