Were you a huge Monkey Island fan back in the 90s?! Did you get super excited when you heard Monkey Island SE was released as an Apple app, download it without a second thought and then remember exactly how to beat the game?! Well you are going to love this! Move over Jack Sparrow because here comes Guybrush Threepwood!
I have been hoping LucasArts would re-release all the old games someday, but this is even better. Too bad it is only available on PC and Wii. Looks like I'll just have to buy myself a new Wii. Booyah!
Even with essentially no information behind it, just knowing that Lucasarts is working on a new Indiana Jones game is cringe-inducing. Here's one reason why. View the "trailer" for the game:
Did you notice that? The entire trailer is CGI. Zero actual gameplay footage. None of what was seen in the video will actually be seen in the game. And why is that? Because the game is going to be on the Wii and the DS.
So, we know Lucasarts is making an Indiana Jones game (called "Staff of Kings", but does that really matter?), and that it will be on the Wii and the DS. And, we also know that they aren't even willing to show gameplay footage when they talk about the game. That says to me that the game isn't worth seeing, and they know it. More than likely it will be some shoddy "casual" title that will take the essense of what makes a great Indiana Jones game -- exploration, adventure, chases, and fights -- and boil it all down to a painfully dull series of non-descript puzzles bolted messily within a point-and-click interface. To people like me, it will appear tedious and ugly. It will sell well to the soccer moms because to them it will be attractive and simple, just what they're looking for in a game their kids can play.
I'm looking forward to more publishers taking the Wii seriously in 2009, but if I'm right about Indiana Jones, and this amounts to a "serious" effort, I'm thinking that it's going to be (yet another) tough year to be a Wii owner.
