Pc.ign.com has put out an interview with LucasArts' Vice President of Development Randy Breen and Public Relations Director Tom Sarris about the new Star Wars RTS 'Battleground'. They had some interesting things to say including some morsels about the Adventure Genre, check it out:

IGNPC: I'm sure. It's a shame that the adventure market isn't as strong in the US as it once was.

Randy Breen: Well Monkey Island's doing pretty well, and it's doing exceptionally well in Europe. I think you're likely to see some more of those products in the future.

Italian gaming site Multiplayer.it has posted a press release (original Italian release here) announcing an alliance bvetween LucasArts and Ensemble Studios (the creators of Age of Empires and Age of Kings - mmmm) to produce a realtime strategy game based in the Star Wars universe. The game, titled Star Wars: Battlegrounds, continues LEC's trend of outsourcing much of the work on Star Wars titles to proven developers like Factor 5 (Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo) and Luxoflux (Demolition). If this is indeed the game that was hinted at being officially announced later today we should be seeing some screenshots and more details shortly.

Update (again): Better late than never (sorry), here's a portion from the official press release from LucasArts.com:

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- February 27, 2001 -- LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC today announced a strategic alliance with Ensemble Studios to develop a new and compelling Real Time Strategy (RTS) franchise for the digital interactive gaming market. The initial release from this cooperative venture, Star Wars Battleground, will be built upon PC-based technology created by Ensemble and used in the highly acclaimed Age of Empires series. Combining the design talents of LucasArts and Ensemble -- including noted designer Bruce Shelley -- Star Wars Battleground will build upon Ensemble's proprietary engine technology to usher in a new phase in the evolution of the RTS game. Star Wars Battleground is expected to release fall 2001.

Future ventures with LucasArts are envisaged to encompass new technologies developed by Ensemble, weaving increasingly innovative engineering into the core premise of interactive strategic warfare within the Star Wars universe.

After much harassment and many death threats from Sam & Max forum admin Isaac Klinger The Unofficial Sam & Max Website has been updated for its second birthday! A full on redesign is in the works (there's a preview up on the site) but for now you'll have to settle with just the news.

Apologies to those of you who won the ULTIMATE INSULT contest we ran over Xmas. I have not yet sent out the games, but fear not they wil be sent this week. Shipping 10 copies of a game to 10 different places costs more than I thought. Again - sorry, and your games will be with you soon.

If you live in Britain SKY Movies are showing all 4 STAR WARS Films from Staurday 17th March. They are currently showing an advert/trailer about the 4 films.
Just thought I'd let you know!!!

*****THIS MESSAGE IS FOR BRITISH PEEPS ONLY*****

Last summer Electronics Boutique bought out GAME and are only now deciding to shut shops, as there are shops of GAME and EB almost a stones throw away from each other.

I recieved a letter for Electronics Boutique Headquarters explaining that they have shut various stores and are urging you to go to GAME for all PC and console games

UPDATE: Man I suck, you people will hate me for this. Despite previous information (from end of the line) implying otherwise, that post should have been March 2000, and no it didn't happen, so sorry for getting all your hopes up people. SCRAMM isnt coming out in March. Bummer.

News has come to light that SCRAMM's showcase game 'Deception at Gavin's Castle' is to come out in March. Does this mean SCRAMM will be finished in March? sounds promising, but only time will tell. Stay tuned to Adventure Developer (and of course right here) for more news as it develops. Heh, I crack me up sometimes.

The Clearly Unoffficial EMI site has posted an interview with Waly Wingert. Wally Wingert? You ask!
Wally was the voice of Herman Toothrot in Escape from Monkey Island.

How did you get the part as Herman Toothrot in Escape From Monkey Island (EFMI)?

I auditioned for the role of Herman like everybody else. Darragh O'Farrell, the LucasArts voice director said the thing they really liked about my Herman was his laugh. Herman was interesting because he had several different levels of amnesia. Sometimes he was just completely gone, other times he'd go in and out, and then there's the completely "normal" Herman.

Wally has his own website which you can visit here Thanks to The clearly unofficial emi site for the interview. please note, I'm now going to refer to the site as CUEMI or similar!

So then, you are a regular on #MI?
How well do you know your Ops?
Chariset, together with The Scummbar, has created a characature of each of the ops in the form of a monkey. Your mission - to match monkey to op. can you do it? Find out here

Just got an email from Lucas Arts, they said it well enough and goddamnit its 3:30 in the morning whilst installing Win 98, so here's what they said

Calling all defenders of Naboo! LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC is pleased to announce that the demo for STAR WARS: BATTLE FOR NABOO PC will be available for download on Friday, February 23, 2001. Check the LucasArts web site (http://www.lucasarts.com) after 7:00 p.m.(PST) on Friday for download information. The full version of STAR WARS: BATTLE FOR NABOO PC is expected to be on store shelves in the U.S. and Canada on March 13, 2001.

