Even news about Lucasarts classics being remade and re-released on one of those new-fangled ‘digital distribution’ platforms, called ‘Steam‘, or something, which has suffered in the wake of the news of Michael Jackson’s death.

Wait – what do you mean Michael Jackson is dead?!

We hadn’t heard. Three hundred times a day. For the last four months.

Yes, since before he had even died.

Okay, so maybe part of the reason this has been overlooked is because this wonderful column which provides the sole source of gaming news for about 97 per cent of the population wasn’t here last week, but now it is, so pay attention.

We were Twatted with this earlier this week by some Lucasarts chap (not personally, mind):

“Amazing news coming Monday! Super excited! You have no idea how tough it is not to start yelling about it! But it’s secret! Until Monday!”

So, basically, we expected the world to literally explode with the incredi-ultra-megaton that was to be thrust our way.

Instead it was just the news that Lucasarts have realised they can finally get with the times and re-release a chunk of their back catalogue on Steam this Wednesday. Or “tomorrow” if you’re being pedantic.

And what are these games in question? See:

Armed and Dangerous
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure
LOOM
Star Wars Battlefront II
Star Wars Republic Commando
Star Wars Starfighter
The Dig
Thrillville: Off the Rails

So it’s a pile of games that were out a few years ago, one that was out last year and some bona-fide classic adventures (though strangely lacking Sam and Max or Day of the Tentacle). It’s not the haul we all maybe hoped for, but there is good and potentially good news to come.

For one, there’s the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island coming soon to PC and 360, meaning we get to look at a reskinned version of a game that we’ve replayed every year since it came out. So… that’s… life-changing.

Then there’s the new episodes of Monkey Island coming from Telltale. Which would be nice, were it not for the fact that the company have a questionable comic ability gland at the best of times, and this is a series which simply has to be funny. Don’t fail us, or there’ll be fire. FIRE.

And third, there’s the chance that if these re-releases on Steam and 360 do well, along with the new one on PC and Wii, we might get to see reskinned versions of the games we really want to see. Hello, Full Throttle.

Then again, there’s a chance we won’t, and this will all be as disappointing as if Michael Jackson died.

What do you mean he’s…

9 - Win an Indiana Jones 4 DVD. Rubbish prize, yes, but free – Sprout

8 - The four-year-old girl from Heroes does a swearword about John McCain – Funnyordie

7 - Acorn people! - eHow

6 - SLACKERJACK EXTRA: a game to make you feel optically worthless - Woodgears

5 – 13 bizarre cookery show moments, each of them priceless – Screenjunkie

4 - The ghetto Mona Lisa will see you now – Pic

3 - A waterproof, shockproof MP3 player? Great, we’ll take one – it’ll be perfect for our regular Incontinence And Domestic Abuse afternoons - Freestyleaudio

2 - Add obscene captions to stuff. Win cash – Captionsplash

1 – Scientific proof! Northerners are dirty – ABC Online

In news sure to bring a smile to The Beef’s little face, it turns out that his recent car accident will not result in the amputation of his little finger, as has been reported all over the world of the superstars these last couple of days. While the rumours were rampant that Shia himself had told producers on Transformers 2 that he would have to have his Beef pinky removed, these have been greeted by his rep as being ‘fabricated’ and ‘totally untrue’.

Which is good for him.

What’s good for everyone else in the world, though, is the news that George Lucas has seemingly gone back on his original statement that Shiny McBeef would be the new Indiana Jones. For the first time in what would appear to be an absolute age, Lucas seems to have made ‘the right decision’.

Obviously he followed it up with another bad decision immediately thereafter, but you have to really learn to love those small victories.

Shia must have been happy to know he doesn’t need an amputation, and hecklerspray was certainly happy to discover that the young one of the red-meaty name wouldn’t be taking over as the lead in a new Indiana Jones cash-in/adventure (delete as appropriate). Speaking to MTV, Lucas let loose this pearl:

“Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. If it was Mutt Williams it would be Mutt Williams And The Search For Elvis or something.”

It’s nice to know George Lucas is a reader of hecklerspray. He must be, coming up with movie titles like that.

But then we realised this meant one thing and one thing only. While Shia LaBeouf won’t be taking the fedora from Indy just yet, it will be staying in the hands of Harrison Ford.

Who is fast approaching 70.

While his turn as the archaeological commie buster in Indy 4 wasn’t the best of outings, it was still verging on believable. In fact, the only truly awful part of the film came from The Beef and his Tarzan impression.

Seriously – why was that considered a good idea?

Anyway – the thought of a 70-year-old kicking arse and making wisecracks is probably pushing things that little bit too far away from hecklerspray’s ability to suspend disbelief, but this doesn’t matter to George Lucas. Speaking about the storyline/artifact possibilities for Indiana Jones 5: Indy Goes to Mecca Bingo, the man who just can’t leave things alone said:

“We are looking for something for him to go after. They are very hard to find. It’s like archeology. It takes a huge amount of research to come up with something that will fit.”

