The International House of Mojo

International recession got you down? Tired of wasting your days at home, applying for menial jobs in the insurance industry? Looking to take your first step into the heady world of online video game journalism?

Then you should probably apply to Kotaku or something.

However...

If you like working long hours, are obsessed with LucasArts+*, and think money is for the Man, then perhaps we can work something out.

The Job: Contributing reviews for famous website Mixnmojo.com. You will be writing timely reviews of any games that we cannot review amongst the existing staff.

The Pay: Hahaha!

(No, seriously, there is no money.)

The Benefits: Guaranteed job in later life at Telltale Games! (See Jake Rodkin, Telarium et al.)**

You: Willing to purchase new games on day one! We do occasionally get review codes - especially for Telltale games - but they're never guaranteed. We're not asking you to buy every new game that comes out, because - hey - that's too expensive. If, however, you pick up a decent number of the latest LucasArts, Double Fine, Telltale and Autumn Moon titles already, then that's what we need.

Ownership of (or access to) a Kinect would also be considered as a valuable commodity. Who the hell even has one of those? (Except Remi, obviously.)

The Catch: See section 2, "The Pay". Also, there's a test:

If you think this is the job for you, then we want you to prove it to us. Write a 200 word (approx) review of any game in the Mojo database, and send it on to us at jobs@mixnmojo.com. Don't freak out - just write it however you feel comfortable, and see what we think. What's the worst that could happen?

*Basically any games covered by this site - see here for details.

**Job at Telltale Games is not guaranteed.

As Halloween is approaching, we'll be bringing back some of the features about the company most closely related to this holiday: Autumn Moon Entertainment. Since Bill Tiller quit LucasArts and founded his own company to make adventure games, Mojo has kept up with his actions. The first feature to return from the dusty Mojo archives is Gabez's interview with the man himself from 2007. Bill discusses his then upcoming game, A Vampyre Story, cancelled Full Throttle sequels (with images!), and takes Gabez out for an action filled lunch!

Read on!

The! Final! Cookchase! Podcast! (Until Christmas).

This week we were joined with The Tingler, albeit on a dodgy connection from China (apologies for the technical problems there!), and we also find out what happened to Gabriel after he dramatically exploded at the end of the last episode.

Also in this episode: a Cookchase News Round-up of the last week; a round-up of the last five months; settling a HOT TOPIC raging in our comments; e-mails from MarioColbert about meeting Tim Schafer; some exclusive news about Double Fine's plans to develop on the next version of the Wii; the etymology of 'dingbat'; the conclusion of the 'Impossible Sound Contest'; and thankyous and goodbyes.

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Listen to previous episodes here. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing. The music at the end is 'La Nascita Della Cose Segrete' by Ludovico Einaudi.

The Mojo Video of the Week is being placed in retirement for the time being while we negotiate for more hard drive space. After uploading about a hundred videos a few months back we've had to stop because we're apparently seven kilobytes away from taking the site down. Anyway, look for the random Sunday picks to return once we're in a position to grow the collection.

For today, enjoy the suspect font choices of this Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island trailer:

Dan Connors is interviewed by Gamespot in 2005, a month before the release of Out from Boneville. Jeepers, remember when they called their delivery service "Telltale Now?"

In The XIXth Cookchase Podcast, Gabriel, Roger, and Dan 'CookChase' discuss the news from the last week (a bit), but mainly spend the podcast with two features. The first is called 'Ye Cooke Chase' (also called Retro Cook Chase) in which we listen to an audio-cast cassette from our archives, made by old Mojo staff members discussing the news of that week. We want you, the listeners, to e-mail in with your guesses about what year we took that 'audio-cast' from. Send your thoughts to podcast[at]mixnmojo[dot]com.

Secondly, we go into another 'Impossible Sound Competition' (also known as 'What's that noise?') featuring two clips from LucasArts games. The first one we try to guess, but the second one is for you to guess (please send in your ideas to the same address). It's a tough one this week!

This is also our penultimate show for a while, and we've decided to go out with a bang (quite literally)... Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to this week's EXPLOSIVE cliff-hanger!

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Listen to previous episodes here. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing.

"I thought it would be funny, but I think you gave yourself brain damage."

In this week's Cook Chase Podcast: Gabriel, Roger and Peter (AKA SurplusGamer) discuss The Melee Island Half-life Map, Monkey Island 1 and 2 Special Edition Soundtracks, the Mixnmojo.com quotation at the back of the Combo Pack box-cover, and the new features of Double Fine's Trenched/Iron Brigade.

Also in this podcast is the exciting LIVE event inwhich Peter orders take-away food and eats it before our ears! This will surely net us some kind of internet radio award. As always, please send thoughts (to be discussed next week) to podcast[at]mixnmojo[dot]com.

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Listen to previous episodes here. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing.

Indiana Jones, pre-Facebook.

