Did LucasArts Just Bolt From The ESA, Too?

The Entertainment Software Association confirmed late last week that two of its members—Activision and Vivendi Games—were no longer with organization, after they decided to "discontinue their membership." The pair were just two of the publishers who opted to bail on E3 this year, showing potential signs of discontent with the ESA and its annual show. They may not be the only ones.

Today, it would appear that another publisher may be joining Activision and Vivendi as a former ESA member, as GamePolitics points out that LucasArts is no longer listed as one of its members, a recent and unannounced change. The official E3 Summit web site still lists LucasArts as a participating company. We have a request in with the publisher to learn more about their ESA status and will update when we hear back.

ESA Members

LucasArts has gone all out for the official website of Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. The flash heavy site is chock full of news, game info, screenshots, concept art, and even a nifty trailer for your enjoyment. The site also contains a nifty little treasure hunt, where you can click on treasures hidden throughout the pages for points to use in the downloads section towards stickers, wallpapers, coloring pages, avatars, and eventually ringtones...though I must admit that I already have the theme saved to my phone. PC Gamers might also want to take note of the Games For Windows hosted demo for the game, due out May 13th. Follow the link below to check out the Indy gaming scene.

Lego Indiana Jones Website [LucasArts.com]

If you're not interested in getting homebrew up and running on your Wii, fine. That's your business. You're probably not interested in knowing that ScummVM is now working for the system, either, nor in seeing a man play Full Throttle on his couch using a Wii Remote. Because that's not awesome at all, is it?
[via Savygamer]

Hold Onto Your Potatoes, Lego Indy Has 60 Playable Characters

I don't mean to make anyone uncomfortable, but good Lord, this gets me hard:

Whatever your console, this trailer will convince you it's going to be awesome. Exclusive content and gameplay for all of them. God, now I want to buy a Wii. Right after I take a cold shower.

The Force Unleashed hits the U.S. on Sept. 16, Southeast Asia and Australia on Sept. 17 and Europe on Sept 19., LucasArts announced today.

The game will have you playing as Darth Vader's secret apprentice and takes place in the era between Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. The game will have players assisting Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi.

"Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is one of the most ambitious projects LucasArts has ever launched. The combination of a great new Star Wars story with revolutionary new technology and game play means more fun than you've ever had in the Star Wars universe," said Peter Hirschmann, Vice-President of Product Development, LucasArts. "We can't wait until gamers get their hands on it this September."

LucasArts teamed up with Spike TV to air segments about the upcoming game during the channel's upcoming showing of all six Star Wars movies this weekend. The channel will be airing six different segments about the game "each with an exclusive announcement or new game play footage."

Hit the jump for the segment times, more box art shots and some details on the game.

LucasArts Names New President

Why Don't Next-Gen Games Give Us Next-Gen Gameplay?

While a lot of games are pushing the limits of what can be done visually in games, we also wanted to push gameplay to levels that literally could not be done on the previous generation of hardware.

Alleged LucasArts Staffer Gets Gossipy On Ward, ILM & More

If you're a young whippersnapper, you might hear a lot of us old, toothless codgers yammering on about how great PC gaming was back in the day. And if you caught that yammering, you'd also catch us talking about Lucasarts, and how when PC gaming was at its best, Lucasarts were the best developer on the PC. Need proof? Read this. It's the Spring 1993 edition of Lucasarts company newspaper/catalogue, The Adventurer, which I dug it out of storage at my parent's house on the weekend. Flick through its pages and step back in time to a year when graphic adventures were on top of the world, Spielberg was involved in games that didn't involve coloured blocks and you could fit all the world's officially-licensed Star Wars merchandise on two-and-a-half pages.

Back in 1981 when my mother took me to see the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I sat rapt for nearly two hours - no small feat for a hyperactive 8 year old - entranced by the action, tickled by the wit, and just completely absorbed by the story. The reason I bring that up now is that these screens from Lego Indiana Jones look like the original movie as seen through the eyes of a hyperactive 8 year old. Just a thought that struck me. Game is looking pretty good, isn't it?

No Nazis For Lego Indiana Jones

Lego [have] already replaced them with an anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race.

Yes, That New, Non-LEGO Indiana Jones Game Is Still Alive

You may have forgotten amidst all the exciement surrounding the new movie and the LEGO game, but once upon a time (2006) Lucasarts announced they were working on another Indiana Jones game. One based on NaturalMotion's pretty-darn-exciting Euphoria physics and animation technology. Well, since then, we've heard squat on the game. Hell, talking about it around the tower's water cooler this morning, I'd forgotten all about it. So it was great to hear from Vanity Fair, of all places, that the game's still being worked on. Good news. LEGO's great and all, but sometimes you just want to put a ragdoll Nazi's face through a windshield, you know?
The Game Has Changed [Vanity Fair]

LEGO Indiana Jones Live Gameplay at GDC

We just leaned that LucasArts will be hosting an event at their Presidio campus during the Game Developers Conference to show off some of the cool tech behind Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Fracture and... gasp... let us catch a glimpse of some live gameplay from LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures.

I am as giddy as a school girl about that game, and I'm not kidding. I actually look longingly at the new Indie LEGO kits every time I see them in stores. I've been trying very hard to kick my son of his LEGO Star Wars habit, just so I have an excuse to buy them. So want.

Variety has a pretty epic story in their March issue that delves deep into LucasArts upcoming Star Wars game The Force Unleashed. Writer Frank DiGiacomo does not only an amazing job of shedding light on a hotly anticipated game, but also manages to lead the uninitiated on a quick tour of both the history of video gaming and the problems the emerging medium still struggles with. The story then quickly plunges into the making of the upcoming game and some of the issues the devs have run into while trying to blend new tech with old for the game.

The story does mention a few things interesting to the hardcore as well, like the fact that they had to play down the game's realism because if a person was really hit with a force blow it would be like being smacked with a cannon ball, and perhaps a bit too gruesome for the T-rating they are shooting for.

The article says that Force Unleashed, which is meant to tell the story of the time between Episode III and Episode IV by fleshing out Darth Vader, has a plot twist "almost as good as the "I am your father" moment from Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back." The game also contains surprising revelations about the birth of the Rebel Alliance.

LucasArts president Jim Ward surprised the developer on Monday with news that he was leaving the company he's been with for nearly ten years.

In a prepared statement sent to Kotaku shortly after we broke the news of his departure, Ward sang the praises of a game development company he says he's helped reboot.

"I am so proud of all people and the work we've done together at LucasArts over the last four years," he wrote. "It's been an incredible experience. Together we've rebooted the company and set LucasArts on a path to even greater success. This is a fantastic team and they are positioned for their best year ever."