Yes, they’re trying to think of something believable for a 70-year-old adventuring archaeologist to get involved in. Museum curation? Archivist at the local Land Registry? That drunk old bloke down the pub who you will listen to but don’t believe a word of what he says?

The possibilities are endless.

Folded:

• Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (loved the start…)

• The Inbetweeners (E4 hits the spot with a hilariously crass new sitcom. Think lots of mum jokes and you’re there)

• Suntory Japanese Whiskey (not half bad, and now available in Tesco)

• Dpad magazine (slickly made online games mag. Don’t pay a fiver in the shops, just read this)

• Hale and Pace’s ‘Yorkshire Airlines’ sketch (don’t forget microwaving the cat too. These guys were never crap)

Creased:

• Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (…hated the end)

• Placebo (BBC Three strikes again. Ugh! Open a window)

• Battlestar Galactica DVD box set price hike in HMV (suddenly £45 becomes £70?! Mental people run this company)

• Dom Joly’s The Complainers on Five (a point for Dom, minus one for everyone else)

• Michelle in GTA IV (cow)

After he made millions with Indiana Jones 1, he sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 2. It worked. But what next? He sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 3. Incredible.

How was he to beat that? It wasn’t easy. For twenty years he brooded, furrowing his brow and scratching his little beard, and finally his eureka moment came: Indiana Jones 4.

But, people asked, what about the fact that Indiana Jones will be far too old? Don’t worry, said George, if we make jokey references to it throughout the film no one will care. Wow, he’s good. What next? George says ‘how about Indiana Jones…5, with Shia Labeouf as the lead?’

Time to retire George.

Old man Lucas doesn’t scoff though. He told Fox News:

I haven’t even told Steven or Harrison this, but I have an idea to make Shia the lead character next time and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out.

Before we jump to the conclusion that the corrupting culmination of his success, wealth and age is turning George prematurely senile, it is worth remembering that he is also responsible for the casting of Jar Jar Binks.

Rumours suggest Shia LaBeouf has stipulations in his contract which lock him into a sequel/spin-off if Paramount want to make one, and Shia (a distant cousin of French footballer Frank LeBeouf) told MTV he would be interested:

I don’t think a Mutt spinoff would be as big as Indiana Jones, but fingers crossed!

Mutt Williams and the Temple of Doom. Mutt Williams and the Last Crusade. Mutt Williams and Another Piss-Poor Offering from Lucas and Spielberg That Makes Us All Wish They’d Retire. He’s right – probably wouldn’t be as big as Indiana Jones.

But what about Harrison Ford – won’t he be dead by then? Not so, according to Lucas:

It’s not like Harrison is even old, I mean, he’s 65 and he did everything in this movie. The old chemistry is there, and it’s not like he’s an old man. He’s incredibly agile; he looks even better than he did 20 years ago, if you ask me.

Harrison himself has said he’d consider playing a part should the fifth installment happen, and even Steven Spielberg won’t rule it out. Ages ago he told the Chicago Sun Times:

Oh, I don’t know. Of course, I said the third Indy would be the last one. And obviously it’s not. So I can’t even comment whether the fourth will be the last one or not. I’m not looking to redesign the wheel. I just want to continue the saga.

Bless him. We bet for a moment there he thought back to the days when selling out on his principles seemed a cheap thing to do.

Read More – George Lucas: Indiana Jones 5 a possibility, The Celebrity Truth

After weeks of carefully sifting through piles of rubbish, they came across a fossil that they saw as another useless dinosaur, but wait! It’s not just a useless dinosaur; it’s a useless dinosaur with an earring! It must be Harrison Ford. The discovery was confirmed by the presence of a frail skeleton next to the fossil that was classified as ‘the old dinosaur’s girlfriend, Calista Flockhart’.

All of this excitement has prompted the American Archaeological Society to put Harrison Ford on the board of directors. So, we may be a bit fuzzy on the details, but the board of directors thing is for reals.

Seriously, though, apparently the real reason the American Archaeological Society is putting Harrison Ford on the board of directors is because of all the made up fantasy archaeological work Harry Ford has done as the character Indiana Jones.

And by archaeological we mean getting jiggy with buxom blonde undercover Nazi scientists, and by work we mean George Lucas giving him a script to memorise and an adventuresome-looking hat to wear. Oh, and there’s the whip too. One mustn’t forget the whip.

Anyway, the society is grateful to Harrison Ford for raising interest in the field of archeology. Ok! magazine reports:

“President Brian Rose praised Ford’s contribution on Thursday, saying his Indiana Jones character has played a major part in boosting interest in archaeological exploration”.

