The 12 Best LucasArts Games, Ranked

Summary

• LucasArts created iconic games like Jedi Knight and Monkey Island, setting high standards in gaming.
• Lucasfilms Games, revived as LucasArts, focuses on licensing properties, lacking a development division.
• Many games like X-Wing, Maniac Mansion, and Monkey Island have withstood time and remain enjoyable.

Under George Lucas, Star Wars and many of his other productions grew far beyond movies, spawning the broader company of LucasArts for creating games. While this was eventually shuttered almost entirely by Disney, it produced some of the finest games the medium has seen, from first-person shooters, to point-and-click adventures.

The LucasArts division was revived in 2021 as Lucasfilms Games, with the intent of licensing new properties, though still without a development division of its own. As such, we’re looking at these games in retrospect, with a focus on the best games that LucasArts made internally.

Updated 28th December, 2024 by Hilton Webster: With the recent release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the first title revealed under the revitalised Lucasfilm Games, people have been looking back to the heyday of LucasArts greatest games. We’ve tidied up this article for a bit more clarity, and added in some great games we missed the first time around.

12

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

Before the Jedi Knight series, there was Star Wars: Dark Forces. At the time, it was favourably compared to other FPS games like Doom, though wasn’t seen as being a strict evolution of that style of game. It was popualr though, resutling in the Jedi Knight series and the sequel to Dark Forces. And Dark Forces 2 was beloved.

As another first-person shooter, it went to extreme lengths to utilise gameplay with both blasters and lightsabers. It’s areas were wide, filled with unique combat encounters and environmental puzzles. It had a little bit of everything, and a strong Star Wars vibes to wrap it all up.

11

Gladius

Stepping away from the typical Star Wars and point-and-click fare of much of LucasArts usual games, Gladius was something very different. It was more of a tactical RPG, tasking you with building a team of gladiators and training them for use in ever grander battles. You also had to choose your protagonist at the beginning, though the story and gameplay remained mostly the same.

The real fun appears in the more diverse matches. You only issue commands to your gladiators, but some matches have certain conditions. Maybe only women can participate, perhaps you must be a certain class, sometimes there will be a harsh time limit. The game forces you to think tactically in the moment, but also on the wider composition of your team as a whole.

10

Maniac Mansion

Maniac Mansion isn’t LucasArts’ first game, but it is the game that earned them a reputation for developing quality games. Maniac Mansion starts by letting the player select two characters from a roster of six. The third character controlled by the player is the protagonist Dave Miller. Each character has a different set of skills that will allow the player to solve certain puzzles.

This increases the game’s replay value tremendously, as selecting certain characters forces the player to finish the game via a particular path. The SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) was created for Maniac Mansion, and would be used for nearly every graphic adventure game LucasArts made.

9

X-Wing And Tie Fighter

These are two separate games, but are essentially flip sides of the same coin. X-Wing came first, and allowed players the experience of piloting an X-Wing starfighter from the Star Wars movies. The campaign mode does a really good job of making the player feel like part of the Rebellion.

Tie Fighter continues the series, but this time the player is part of the Empire. Tie Fighter expanded on the gameplay of X-Wing with secondary and secret objectives given by servants of the Emperor. These games are almost thirty years old, but they have held up well and are still a blast to play.

8

Day Of The Tentacle

This is a sequel to Maniac Mansion, and manages to surpass the original in nearly every way. Instead of choosing your characters like in Maniac Mansion, the player controls Bernard, Hoagie, and Laverne as they try to stop the evil purple tentacle from taking over the world.

To accomplish this the three characters must travel through time and solve puzzles. Day of the Tentacle is full of great voice-acting and humorous well-written dialogue. If you wanted to try Maniac Mansion, get Day of the Tentacle instead as the you can play Maniac Mansion using an in-game computer.

Day of the Tentacle is also one of the first games with full voice-acting.

7

The Monkey Island Series

The Monkey Island series is being combined into one entry, because it would take up half of this list otherwise. The player controls the main character, Guybrush Threepwood, as he tries to outwit and defeat the evil pirate LeChuck. As with many LucasArts games, the Monkey Island series is known for its humor and its challenging puzzles.

