Lucas Archives Volume 1

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Do these old games work on today's PCs ? [Posted on 2004-01-25]
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.

Lucas did co-invent the genre...and has just backstabbed it [Posted on 2004-03-11]
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.

Well, I have only played one of the games [Posted on 2004-04-05]
I have only played one of these games that I bought in a single pack: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

It is possibly the greatest game I have played.

classic nostalgia [Posted on 2004-07-31]
I never did get the chance to play Sam and Max, but Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Day of the Tentacle are nostalgic trips for me. The gameplay is fun and awesome, and each has superb voice acting and sound effects. Day of the Tentacle is more of a silly comedy adventure, while Fate of Atlantis was worthy of becoming the next Indy movie (when did they say it was supposed to enter production?). Absolutely awesome stuff, you can't go wrong here, plus it's family friendly, the whole family no matter what your age can enjoy these games.

dott, sam and max [Posted on 2004-08-30]
These games are great. From my understanding, all three of them are talkies (I played Indiana and DOTT before the cd release that included voices.)Why do I like them so much? The humor that goes along with the fun adventure. These games are a lot like the monkey island series and grim fandgo albiet the graphics are much poorer. It is unfortunate that Amazon no longer carries this available archive series from lucasarts.

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