That’s right. Because of Harry/Indiana, history nerds have emerged by the dozens from library basements across the land with dreams of wild adventures and swooning ladies, only to find themselves developing hunchbacks from crouching over endless piles of dust in the sweltering desert heat, dusting off rocks with little brushes.

It’s an odd thing when someone receives an honour such as a board of directors position just for pretending to be someone who vaguely represents what they do, isn’t it.

Next up is Vin Diesel, who will be honored by the National Au Pair and Childcare Society for his portrayal of a nanny in The Pacifier, which has increased interest in high ranking military personnel who take on the role of babysitter by an astounding degree.

Read more:

Harrison Ford is a Real Life Indiana Jones - OK

And it's an offer he's been keen to exploit. This year George Lucas has a new Indiana Jones movie coming out and a new Star Wars movie coming out, plus he's got a 100-episode Star Wars TV show in the pipeline. And the time has come for George Lucas to spout off about all of this at once.

In a nutshell, then – George Lucas expects everyone to hate Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, doesn't really seem too fussed with the new Star Wars movie and has compared the TV show to The Wire. Yay! Possibly.

We get the impression that George Lucas has never heard the terms 'leave them wanting more' and 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Or perhaps he has, but he misheard them as 'leave them feeling uncomfortably bloated' and 'if it ain't broke, stick a bunch of sodding CGI aliens in it or something anyway'. 

It's this ethos that's made George Lucas make a new Indiana Jones film after almost 20 years, while constantly adding enough peripheral crap to Star Wars that people start forgetting what they liked about it in the first place. Prequels, cartoon spin-offs, holiday specials. more cartoon spin-offs, books, videogames – George Lucas isn't going to stop until you've spent so much money on Star Wars that you have to live in a bivouac made out of damp Special Edition DVDs.

Coming up this summer is Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a cartoon all about that stuff that happened in the other Clone Wars cartoon done in a different way that George Lucas is determined not to call a movie even though it's the same length as a movie and will be released in movie theatres to movie audiences.

And following that is the long-awaited Star Wars TV show, where none of the characters you know or love will do a bunch of stuff you don't care about on the cheap for 100 hours. Exciting, huh? George Lucas seems to think so.

To big-up Star Wars: The Clone Wars, George Lucas appeared at the ShoWest convention and spoke to Entertainment Weekly all about these upcoming projects. Check the full interview for his detailed thoughts, but for now here's a taster.

George Lucas on Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

I sat down and said, ''Okay, the Luke Skywalker story'' — or the Anakin Skywalker story, actually — ''is done.'' But whenever you create a universe, there's just vast areas you've never touched, and part of that was this. Which is to say, ''Well, gee, I did the movies about everything but the Clone Wars, so wouldn't it be fun to do a TV series that is nothing but the Clone Wars, and we could just have all the adventures?''

George Lucas on the Star Wars TV show:

Some of the characters from the features find their way in there, so it's not completely divorced. It's as if we just went down the street and told a different story. You know, we were doing, I don't know, 24, and now we're going to move down the street here and do The Wire. Same thing, it's just different people doing the same thing in the same city.

George Lucas on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull:

We know that for the fans it won't be the movie that they have been making in their minds for the last 19 years, so they all get bent out of shape. A lot of the critics forget that they didn't like the first three, and so they get off on this one, too — or it's not the Second Coming.

Happily, though, once Indiana Jones is done and Star Wars: The Clone Wars is done and the Star Wars TV show has got to the 100 episode mark and all the Star Wars movies have been made 3D, George Lucas wants to turn his back on those and start making his own movies again.

First on the list is George Lucas' much-anticipated WWII movie Red Tails. And then once he's made that, made a few sequels, done some cartoon spin-offs, brought out computer-enhanced versions of all of these things, made a bunch of prequels, a cartoon movie about the stuff that happened between the sequels and the prequels and then done a Red Tails TV show that hasn't got much to do with anything else, he might even go and make another one.

Read more:

George Lucas on 'Star Wars,' Indiana Jones – EW 

Folded:

• Online Lego Indiana Jones game (only play on weekdays – you need your weekends)

• Duffy (great singer, foxy and not dead like Amy Winehouse)

• Bulldog toiletries (finally something bathroomy for guys that’s cheap, cool and doesn’t smell like Lynx)

• Hetty (too cute, doesn't sing)

• Trevor Nelson on Radio 1, Saturdays 7-9pm (accessible if you know nothing about hip-hop/RnB and, surprisingly for Radio 1, not illegal for those over 25)

Creased:

• Jumper (such a big disappointment we threatened to burn down the cinema)

• Having a planned lie-in (it never happens though, does it? You just can’t sleep)

• No Fat Homer figurines (anyone know where to find one of these to brighten up the desk?)

• PS3: not sexy (great machine, lots of fun, some exciting games in the pipeline, but it looks like a prototype Betamax player)

• ‘Your morning coffee will make you look like W.C. Fields’ (hmm, fattening)