Just bought the Monkey Island: Special Edition Collection and find it cumbersome having to listen to the soundtracks through the launcher? bgbennyboy, of Quick & Easy fame, has slapped together the Monkey Island Music Extractor, which will let you rip the music and listen to it however and whenever you want!

Clicky!

Source: Quick & Easy Software

When questioned about this series, Telltale's only official comment was: "I'VE ABANDONED MY CHILD! I'VE ABANDONED MY BOYYYYYYYYY!"

And who could forget the fun that was had when we I loudly observed on the trimester one version of the Telltale forums that the shadows seen here weren't in the real game? Also, I'm in the market for a useless internet petition to convince Warner Bros. to hire Jared Emerson-Johnson to score the movies.

In this week's Cook Chase Podcast: the results are in from the 'Ultimate Mystery Sound Competition'. We also talk about Grim Fandango, a hot new game from LucasArts coming out in 1998; the likelihood that we'd get quoted on the new Monkey Island box; and play a new jingle sent in from a school choir (in the eighties). The following are links to items discussed:

• The Grim Fandango as an 'American painting' can be seen here (and the artist, Drew Northcott, also did one featuring Max from Sam & Max here, and one of Gordon Freeman as a Vincent Van Gough here, all for PC Gamer magazine).
• The Grim Fandango box redesign project can be seen here, on the Internet Archive (originally done 1999, archived 2005). The web-site also contains 'Meeting Minutes'.
• The Grim Fandango wide-screen video can be seen here. This is actually a more clever thing than we thought it was when recorded the podcast (more details were given on the Residual Forums, and you can also discuss the thing on our forums as well).
• Junaid's 'Sheeped Away' video can be watched here.

Thanks a lot to everyone who e-mailed in. Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Listen to previous episodes here. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing.

This week's Cook Chase Podcast only had one item of news to discuss (at the time of recording), but still managed to be the longest yet, clocking in at a weighty twenty minutes! The reason? Gabriel asked Dan to talk about the Pirates of the Caribbean films, a franchise he loves more than a child of his own, and as a result Dan talked about the films for seven hours (later edited down).

We also have three new jingles, and discuss a HOT TOPIC -- whether the Pirates films have links to the Monkey Island games -- and introduce a new feature called 'What's That Noise?' (also called 'Guess That Sound') which includes a sound for you, the listener, to guess. Have a listen to the mystery noise in the podcast and then send in your ideas to podcast@mixnmojo.com. You may win a prize!

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Listen to previous episodes here. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing.

Is this game shaping up to be something great or what?!

Last week we discussed the work being done on Grim Fandango by a group of highly intelligent and attractive LucasArts fans, who were fiddling behind the hood of the game, to enhance the graphics.

Since Daniel thinks a mega-byte is something you get from a large mosquito, and the last game Gabriel played was Koronis Rift on the Atari 800, we decided to get an expert on the show to tell us more details; and nobody is more expert than Thunderpeel, who is one of the main people behind the project, and who has recently established an exciting blog giving details and advertising progress!

This week's show also contains two new jingles, Roger's thoughts on the Hector games, (published by Telltale), and, of course, a weekly round-up of the news.

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing.

The trailer for the PlayStation 2 version of Escape from Monkey Island teaches you how to become a pirate in five easy steps.

We finally have some good news for those of you who have missed having a Sam & Max fansite that is regularly updated after the demise of The Unofficial Sam & Max. Please welcome our newest hosted site: Sam & max.co.uk! Here you can find the latest Sam & Max related news, fan art, write-ups on the games, wallpapers, and more!

This week the XIVth Cook Chase podcast contains an alarming new jingle, covers the recent voting poll, and responds to a tweet from LucasArts/Telltale designer Dave Grossman, in which he admits he's a regular listener to one podcast because we mentioned his poetry!

We also burp some thoughts up about Costume Quest, Stacking, and DeathSpank, before engaging in a surpisingly serious discussion about the adventure game genre. We'd love to hear your thoughts on these topics, so please comment on this post or send an Internet Letter to podcast@mixnmojo.com.

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Subscribe in iTunes here. Thanks to Roger 'Zaarin' Roger for editing and producing. More information about the exciting high-res project for Grim Fandango (mentioned in the episode) can be found here.

It's a fifty-five level feeding frenzy of prime cut creature features!

The XIIIth Cook Chase podcast this week comes out of the burning rubble of London, the capital city of Broken Britain, which last week (when the podcast was recorded) was full of rioting. We report from inside the looting, discussing the most important issues of the day, such as: 'how bad is Escape from Monkey Island?', and 'what is your favourite LucasArts soundtrack?'

Gabriel and Dan play around with shiny new equipment (with alarming results!) and continue our latest homoerotic feature, 'getting to know you'.

Listen below, or go to our to download a higher quality copy. Thanks to Zaarin for editing and producing. Paul Franzen's blog (mentioned in the episode) can be found here.