A total of 6 CD-ROMS in the one box. Two of the CDs are demonstration discs. One contains three levels of Rebel Assault, the other contains some playable and some non-playable demos of recently produced LucasArts products.
There is the Star Wars Screen Entertainment CD. A set of screen savers for your Windows system. Since I don't use screen savers, I've never tried any of these. The first time you have a QuickTime movie interrupted by a screen saver tends to be the last time you use a screen saver.
Now in my order of preference, the 3 graphic adventure games.
Harrison Ford does not do the voice-over for this game. The person who does the voice, does well enough at it that you'll forget it isn't Ford very quickly. After that, you can really get into the game.
Indy needs to track down the clues that will lead him to the lost city of Atlantis. The puzzles in the game are good, the solutions make sense.
Many, many puzzles in this game can be solved in more than one way. The first thing Indy must do in the game, get into the theatre, can be done in three ways. Later in the game, you must officially take one of three paths. To maximise your score, you will need to take all three paths in different game sessions. The manual claims you can earn up to 1000 IQ points, but I ended with around 950 when I finished the third time.
I think this game has the best hints for what to do next of the three games in the package. Listen to what Indy starts muttering if you get stuck. He frequently has some idea of what to do next, or what you didn't notice yet. Or, if she's around, Sophie may have a clue.
This game contains one of my favourite bits of subtle programming. When Indy enters a dark room, it is black. As you move around, the room will very slowly become brighter. I like the idea of having a computer game that simulates so nicely this phenomena. The only thing that would have been better would be the occasional "Ouch!" as Indy bumps something in the dark.
In this game, you will be controlling the actions of three different characters in three different time periods, to save the world. This complicates things, because some of the items you find will need to be moved to a different time zone to be useful. Also, there are several ways in which things move between times, and you'll need to work out *how* you are going to move an item through time.
This game is based on some characters from a very old LucasArts game. You can even play the old game, if you like. I only did so once for a short while. I did not find it that amusing. It was an interesting idea to incorporate the old game into the newer one.
The game is fairly fun and funny. Some of the situations the characters get into, and some of the solutions to the puzzles should at least get a chuckle from you. Once you can switch back and forth between all three characters, you usually can find some puzzle you can solve while you think about one that you're stuck on.
Sam and Max, I must confess, were a bit too weird for my tastes. I was much too frequently getting to the stage of trying every object on everything in the room, just to get some reaction. I would also tend to forget that you have to use Max from time to time.
It is a very funny game. There are a number of little games embedded within the main game, and the end credits were a blast.
The other LucasArts products on my review list were all purchased after this box. The Dig, Rebel Assault, Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and his DeskTop Adventures were bought because I enjoyed this package so much. If you don't own these games, this is a wonderful opportunity to find out what you've been missing
What I enjoy about these older LucasArts games are their sense of humour and their consistent interface. The Dig was a bit of a disappointment that way, since the humour was toned down so much.
I have since purchased LucasArts Archive 3 on the general principle that the game collections are a wonderful way to catch up on software.
If you want to find older LucasArts games, go to their site and check out the store. They have released a number of older games in various collections. They are one of the few companies who recognise that some people want to play good games, not just bleeding edge games.