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Before George Lucas turned to the Dark Side and the LucasArts game studio exclusively made move tie-in games about increasingly less interesting aspects of the Star Wars universe, they made some pretty nice games. Ten years ago or so, LucasArts released LOOM, which was much more interesting than a Sierra find-everything-and-pick-it-up game and which was using musical interactivity long before Harmonix tried to make everyone in the world a hero of guitars.

LOOM is not Guitar Hero. Not even close. But there aren't many games these days aside from the rhythm play-along genre that even acknowledges that music exists, let alone requires you to remember songs and play them in order to progress. LOOM was a standalone game with a unique — then and now — gameplay mechanic and one hell of a storyline.

Somewhere on my PC upstairs, I have a copy of LOOM crudely excised from some abandonware site. My belief was that the game would never, ever be republished under any circumstances whatsoever. Like an archivist or a librarian, I squirreled it away to await the day that I would once again have to don a hooded cloak and staff and weave Bobbin's story anew.

I called out LOOM's swan song far too soon, because while sharing with Ryan in the delight that is Plants vs. Zombies, I discovered that LOOM has recently been added to the Steam library. Yes, I already own it. Yes, it's just five dollars. Yes, I'm restoring good karma to the universe and hoping that for just such a small fee, I'll still have some money weft over.

Yes, that was a textiles pun. Sew what?