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Lucas Arts :: Mercenaries Official Site

Well, after a whirl wind 3 weeks of development (yeah, that's short), we finally delivered the Mercenaries site! 

The site:
Official Mercenaries Site

The Images:
Mercenaries Screenshots and comps

It's practically a mini MMO in the making.  You can go to 5 different sections and blow up nearly any item you see with an array of popular weapons.  Make sure to watch for the airstrike button in SouthKorea and China (the only 2 sections you can call an airstrike in).

Next week sometime, we're going to add a new sneak preview video clip if you find and shoot all primary targets in all sections.  I'm also planning on an easter egg whereby, if you earn more than 1.1Million in bounty (which means you have to use the right weapons with the right targets), you get to see something else, but not sure what that "else" will be.

Tips:

• RPG's *can be used on everything, but somethings won't get you paid and other weapons will get you paid more than just hammering on a tank with an RPG
• Don't forget street lamps!
• Airstrikes only exist in 2 sections:  China and South Korea.  They're worth $50k each.
• Shoot windows with machine guns/shotgun rather than RPG.  You get more money ;)
• There are primary targets (vehicles and guards) and then there are extra bounty targets (building blasts, potholes to destroy a highway etc.)

Here's a something you won't find:  a flow chart of the hijack buttons to the sections ;)
Mercs site flow

Technical Stuff:

• Bandwidth profiled - serves up content based on your connection speed
• Stateful sections - you blow up an item and go away, it'll still be blown when you get back ;)
• over 200 screenshots are available along with backstory and artist concepts
• 5 weapons to destroy anything you like (G36, RPG, AK47, C4, Shotgun).

After trying to talk SOMEONE into doing a site like this for years now, FINALLY Lucas Arts had a site that begged for this type of interaction.  I'm really hoping this opens up the flood gates and shows other gaming companies what's possible in getting people interested in their title.  Crap, even after working on this game for 10 days straight, I was begging them for a beta copy! 

One thing is for certain: This game is wide open and looks BRILLIANT!  You get a mission, and the you can do the map anyway you want.  Be a sneaky bastard and sniper yer way through, or take the duke nukem-load the clip and spray aproach.  You choose!

Anyway, hope you guys/gals dig it.  I can't wait to get my copy of this game!  Let me know what you think!

John

Lucas Arts :: Star Wars Galaxies - Jump To Light Speed

Man, this was one of the fastest most complex sites yet.  3 weeks/3 weekends of 20hr days straight.  This site took everything I had to get it done on time. 

The site:
http://www.lucasarts.com/products/galaxies/main.html#jtlHome_welcome

The images:
Star Wars Galaxies screenshots and comps

But the payoff was well worth it!  There are some outstanding features we came up with for this 2nd version (we did the first version as well).  Lucas Arts wanted to stream line this new version to be 56k friendly and FAST.  And with good reason.  They had TONS of images/information they wanted to get out on the site. 

Along with this we found out they were launching the new game update "Jump to Light Speed"!  WHOOO HOOO!  bout' time we be flyin' in such a game as this.  Now, I'm not an MMO player, I'm strictly first person/shooter/action and only have an hour at a time to play.  But after seeing all the screens and video from JTLS, I was nearly begging for a copy.  It looked KILLLLLLER.

Tech stuff:

• Bandwidth profiled.  Music, images - you name it.
• Hundreds of dynamically loaded content
• Authentic John Williams SW scores to support each scene
• Completely managed by Lucasarts (images/video/content)
• Relevent Links for all images in Gallery.
• All content is deeplinkable

I'm digging up some of the comp artwork for the site and putting out some of the working files we pulled ideas from that weren't released with the site.  Hope you enjoy!