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Worth Reading: The International House of Mojo's Retrospectives

Posted by Bob Mackey

About a year ago, I had the crazy idea that I'd write a series of articles about the LucasArts PC adventure gaming catalog (chronologically, of course) for GameSpite, one of the many sites I freelance for. Unfortunately (for me), it was around this same time that The International House of Mojo started their LucasArts' Secret History series, which was basically the same idea I had, albeit with a staff of writers and access to resources and people unavailable to me. At first, I didn't let the competition get me down, but after seeing the tremendous amount of work TIHM put into their retrospectives, I threw in the towel by the time I got to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. I realize that more than one person can write about a game--hell, on 61FPS I think we blog about Earthbound a dozen times a week--but there's something about TIHM's LucasArts' Secret History series that makes it seem... definitive.

The newest entry in LucasArts' Secret History--all of which can be accessed from this page--is the developer's 1995 game, The Dig. Since my family didn't pick up our first PC until late 1996, The Dig was actually the first "real" LucasArts game I played after the NES port of Maniac Mansion. The Dig was actually pretty unusual for the LucasArts catalog; the focus isn't on humor, and there's a sense of grandeur that their other games lack--you can probably credit Steven Speilberg's work on the game for these qualities. It isn't my most favorite game of the genre--the Myst-like puzzles kinda piss me off--but the International House of Mojo has a fantastic write-up on the game featuring reviews, trivia, and developer interviews. Go and check it out.

Related Links:

The Abandoning of a LucasArts Legacy
LucasArts Classics On Nintendo DS?
Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.

+ DIGG

+ DEL.ICIO.US

+ REDDIT

Posted Mar 12 2009, 02:00 PM

Filed under: lucasarts, bob mackey, pc games, point and click adventure games, the dig, worth reading

Comments

Gabez said:

Thanks for the mention, and I'm glad that you're enjoying the series!

Sorry for pushing your own article series into the vortex: though if you ever wanted to contribute to ours, you'd be more than welcome to. :)

March 13, 2009 5:32 AM

Bob Mackey said:

I'll definitely keep this in mind; keep up the awesome work in the meantime.

March 16, 2009 7:26 PM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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