The International House of Mojo

As part of their "Flashback Friday" series, Adventure Gamers has reviewed the LucasArts classic Loom, giving the game a respectable 3.5 stars out of 5. Here's a clip explaining in part where the other 1.5 stars went:

Unfortunately, the game's length is its fatal flaw, as many will feel that despite all of Loom's inherent good qualities, it is too insubstantial to get your money's worth. Although the drafts alter every time you start a new game, this fails to add any real replayability and may leave experienced gamers feeling Loom is over before it even began.

Check out the whole review and some nice screenshots here.

Here's your second chance to ask Dan Pettit some questions. (Bumped from two days ago)

We finally landed the big one, the one we Mojo updaters dream of night after night: an interview with Dan Pettit! (Yes, that Dan Pettit. Yes... that Dan Pettit). Dan has worked at LucasArts for a while, including being the lead tester on Curse of Monkey Island, and some sort of producer on Jedi Knight II, but more important than that, he has appeared in a large percentage of our polls for no reason at all.

For this interview to be any good, we need your unique off-beat questions to make up for our overused trite ones. So, please help us out and leave some potential questions in the comments section of this post.

The official Gladius homepage has been updated with some new additions to the equipment section. The FAQ on the site has also been updated, and here's a quote:

Q: What makes Gladius different than other games of its type?
A: Gladius is unique because it is a hybrid between real-time and turn-based combat. There are two parts to a turn. The second turn portion takes place while other units can move. This means turns will overlap, and the wise player will learn to account for characters that may rarely stand still.

I can't think of a line to close this news post with.

TheForce.net points out that both EBGames and GameStop have set the release date for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox version) to May 1, 2003.

I don't know if this can actually be considered a recent delay, since the official site stated that the game would come out in spring of 2003. Of course, the release date given at last year's E3 was the fourth quarter of 2002... but hey, good things come to those who wait.

The ScummVM website was updated yesterday to announce that they've been voted Best Emulator at the Linux Game Tome site.

Aside from that, they've updated to remind everyone that Curse of Monkey Island support is coming along nicely (which, I must admit, is especially exciting for Mac users), and gave a quick roadmap for the next few months of development, including Maniac Mansion and Loom EGA support. To check out their current progress you can always download a daily snapshot build, or get the source and compile your own.

Yesterday, we reported on the announcement that all of the Lucas companies would merge into one single organization. Today, the San Francisco Chronicle has published an article giving us new insight into the corporate merger.

Interestingly enough, the article includes a quote by Tim Schafer concerning the recent announcment. Here's what he had to say about all that:

"We used to wish there was more cooperation between Industrial Light & Magic and games, and now maybe there will be," Schafer said. "We used to gripe in the old days that we really could use some of ILM's resources."

Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing, although anyone familiar with corporate antics usually panics at the word "reorganization." Read the complete article for more information.

In response to our previous news post, I contacted the Game Developers Conference to ask if audio CD's will available sometime after the conference is over.

The good news is that the online store at Gamasutra will be selling audio recordings of the conference about a month after the event.

The bad news is that these recordings will only be of lectures and panel discussions. That means that you won't be able to listen to the full day workshop given by Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, and Noah Falstein. However, you will most likely be able to purchase recordings of the lectures and panel discussions led by Sean Clark, Clint Bajakian, and other LucasArts-related people.

So... any volunteers to sneak into the GDC and record the workshop?

A press release has been issued today, stating that all of the Lucas companies are going to combine into one huge... thingy. Here's a quote:

Lucas stated, "During the past ten years, my companies have functioned relatively independent of each other. As we look to the future, we have decided to bring these entities together into a unified, cohesive group to create a dynamic entertainment company that builds upon their mutual strengths. We have a unique array of talent in the areas of special effects, sound design, interactive games, licensing, distribution, and marketing. This new structure will make it easier for our diverse talents to work as a team."

So what exactly does this mean? Well, I'm not sure, but it's likely that you can expect more collaboration between LucasArts, Skywalker Sound, and maybe ILM. But does this mean that LucasArts is no longer going to be called "LucasArts"? I guess time will tell.

Source: Business Wire

World of Monkey Island has published page 20 of Paco Vink's Secret of Monkey Island online comic. As usual, the new page looks great, even if it is missing the part about the gophers and a yak. Go look right now!