Oh in an unrelated note DOOM3 R0X0RS MY WORLD!!%&#^@*$

A new race has been announced for the online Starwars RPG: StarWars Galaxies.
This race - the Rodian.

A species of humanoids recognized by their bumpy skin, multifaceted eyes and flexible snouts, Rodians also have pointed ears, short antennae, and long fingers that end in suction cups. On their homeworld, Rodians live in clans that often wage war against one another. Due to their violent culture, Rodians often make excellent bounty hunters and mercenaries.

This race is one of the many which you will be able to play as in the game.

Ok, so we established that the Voodoo Doll was of me. So in that case you must now vote to see which member of staff is in possession of the doll, therefore discovering the cuplrit that used the voodoo magics etc, and caused me to break my foot!
Who is it? vote now!

Monkey Island 2: Phatt Isand library. We've all gone through the card index laughing at all the amusing book names and authors. but to David Thomsen has taken it one step further, recording all of the book names and authors and also Guybrush's comments on each.

CANNIBALISM
"HOW TO SERVE YOUR FELLOW MAN"
BY LEMONHEAD
"Yikes!"

You can see them all here

Mark Salloway has created a patch that will fix DirectX problems in win2k, when trying to play Curse of Monkey Island. This patch is not from LucasArts and so is not supported, but of you are having problems, maybe you should give this a try.
You can download the patch here

I finally got round to featuring a new site, after our laziness of leaving the DIG site featured for ages! Now we feature our resident Full Throttle page: The Kickstand. To read this interview with the webmaster; Ben, head on over to our new featured site page
I'm going to try and make the featured site updated more regularly, i can't belive we left that one there for 4 months!!

Our hosted site iMuse Island managed to get an exclusive interview with Clint Bajakian, the lead composer on Escape from Monkey Island. Clint was also involved in the music production of many other LucasArts titles such as Monkey Island 2, Indy 4, Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max.

"What cue in Escape from Monkey Island are you most proud of?

I really like the score I wrote for the huge seven-minute cutscene in the end in which Ozzie rides a giant LeChuck statue in combat against a giant monkey robot driven by Guybrush and friends. The score is predominantly orchestral but passes through popular 'island-y' feels from time to time. It gets intense and helps drive the drama."

For more head on over to iMuse Island

Comments: 1 Twitter this

Yeah, maybe according to the French gaming site gamedata.com (in English via Babelfish). They've posted a list of games to be released in the near future from Activision's overseas division. Listed are Soldier of Furtune 2, a Star Trek game, and Jedi Knight 2. One of the mysterious nine new titles to be announced at E3 (see previous news post)?

Lucasfans reports from the Starfighter Launch party with much new good news, the most interesting;

He also provides us with some interesting tidbits about future LucasArts titles. Nine new games will be announced at the E3 this year, and "there's a good chance that one of the upcoming PS2 games will be EMI". However, you don't have to wait until E3 to hear new announcements, since there will be an announcement on the 27th about a new PC game!

The source also reveals that "At least one of the new games will be a sequel to a non-Star Wars themed LucasArts game" LEC doesn't have many of these apart from Adventures (I will sooo hurt something if its Outlaws 2, or god forbid Afterlife 2!) so here's hoping. so stay tuned on the 27th. Go Adventures!

Looks like Spaff isn't the only one with something holding them down. Half of Lucasarts has fallen sick, according to this article. It seems that despite getting flu shots, many Lucasarts employees have fallen sick to a quote "Raging Flu Bug". What does this mean to you? More delays. Woo.

Ok, last night i broke my foot! which was .. annoying. Now i've got a god damn cast on my leg. i tripped down a few steps and i wasnt even drunk, oh the shame.
anyways - pity me!

Character actor Lewis Arquette, father of Rosanna, Patricia, David and Alexis, died in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure at the age of 65, relatives said Tuesday.

Arquette's roles included a recurring role from 1978 to 1981 as J.D. Pickett in the television series 'The Waltons.' He also appeared in 'Johnny Got His Gun,' 'The China Syndrome' and 'Best of Show.' He also directed, worked as a puppeteer and was a master of improvisational acting, He is survived by five children, a brother, a sister and two grandchildren."

Lewis Arquette played Freddy the walkingstick maker in Escape from Monkey Island.

Thanks to the LEC Actors Archive for that news, who have also launched a Starfighter page.

