The International House of Mojo

There was a time when even Star Wars fans liked Star Wars—the term's become an oxymoron; it's truly saltier than Crait out there—and a good enough video game in the franchise guaranteed money. But eternity is no-one's, and Star Wars Outlaws, "the first-ever open world Star Wars action-adventure game," has been received with an apathy only the writers of Rise of Skywalker previously possessed; only Han Solo, realising that his girlfriend kissed her brother, was more unmoved. "Generally good reviews" no longer guaranteed money make, and if it's indicative of the apathy, we found this out months ago.

But it releases on Steam in a week—November 21—in an attempt at a Force Ghost-like resurrection, so here's a little fanfare and the anticipation of seeing whether Star Wars Outlaws, unlike in-laws, is wanted.

Source: PC Gamer

And just like Lucasfilm with Sea of Thieves, I bet China didn’t even have the courtesy to let Ron know.

Source: BBC

I mean, we need to test changes somewhere.

And today, that somewhere is Behind Mojo.

Source: Mojo

The Internet is, well, the Internet, and it's increasingly stupid and full of crackpots, but I've been secretly fascinated for years by one person who thought Monkey Island was an analogy for the US invasion of Vietnam. I learned about it from this Chris Purvis interview that Mojo recently excavated, which I read before playing Monkey Island 2. It coloured my playthrough and...well, I've always wondered what the hell the connection was. Is it because there's a Monkey Island in Vietnam? Whatever happened to that person, anyway? Are they roaming the streets of San Francisco, forgotten and ignored? Writing kitchen sink plays which are secret, impenetrable analogies of the Falklands War? Are they on a wild goose chase in Italy, attempting to crack the Da Vinci Code? Where are you, Vietnam person? What did you see?

I was joking. This isn't what I meant. I suppose the monkey's paw has its due.

Twitter's been more toxic since its cocky new CEO got into the cockpit and made the cockamamie announcement that "the bird is freed." That kind of cocksureness led to...well, content moderation, albeit not the kind those of us staring cockeyed at Twitter's welcoming of neo-Nazis would appreciate.

We're sure Thimbleweed Park and Return to Monkey Island producer Jenn Sandercock is a lovely person, and I hate to highlight that part of her name. But our attempts at promoting her GDC talk got caught in Musk's cock-up of a Twitter filter...

Once again emphasising that some people, for all their cock-of-the-walk strutting about free speech, are ultimately just stupid dickheads.

In moments of moral uncertainty, the enlightened among us are usually able to grope our way out of the quandary by applying this simple test, verifying that it comes out negative: “Am I patterning my behavior after Nintendo of America’s 1990 censorship board?”

As per usual, however, Florida has gone in a different direction.

The last time we marked International Talk Like a Pirate Day, "Return to Monkey Island" had secretly been in development for a few months, so hopefully our logic-free dimension of reality continues to equate correlation to causation an' I now be forcin' fortune to once again plunge into the briny depths an' brin' forth treasure. Ahoy! I be pullin' another quote at random from a mighty pirate.

Ahem.

This is the story about the time I finally found the secret of Monkey Island.

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Look, we hear your cat-like screeching about it being not whatever decade you parked your emotional maturity in. We're crowd pleasers. We've given Guybrush a special do over, just for you. Now stop whining.

...what's our policy, screw the ReMI trailer or watch it right now?

Everyone is fired.

"Ron Gilbert Says Something"? Is the front page stealing our bits now? Sure. Great. That's fine. Not like they were busy or anything. Not like they have real news to be posting right now or anything. Have your fun.

Some things never change. Particularly fear of change.

Having inadvertently remembered Jim Carrey-Joel Schumacher paranoid fantasy The Number 23, I decided to stick the number of years between Monkey Island releases into Google Maps as coordinates, netting a picture which I've decided answers one burning question: Which of the damn games is the best in the series?

We might have seen this week's development coming, had we only listened. From a vintage interview with LucasArts in early 2001:

Guess you feel pretty silly now, don't you. Well, it's too late to apologize.

Yes, yes, you're all excited about a new Monkey Island, but there ain't no pancake so thin it ain't got two sides to it:

I mean, did Ron even consider Battlefront III's feelings when he took this selfish step? I'm just glad someone out there has the guts to speak for the underdog.

Source: Twitter

It only makes sense.

The Iliad: Special thanks to Homer.
Guernica: Special thanks to Picasso.
Citizen Kane: Special thanks to O. Welles.
Monkey Island Anthology Package:

Congressperson Nancy Mace has joined the pandemic of LucasArts fans congregating at the US government. Or so I can conclude from this headline from The Hill: "Mace writes to Fauci about 'Monkey Island'."

Source: The Hill