Good news for adventure game fans--LucasArts is releasing several of its best graphical adventure games on Steam. Of particular note here is The Dig, which is one of my very favorite adventures and a seriously underrated title in my opinion.

Ahoy there, fancy pants!: Go check out Ron Gilbert's blog today and see his great post on his classic game. It's lavishly illustrated with screenshots and gives you great insights into the original game. It's really, really great stuff!

Oh, and thanks to Bill and Catatonic for telling me about the new Monkey Island game by TellTale Games. The plan is to make it an episodic game like they did with the Sam & Max series. Check out the official website. I can't wait!

It took literally all day and all night to get it done, but here it is: Matt Chat 8: The Secret of Monkey Island. This one should be available in HD soon, but it's my understanding that it can take awhile for YouTube to post the option. This is the first time I've attempted to do a HD video, so bear with me. Hopefully, the options will appear after the video has finished processing.

Enjoy the video and please let me know what you think!

When I first about Rob Smith's new book Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts, I knew almost instantly that it'd be a valuable book for those of us concerned with videogame history. LucasArts (known earlier as LucasFilm Games) is one of the most important and influential of all videogame developers. While many, many people fell in love with classic graphic adventures like The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Full Throttle, and my personal favorite, The Dig, earlier aficionados will remember the equally revolutionary Koronis Rift and Ballblazer. The task Rob Smith set for himself with Rogue Leaders was to give us an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how all these games got made--and, without question, the man succeeded brilliantly. The only way you could immerse yourself more deeply in this topic would be to jump in a time machine and get a job at LucasArts Games yourself!

"When you want to publish the first announcement of a new LucasArts game, you pull out all the stops," writes the author in his introduction. One might very well apply that to "the first book about LucasArts." Smith has pulled out all the stops to create one of the best books I've seen yet on my favorite topic: videogames!

I just got my review copy of Rogue Leaders. I intend to write a full-length review in the next week or so, but I can definitely say right now that this is a book that NO, I repeat, NO, fan of LucasArts games will want to miss. It's beautifully produced; top quality, and jam-packed with amazing images, game design plans, interviews, photos of all kinds...You'd have to basically be nuts not to order this one right away. I'm very impressed (blown away, really) and can't wait to delve more into it.