After over a month of neglecting us, Double Fine's self-aware news page has finally updated itself again, revealing more of its master plan along with a couple Psychonauts stories we already picked up earlier last week. Obviously Action News willed us to out-scoop it on those news stories, so we don't mind.

In addition to telling you how you hypothetically dress (gotta have blue hair), Action News has also promised some screenshots in the near future. Hopefully it's talking about Psychonauts screenshots.

Source: JBRAA

LucasArts.com pointed out today that many of their employees will be speaking at the Game Developers Conference March 4-8 in San Jose, California. Among the highlights of the conference, the following seminars should peak your interest:

Art and Science of Brainstorming, a full day tutorial led in part by Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, and Tim Schafer.

How to Write Good "Bad Dialogue": Cramming Storytelling Into an Action Game, an hour long lecture by Sean Clark and Ryan Kaufman (Full Throttle 2 co-designer).

What Producers Should Know About Audio, a panel discussion led by Clint Bajakian and members of the LucasArts sound department.

Now I know, you're probably not qualified to go or unable to afford the travel expenses. Not to fret. Recordings of the conference are usually made available on audio tapes and CD's. Pretty neat, eh?

It appears we're back after a lovely 20 or so hours of downtime. Something exploded at our web host's office, hopefully killing a couple of their employees. Of course whenever the server is down like this and comes back, it inevitably dies again for another couple hours, but let's hope that's not the case.

Rum Rogerz from The Ultimate Indy Jones site sends word that he is looking for some skilled individuals to assist him in the redesign of his site in time for the launch of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb

Anyone interested should email him at rum_rogerz@hotmail.com!

Back in February of 2002 a friend of mine pointed out that Fernandes Guitars had put out some rockin' Star Wars-themed electric guitars and accessories.

Star Wars dot com is reporting today that there are two new guitars that have just been added to the collection. Now you can "totally rock out" on guitars that feature Yoda and Boba Fett. RADICAL.

Greetings friends, huz Webmonkey has returned with a new poll for your faces! The previous poll, What breaks Mojo for you? showed that 31% of mojo readers are angry at banner ads, while a good 26% believed that bad jokes are the most painful thing on this site. Yes, that is the best we can do.

This week, the question is as follows: Evil Purple Tentacle has zapped you into a 3-headed beast... Choose who you'd be stuck with in your new cerbereal nightmare!. So, go vote on the new poll! It's got action. It's got drama. It's got...Dan Pettit

Lots of cool stuff up on LucasArts.com today. First, the Gladius site has been updated with a new character class called Berserker. This new screenshot has also been released.

Next, there is a renovated and slightly annoying Flash site for RTX Red Rock which includes a screensaver, information on the characters, an FAQ, and more.

Finally, the Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb site has also been updated with a new screensaver, featuring some really cool gameplay video of Indy smacking people around. I really recommend checking that one out, even though it's a bit brief.

February's Game Informer Magazine features an article about the men behind MMORPGs, entitled "The Art of Massively Multiplayer Gaming." Among Everquest and Planetside, SW Galaxies: An Empire Divided is lauded pre-release as "a lot for Star Wars fans to get excited about."

Quoth Kevin O'Hara, both associate producer and community relations manager:

"There are huge expectations, and I think that, with the love our developers have for the game, we're going to have a great game. There is no way we can live up to every single person's expectations of what they want in the Star Wars universe, but the game will be huge and bigger and better than any other game that is out there currently."

He certainly sounds confident, and I hope to see it succeed.

In related news, both SW: Galaxies and SW: KOTOR seem to be doing quite well on reserves at GameStop #1455... a release day sell-out could be on the horizon.

Source: Game Informer

Time for more LucasArts.com updates. The Gladius product spotlight has been updated to include new concept art and information on a new arena. I would type more, but I can't think of anything else to say.

Marek points to a report on HomeLan Fed in which they mention that a sequel or expansion pack to Jedi Outcast may be in the works. The rumor (which is probably true) started when Jedi Knight II came up in a recent public Activision conference call.

