LucasArts’ newest game Lucidity is causing a lot of unneeded conflict in my poor, little mind. On one hand it is a curious game that looks new and could be a lot of fun. On the other hand, it might be EVIL. I’ll explain both sides of this thought process for those of you who care:
LucasArts used to be the place to find unique and original games back when Adventure games were all the rage, but now they’ve kind of turned stale. Even when the original Xbox and PS2 were in their prime LucasArts was publishing new titles like Mercenaries and Armed & Dangerous. But now, now they seem to put out nothing but Star Wars games at nausea and their version of original is remaking and making Monkey Island games, which isn’t really anything “new” even if it is “welcomed.” So as far as I know, Lucidity is an entire change of pace for the company. Now they can provide us a brand new title that looks fresh, and interesting, and fun. They’ve been needing to do this for a while now, and it looks like a dramatic step away from the Star Wars franchise.
On the other hand, popularity of indie games (cheaper costs to make plus small teams of developers) like Braid and World of Goo have definitely caused some envy among the major publishers, and if nothing else LucasArts embodies the behavior of stereotypical major publishers. So this seems suspiciously like a thinly veiled attempt to copy the indie gaming formula. Which unlike most downloadable releases by big name publishers is intentionally trying to steal money from the little guy. The logic behind this is: if nobodies can make great games for cheap, than we can do it easier and faster. Lucidity also looks like something one would expect to see from an indie dev graphically and in gameplay, so I’m left wondering if the game actually is intended to be an artistic piece or if it is an imitator.
Then the name: Lucidity, and it’s intentional similarity to the company’s makes me think that LucasArts is stamping a giant TM over indie gaming idealism.
This is where I’m conflicted, whether it’s a quality game or not doesn’t really matter because playing it would make me feel dirty, like sleeping with a girl that looks a lot like your ex. I don’t think LucasArts is above EVIL and their constant masturbation of the Star Wars franchise is proof of that, but I almost always welcome attempts at new ideas with open arms. This is probably what they call a dilemma.
