The International House of Mojo

For those of you Monkey Island fans who have been freaking out that Dominic Armato, THE voice of Guybrush Threepwood, has not yet been confirmed as reprising his role in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Special Edition, worry no more.

LucasArts' MISE producer Craig Derrick has revealed on his Twitter feed that Dom is indeed on board for MI2:SE, and that his Luke Skywalker impression is top-notch.

(Yes, the tweet is from April 2. Shut up. Mojo is as timely as ever.)

Also of note is the background to Derrick's Twitter page. It would seem to be a MI2:SE character there!

Possibly the image is related to a comment Derrick made in the recent Gamespot interview with him, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman:

"CD: Be nice guys [i.e., Gilbert, Schafer, and Grossman]. Remember, we did fix Guybrush's hair and put a very flattering caricature of each of you in the game."

Interesting.

And if you get the reference in the title of this post, you are far, far too much of a Star Wars nerd for your own good.

As pledged, the latest screenshot from LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition has been released, it being from Guybrush's underwater retrieval of the Mad Monkey figurehead. Join us in obsessively comparing the shiny new take with the original shot in all the usual places.

Source: Joystiq

After showcasing first one and then a second of the designs he did for the Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge box art on his blog, Steve Purcell has now posted his third and final concept for the MI2 cover.

It's mostly the same as the finished painting, although in the early concept Elaine was also present. Purcell notes that he was unsatisfied with how she looked, and thus dropped her. (A similar thing seems to have happened with his drawing of Elaine on the pencil sketch for the Secret of Monkey Island cover art: he pasted a new cut-out drawing of her on top of the original paper sheet.)

This concept painting was previously showcased in the book Rogue Leaders, but now it's available to see for any of you penurious fellows who haven't shelled out the money for that tome.

That ever-so-respectable paragon of games journalism, GameSpot, has posted a short video preview of the developer commentary in the upcoming Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition. Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman are all featured, so if their banter here is any indication, the audio commentary will be a laugh riot.

Accompanying the video is a two-page interview of the trio, who also let current LucasArts SE producer Craig Derrick get in on the question-answering fun. Finally, we get to find out where Ron Gilbert's LEGO pirate ship went!

Two new screenshots from LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition have been made available this week: the Booty Island spitting contest and antique shop. And this is next.

If you want to discuss these latest glimpses, please do so below. If you want to rip them to shreds, visit the respective threads on Telltale's forum and our own.

Source: Facebook

You may have already noticed this if you're a regular of our forums (as you should be) or astutely follow The SCUMM Bar's twitter feed (they have a twitter feed?), but a few days ago a reader named joepinion posted a thread where he shares a flowchart he made for all of the puzzles in The Secret of Monkey Island, encapsulating the entire game in diagram tree form - just like the real game designers do! Lookit.

Source: Mojo Forums

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is now available for Mac computers from GameAgent for US$9.99.

Off you go then.

Source: Game Agent

Having put the first up for sale on eBay, Steve Purcell has done Monkey Island fans the favor of posting "the second of three" unused and unbelievable cover designs he did for LeChuck's Revenge up on his blog. This design, which depicts zombie LeChuck in his familiar, voodoo-torturing pose against the background of his storm-shrouded fortress, turned up in the Rogue Leaders art book and most recently yesterday's Purcell interview, but this is certainly the highest resolution we've ever had the pleasure of seeing the rare piece of painted piratey excellence in.

Speaking of LeChuck's Revenge, our post covering the ongoing Special Edition screenshot releases is getting unwieldy, so let me just say that Adventure Gamers has everything that's been posted so far in a convenient gallery.

Source: Spudvision

In preparation for the Summer launch of Monkey Island 1 Special Edition on the PS3, you can now deck out you PS3 home with a plethora of Monkey Island related characters, backgrounds, and sounds (some seen here). Each item costs four English pennies.

Thanks to Christopher Arthur for the tip.

According to the Monkey Island Adventures Facebook page, there's trezzer to be found in daily updates on Monkey Island 2: Special Edition, starting with some hopefully lovely images of the Scabb Island environments, any time now. They had this to say:

Which is what I just said. Duh. If you like your hype up-to-the-minute, I suggest you head here. All aboard the Monkey Island 2: Special Edition excitement train, woo woo!

Edit:And the first one just arrived. Marvellous.

04/09 Update: We may currently lack galleries, but Adventure Gamers is up-to-speed with all of LEC's Facebook deposits. See them all! Then mock and/or partake in the absolutely ridiculous nitpicking. The LucasArts Workshop informs that next week will bring us glimpses of Phatt Island.

04/13 Update: Outside Dread's cruising ship. Next up? Inside.

Update by Kroms: It's here and lovely. As an added bonus, LucasArts is hinting that actor Phil LaMarr is set to play Captain Dread. You may know LaMarr from a wide range of work, including Pulp Fiction, the Metal Gear Solid games or Futurama, where he voiced Hermes Conrad. For my money's worth, it's an excellent bit of casting.

04/15 Update: Phatt Island wanted poster. Also, Governor Phatt enjoys sustenance.

Source: Facebook

Alternate news title: Star Wars Battlefront 3 cancelled AGAIN. This time in development at Slant Six, developers of SOCOM Confrontation, this announcement was accompanied by a round of "temporary" layoffs.

In a clear case of déjà vu, LucasArts have put the Star Wars project "on ice". Although that has indeed happened to every version of Battlefront 3 so far, that's not even the hang-on-hasn't-this-happened-before part. As the reason behind this is that they wanted the game out this year and the team couldn't deliver. Now where have we heard that before?

Interestingly though, the reason LucasArts couldn't release it in 2011 is that their Star Wars schedule is "stacked" that year. Methinks there's more than just Lego Star Wars III and TFU2 incoming from the House of George.

Source: Kotaku

On their spiffy new website (there's a lot of that going round) Gamesâ„¢ magazine have as one of their launch features a wonderful article called 'The Empire Strikes Out - LucasArts And the Death of Adventure Games'.

It mostly chronicles LucasArts of the turbulent 2003-2004 period, with some nice new insight to the making of Sam & Max: Freelance Police and Full Throttle: Hell On Wheels, although saying the latter received "an enthusiastic response" from fans is a bit of an exaggeration.

Sam & Max in particular has some nice info clarifying just how close the cancelled game got to what Telltale would later do. However, I'm not sure whether this was published early 2009 in the mag itself as mentions Fate of Atlantis being included with Indiana Jones & The Staff of Kings but makes no mention of Tales of Monkey Island.

Anyway, have a read for yourself.

Source: Gamesâ„¢

Kotaku has posted an article on the 1996 LucasArts strategy game 'Afterlife'.

Source: Kotaku