Daily Radar has posted an in depth preview of LEC's Starfighter for the Playstation2. Hopes are high for this game so you may want to head over to Daily Radar to see if the expextations have been met after extensive play-testing. here's a quote:

When developers withhold tangible samples of eagerly anticipated games, we're prone to become a bit suspicious -- after all, we all know all too well what happens when we get our hopes up too high. And with Starfighter, LucasArts' premiere title for the PS2, hopes are very high indeed. Sony's badass black box is in dire need of a spacebound shooter (there are, currently, none -- sci-fi or otherwise), and we could all use a great Star Wars game.

IGN Filmforce has previews of 3 Lego sets from that movie I'm sure you're all in insane anticipation of, Episode 2. The 3 shown include the notorious Tie Fighter and Technix (or whatever) C-3PO's and Storm Troopers. Only one question remains: Where the heck is a Jar Jar Binks Set?

mercatfat I took the liberty and changed the title from "Legos" to "LEGO" El Pollo Diablo.

El pollo Diablo, i took the liberty of changing "merfatcat" to "mercatfat". Spaff

LucasArts have uploaded a new flash site for Starfighter. This has a lot of features, but unfortunately takes a long time to load on a 56k Modem.

Head over to LucasArts.com

Ok, I'm back from sunny Rome. That place rocks. and some news that will affect regulars at #Monkey-Island chat channel on IRC DALnet. They have apparently banned BTinternet users from the DALnet service.
This hasnt yet affected BT ADSL users, but no one else is able to chat with other #mi goers. As usual when things lke this occur, a petition is created. To have your say head on over to the Forums

Starwars.com have released 9 pictures of characters for Star Wars Episode II. I have added an excert from the news article.

"The 98th annual American International Toy Fair arrives in New York City from February 11 - 15, and some distinctive Star Wars faces will be there -- or rather, amazing replicas of them. At this key event for manufacturers and retailers in the toy industry, Hasbro and Lucas Licensing will unveil several highly detailed busts made of Episode II characters."

If you want to read the whole article click the 'SOURCE' link also at the bottom of this page.

Once again, the Video Game Wallpaper Page has added Lucasarts related icons, this time in the form of Maniac Mansion. A very nice set, indeed. Get them here.

I saw this over at Escapemi.com, It has nothing to do with LEC but I thought I'd better mention it!

With the recent fall of the Gamecenter Alliance, Gamecenter offically closed their doors today. Gamecenter, which voted Escape from Monkey Island the best adventure game of 2000, will be replaced by Gamespot. Since C|Net bought out ZDNet, they sort of have the power to do that. Be sure and visit Gamecenter one last time and check out the fairwell articles that the staff posted.

This is my very first official Star Wars news post.

Lucasarts are hosting another chat session, this time its a chat with members of the Starfighter Development Team.

This chat takes place on Tuesday, Febuary 13th at 6pm (PST) which is sometime in the early ours for us brits. Acording to Spaff it is at 2am in the morning (Thats Wednesday 14th).

Hi, I?m the new news updater for Mixnmojo.com, If you remember Spaff advertised about two weeks ago. My name is Graeme Chicken (Don't Laugh, I know that your laughing) and that is why my nickname is EL POLLO DIABLO. My e-mail address is epd@mixnmojo.com and my ICQ Number is 66222019.

I have always visited Mixnmojo.com since I got the Internet a long time ago (not in a Galaxy far, far away!! HEHEHE). I have played all LucasArts Adventure games and all PC Star Wars games except Dark Forces 2. I have not completed all of the LucasArts Adventure games. I also have a Escape From Monkey Island Site which is at this address http://graeme.escapemi.com

That?s it I'm finished for now and I?ll see you in the Future updating Star Wars News.

El Pollo Diablo
(Graeme Chicken)

P.S. This is my photo taken in 1997.

Trond Tjenford sent us this:

"Liam Harper has been writing an MI story for the Monkey Center which is based on a Monkey Island 5 Story. He has now come to Part 4 of this great story and there is also a poll on the main page, where you can choose between 4 different endings for the last part! So if you're in for a good story, this is the one!"

Check it out at the Monkey Center.

Grim Fandango Central (gfc.grimfandango2.com) has got a Q&A with Bret Mogilefsky, the Lead Programmer of Grim Fandango. Bret was also the initial Lead Programmer of Escape from Monkey Island, so this may be of interest to many of you.

Just got this in from Blondebeard:

"There's Battle For Naboo preview at IGNPC. Click here to read it."

Here's an excerpt from the review:

"As Gavin Sykes, you'll have to take the helm of vehicles like the great yellow N-1 Starfighter, a Trade Federation gunboat, and those Federation STAP vehicles that looked like flying gun turrets to succeed in your mission. LucasArts promises adventures on the land, sea and in the air and that there will be vehicles in the game that were not featured prominently in the movie."

