A Freakish Find!!!

 

Yesterday I had the luck, no the HONOR, of finding what may be the greatest book in my personal library.  I found the ever elusive "Rogue Leaders" The story of LucasArts!!!  This has been one of the items in my ever growing quest of things I must own before I kick the bucket.  So here's the short story detailing my discovery of this amazing piece of loot.  My wife and I made a quick trip to our favorite book store, (one that you've seen mentioned on this site many o' times) "Half Price Books" just to check their clearance section for any "Goosebumps" books. (We're trying to collect them all for our future zombies)  Well I was in luck as they had recently added two new "Goosebumps" books to the clearance section, and ones that I currently didn't have at that!  After my wife was done perusing her section of the store we headed to the front, and as I was checking out their amazingly shitty horror DVD section my eyes were magnetically drawn to the bottom of the "rack of shit" placed precariously at the front door.  I think the purpose of this specific shelf was for the absolute garbage they were hoping people would pick up as impulse buys on their way out.  After focusing on this crazy lenticular cover that caught my eye, it was clear to me that I was staring at not only Darth Vader but the Purple Tentacle on the cover of this large coffee table style book on the bottom row. (If you don't know who Purple Tentacle is please refrain from ever reading this blog again haha)  As I picked it up I realized exactly what I had in my hands and I immediately looked over at my wife who actually smiled because of the glow that was emanating off of my face.  I proudly walked up to the cashier and placed it on the counter ever so delicately and proceeded to pay for this monumental purchase.  (This thing was even still shrink wrapped, that's how nice of condition it was in!)

 

The book itself encompasses the entire history of the greatest video game company on the planet.  From the very first day up until last year, this book talks about not just the history of the company itself but the history of every single one of their games including ones that never actually made it onto store shelves.

 

Taken from the back of the book:

"For more than 25 years, LucasArts has produced some of the greatest videogames ever.  Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts is the epic tale of this company and its passionate visionaries, who created such classics as:

Ballblazer

Rescue on Fractalus!

Star Wars, from Dark Forces to Knights of the Old Republic

Indiana Jones adventure games

Maniac Mansion

Battlehawks 1942

Day of the Tentacle

The Secret of Monkey Island

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Full Throttle

Grim Fandango

And many, many more of your all-time favorites!

Plus exclusive art and previews of:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels & Jedi Alliance

New Indiana Jones titles

New and previously unpublished interviews reveal LucasArts' key milestones, while more than 300 pieces of concept art-much of it published for the first time-showcase the inspirational artistic talents behind their classics.  Concept art from more than 10 unpublished LucasArts games, a script and storyboard excerpt from Star Wars: Rebel Assault II, and the original design document for Rescue on Fractalus!, along with dozens of never-seen-before gems from the Lucasfilm Archives make Rogue Leaders the ultimate collectible for videogame fans around the world.

 

If you are a fan at all of classic point&click adventure games then you need to pick this up and read about the godfather of all adventure video games.  By the way the book does include a vast wealth of knowledge on my favorite video game franchise of all time "Monkey Island" and my second favorite computer game of all time "Grim Fandango".  (of which I own both still with the original packaging!)  Part of the greatness of this find isn't the rarity of the book but the price at which I got it for.  The book lists at $60.00 because of it's style, (the gigantic hardcover coffee table style book) but if you look on amazon you'll find a discount of about fifteen dollars, meaning you'll shell out about $45.00 for the book still.  (60 dollars is well worth it by the way!)  The awesome part is that I only paid a whopping $6.98!!!  HAHA read it and weep suckers!!!

$6.98

 

Saved the best for last!  Yup that last pic features my favorite videogame character of all time, Guybrush Threepwood might pirate!!!  Oh and by the way, like I said at the beginning, those aren't four different covers, they are all on the cover.  Depending on what angle you hold the cover it changes into all four of the characters featured above.  All in all a pretty damned respectable find wouldn't ya say?

 

"That's the second biggest HalloweenOverkill blog post I've ever seen!" (Monkey Island in-joke)