The International House of Mojo

Sex, lies, and video games...[br]or why Ron Gilbert is a dirty, rotten, stinky liar.

I'll just come out and say it: Ron Gilbert is a dirty, rotten, and, possibly, stinky liar. True fact.

Oh, you want proof? Remember how Gilbert keeps telling that nobody knows the secret except for him? That's a lie. It's dirty. It's rotten. And it's stinky. The "secret," and really there isn't much of one, was revealed long ago, and it has been confirmed by Dave Grossman, amongst others. Of course, Grossman only co-wrote the game, so what does he know? Yeah, it'd be outlandish to think he would have even remotely close to a clue.

The fan boys will of course drink Gilbert's Kool Aid, and maintain he is God himself. All these other people don't really know, they're just guessing! They were directed to write to Gilbert's secret creative vision! Gilbert wouldn't lie! Preposterous! Because why would he lie? It makes no sense, right?

Wrong.

Face it, in terms of game design, (not as a business man,) Gilbert has been a two-hit wonder. Sure, Maniac Mansion and that Indy adventure have somewhat of a cult following, but the two first Monkey Island games are what he is known for. They're his legacy, and when, for some strange reason, the ending of LeChuck's Revenge got shrouded in a confused mystery perpetuated by a bunch of die-hard Gilbert fanboys, of course he jumped on the bandwagon and is now the guy who creates the most hype around the "fact" that only he knows the secret. It's called "preserving a legacy," and it's not an original concept.

Gilbert, to his credit, might be better at just that than most.

Now, any self-respecting fanboy (and you people really shouldn't have much respect for yourselves) will cry, "But wait! They search for the secret in the game! The secret can't be that they're searching for childhood!" To correct the last statement first, yes, obviously you can. But that hardly matters. Remember the ending of Citizen Kane: Sure, Rosebud was the name of the sled, but it's what "rosebud" represented that mattered. (And hey, that was at its very basics a lost childhood!)

Of course, people have read way too much into Citizen Kane too, so Ron Gilbert might resemble Orson Welles in more ways than one.

Had I been a deep thinking Captain, I would have launched into a ramble about how the secret really doesn't matter anyway; the games should be played for the experience, not for understand an ending. That, however, might be just a bit too much to grasp for you people.

Not that this eloquent article would change your mind anyway, of course, as you already have been brainwashed by Ron Gilbert. Dirty, rotten, stinky Ron Gilbert.

<em>-- Captain Mystery</em>

Gabez would cowardly like to point out that these aren't the opinions of everybody at Mojo.