I always thought it would be a sad day when I'd have to post this news item.
As a lot of you will know I, Narrative, has been almost extinct when it comes to the Mojo community since last year which includes IRC, Mojo, Scummbar and sadly updating my Dig site hosted here on Mixnmojo.
The reasons for this are varied but centre around a new serious threat on my health which I regrettably can't help. As of which, I don't believe I can put in the energy, time and effort which Mixnmojo and its sites thrive on.

Which leads me on a hunt for a successor to run my Dig site as either a Co-Runner if I get through this, or to take over the site entirely if worse comes to the worse.
There's no real formal process for this, just send me an e-mail to Im_Lost@Rocketmail.Com basically describing who you are and why you want to run the site. Also mention if you've had any input in the past to the site.

I'll choose the most appropriate person from the applications sent, who will then get all the passwords, logins etc. to update the site and I'll also send you a zip, full of stuff which was meant to be used in the next update but sadly didn't get to.
With my health, the future is looking a bit bleak, and it doesn't look like there's much chance of me getting better and re-joining the community anytime soon, so just incase I don't get the opportunity, I'd like to use this post just to say my goodbyes. I'd also like to say that the Mixnmojo community is really going places and things can only get better! I've been part of many different internet communities, but I can say with assurance that this is certainly the most special community and I'm proud to think I helped be a part of it.
To whoever gets the torch for the Dig website handed down all the way from Tabias, Me and now to you, Good Luck.

See you Later Peps,
Matt Shaw (AKA Narrative)

Right then, notice that big new sparkling header up there? Thats because we finally got to replace my temporary header with one that contains a logo, the logo of our new sponsors: GameSquad.
Many thanks to them for taking us onboard their network. Hooray! Celebrations!

2D gaming may be dying, but that hasn't stopped us. Yes! Work has begun (kinda) on our Mixnmojo Adventure game. There isnt much info about it to give yet, this is just to wet your appetites. So stay tuned to AdventureDeveloper for news and things on our Wonky Adventure!

i've noticed that alot of people havent been visiting Adventure Developer lately, either that or you guys don't post comments or give us feedback or something! Well remember you can use the same comments login for AD that you have for Mixnmojo! No need for signing up again! soon we will have our message board up and many other exciting things. but right now i wanna alert everybody to the fact that we now have the first (of many coming) tutorials online now!

Not only that but we have news on projects like Book of Spells 2, Unamed Project Joe, Zak Mckracken 2, The AdventurerLand Engine and much much more! Also, be sure to check out our review and previews section as well as 'Eye On Amateur Adventure' By the famed Yahtzee! Dont delay, click on over today!

There is Q&A with Brett Tosti of LucasArts about the up-coming title; Battle for Naboo. The quastions and answers deal with porting the N64 title to the PC and are accompanied by some new PC screenshots of the game.

Well you may have noticed the banners for a SquareSoft site that have apeared in our rotation. These are infact for an affiliate site with some great features and content. They have a similar philosophy to mojo, providing news features and info, except this time for SquareSoft's products. For those of you that don't know, Square soft are the creators of the Final Fantasy series of games (amongst others). If you played and enjoyed any of the FF series then you should visit this site: Square Extreme!

The approach of the day of lovers means we will be seeing more of this kind of thing: Starwars kids have created a.... well it's a Starwars valentines collage, depicing love in the SW universe. I'ts a bit odd, and you can mail it to a 'friend' for Valentines day.

More news on the Starwars Kids front include some new games, a sith quiz and a missing word game
Fun Fun Fun!

This from the LucasArts mailing list:

"LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC is pleased to announce that STAR WARS STARFIGHTER has been approved for manufacturing. Developed for the Sony PlayStation 2, the flight action/adventure STARFIGHTER is expected to be on store shelves in the U.S. and Canada February 21, 2001."

If you're in the US and you order it from the LucasArts Company store, you'll get a free mini-strategy guide and free shipping and handling. Enjoy!

The LucasArts Voice actors archive has made a massive update to their site. This update includes 33 new performer pages, 32 performer pictures and 13 new game pages. Excellent stuff, if you need to know about who does the voice to who, then head on over to this kickass site.

Right, my pc is working now (mostly) and there are loads of emails to sort through. Basically all the news will be posted asap. The 10th contest winner finally sent me their address, so I can ship the EMI's now, and we are going to have another contest.

One winner, various prizes, so far we have EMI,loom, plus some EMI goodies. But I want to know what other prizes you want! suggestions please. make then sane please,