By Chris Kavan - 04/09/13 at 08:54 PM CT
When Disney acquired Star Wars - I knew there were going to be some changes coming. But are all these changes good? Scrapping plans for 3D re-releases to focus on the new films? Good! Scrapping the Star Wars: Clone Wars Series? Bad (I'm still holding out hope it will return on one of the Disney Networks). But nothing is as big as the latest announcement to come out of camp Disney.
In no uncertain terms, LucasArts is dead. But I'm a realist here - LucasArts has been a shadow of its former glory for many years. I mean, this is the studio that gave us Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and plenty of awesome Tie Fighter/X-Wing games. Super Star Wars was a great platformer and Shadows of the Empire is still one of my favorite N64 games. But lately things have been a bit... tepid. You can only crank out so many Rogue Squadron and LEGO games - and aside from Knights of the Old Republic, there has been a bit of a drought. Oh sure, The Force Unleashed tried - but even a new story couldn't save a broken game.
But nothing quite makes my point like this:
Star Wars Kinect just makes me shudder- so much potential - so much failure. But, one thing that hurts is that the now-cancelled Star Wars 1313 looked like it might have sparked a rejuvenation for the game studio. While there is a slim chance it could still be picked up - chances are it's done for good. Which is too bad - because playing a game as Boba Fett sounds like the best idea ever.
Was shutting down LucasArts a good thing? It's hard to say at this point until new Star Wars games start to appear. Disney and games don't have the greatest track record - but hey, if some Star Wars characters show up in the next Kingdom Hears game - it could be spectacular or it could be the worst possible use of the license. LucasArts - you made many games I have enjoyed - even the production got a bit stagnant, I'm still sorry to see you go.
Comments
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/12/13 at 03:54 PM CT
Yaaaawn... Star Wars and insane-moon-logic adventure games...
I admit I enjoyed Maniac Mansion, but the damned thing pretty much required a strategy guide, like all adventure games of that time period. Since LucasArts also hadn't made a good game since the 1990s, I don't feel like anything of real value was lost.
But I hate the fact that Disney owns them now. It's just lumping more IPs into less buckets.