The series spans six games, with each trying to top the previous title. One fun feature of the series is the insult sword-fighting mechanic. This is where the player trades insults with an opponent to determine the winner. Like many of the games on this list, the Monkey Island games have been remastered; complete with improved graphics and audio. And after a long wait, we got a brand-new entry in the series with Return to Monkey Island.

6

Full Throttle

Full Throttle was an ambitious game for the time. It blended point and click adventure gameplay with action sequences. There was still the typical adventure game puzzle solving, but the game also featured fighting and vehicular combat. The player controls the lantern-jawed protagonist simply known as Ben as he tries to save the founder of Corely Motors, a motorcycle manufacturer, and restore the good name of his gang.

The voice acting is superb, and features Mark Hamill as the antagonist Adrian Ripburger. The game uses LucasArts’ INSANE engine to handle the video sequences, which allowed for impressive full motion video. Impressive for the time anyway.

Yes, the engine was actually called INSANE – Interactive Streaming Animation Engine

5

Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis

This excellent adventure game based on the Indiana Jones franchise was actually released twice. The first time was on disks and had written dialogue; the second release was on CD-ROM and had spoken dialogue and greatly improved audio. The voice acting was well-done, and the actor chosen for Indiana Jones sounds very similar to Harrison Ford. Fate of Atlantis is a devilishly hard adventure game, but also an extremely fun one.

The game features numerous paths toward victory, which increases the replay value substantially. If you’re a fan of the Indiana Jones movies, then give Fate of Atlantis a try. You will be glad you did, though be prepared to look up some of those puzzle answers. It wouldn’t be an Indiana Jones game without some head-scratchers.

4

Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader

Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue leader, released exclsuviely for the GameCube, is another of the many space-based Star Wars games. It is a flight simulator with tons of arcade action set, of course, in the Star Wars universe. The graphics are some of the best to be found on the GameCube. It has aged remarkably well, looking more like a game from later generations than something from 2001.

The game also features the Star Wars music composed by John Williams and voice samples from the movies. The orchestral score really heightens the tension of the action. Rogue Squadron is worth hunting down a GameCube just to play it, seeing as it’s never been ported anywhere else.

3

The Dig

The Dig is an adventure game featuring a story by Steven Spielberg, and animation by Industrial Light and Magic. The story revolves around a space shuttle crew that is on a mission to divert an asteroid on course to impact the Earth. The crew learns after landing on the asteroid, named Attila, that it is not as it appears. The puzzles in The Dig are difficult, but also extremely rewarding when you solve them.

The idea for the story was from Spielberg, but renowned science fiction writer Orson Scott Card is responsible for the dialogue. Needless to say, the dialogue is beyond excellent and expertly draws the player into the story. This is definitely one of the most underrated titles in the history of video games.

2

Sam & Max Hit The Road

This is, without a doubt, one of the best adventure games ever made. It features Sam and Max from the comic book, by Steve Purcell, series of the same name. Sam is an anthropomorphic dog in a suit who works as a detective for hire. Sam’s sidekick Max is an aggressive white rabbit with an attitude that can be used as a weapon at certain times.

The two are on a job to find a missing Sasquatch that has gone missing from a circus. This game is challenging without being too difficult like some of LucasArts’ other adventure games, and it is full of hilarity that is sure to illicit quite a few laughs as you progress through the game.

1

Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is the best game in the LucasArts’ collection. This game is set in the Land of the Dead, and puts the player in control of Manuel Calavera, a skeletal travel-agent for the recently deceased. Manuel, or Manny as he is often called, is trying to get one of his clients, Mercedes Colomar, on the train to the next level of the afterlife – the Land of Eternal Rest.

He is doing this because he believes Mercedes was a virtuous person and does not deserve to be forced to spend four years walking there. Grim Fandango was praised for its colorful art style, strange and amusing characters, and witty dialogue. Theg ame later got a remaster from Double Fine, a studio renowned for many of its own quirky games and made by plenty of LucasArts alumni.