Activision, as you know, helped produce the game along with Raven and LucasArts. Here's a quote from the website:

... Execs at the company mentioned in passing that a sequel to last year's Quake III engine powered first person shooter Star Wars: Jedi Outcast was in the works to be released in their fiscal 2004 time frame (April 2003-March 2004). Since this was mentioned in an Activision conference call, it suggests that the sequel will once again be a collaboration between Activision and LucasArts. HomeLAN contacted original Jedi Outcast developer Raven Software (which is owned by Activision) but was refered to Activision's corporate offices for an official response. The Activision rep has so far not gotten back to us with a statement. A spokesperson for LucasArts would not comment on what the Activision execs said today when asked by HomeLAN.

Well, we all knew it would happen eventually, didn't we? Let's hope they do some good looking cutscenes this time around, eh? You can listen to the audio recording of the conference call and read more over here.

Source: HomeLan Fed

LucasArts has updated the RTX Red Rock product spotlight with a QuickTime movie of the game's opening cutscene (in two different sizes no less), and an image of the game's box art.

Updated! Now contains the opinions of two jerks, so beware.<:MORENEWS:>

Jake says: My feelings are mixed about both the trailer and the box art. The visuals in the opening cutscene are pretty slick, especially for a 3D game designed in-house at LEC... but the contents of said opening cutscene is a little bit funky. I can't tell if it's a little on the corny side, or if its genuinely trying to be campy. The RTX box art isn't too bad, but it's nowhere near the quality of the KOTOR box.

Now I'm really curious to see how this game measures up in its full version. The visuals are nice, and I played it a bit at a recent LucasArts press event and it was pretty fun. Moderately corny opening though, eh? Better wait for the Mojo review.

Spaff says: Ok so Jake asked me to post another jerks' opinion... Personally I like the intro. Based on what I know about the gameplay, it's going to be an action game as opposed to a deep plot RPG type wotsit. This intro reminds me of things like Evil dead, Duke Nukem, Serious Sam and even Starship troopers, all of which were great! Just look at the bit when he puts his fake arm on.. Army of Darknes anyone? Grooooovy!

So yeah, if the gameplay continues that theme, with tongue in cheek comments, and an overly blatant cheesey story, it should prove to be of amusement. :)

It's nice to see LEC making a game that will probably be unlike anything they have ever made before. P.S the CGI is a vast improvement on anything they have ever put out. G'night!

Here are the missing four Psychonauts screenshots. If you missed the ten from yesterday you can catch them here. Two of these shots originally ran in a recent Game Informer, while two ran in Official XBox Magazine. Now they run, in digital form, on The Mojo.

We've got 14 nearly-new screenshots from Psychonauts (you know, that new XBox game from Grim Fandango creator Tim Schafer), thanks to Microsoft (yeah, be afraid). These shots originally ran in this month's Game Informer magazine and one other magazine, and are now available here without even having to Game Informer or resort to looking at cheap grainy scans!

For some reason the news script would only let me put up 10 of the 14 shots, so I'll put the rest up later along with a couple others. Enjoy! This game looks insane.

GameSpy is running a feature called "Most Wanted Games of 2003," and what's opening their day 1 list of anticipated games? First off is Psychonauts, followed by Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, and a little after that comes Knights of the Old Republic. Here's a snip from the Psychonauts entry:

It was a shocking defection when Schafer decided to ply his trade on a console. He even commented in interviews that PC games are losing their magic, stating that consoles are where it's at. With the backing of Microsoft, his newest game is a psychotropic adventure of style, atmosphere, and -- best of all -- solid, console-style gameplay influenced by the likes of Mario and Zelda.

Up tomorrow in their countdown is the first list of anticipated PC games, followed later in the week by the "top 10" anticipated console and PC games.

Source: Marek

According to Remi, webmaster of the glorious The SCUMM Bar, this weeks copy of Entertainment Weekly (U.S. Edition, maybe others) contains a brief writeup on Psychonauts.

Witness Schafer sneaking into mainsteam culture, and watch as your hip (*cough*) movie-savvy friends pretend they've been on to him all along. I don't know what page it's on or what the article's about, but Remi claims its in there, so it probably is. Enjoy!

Update (telarium): Remi has been kind enough to provide us a scan from page 60 of the magazine. Click below to view the blurb in all its glory.

Source: #gfnetwork

Marek points out that IGN has posted an Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb Development Report written by Art Director Brian Horton from The Collective. In the report, Brian discusses the elaborate consideration and work put into creating the Indy model. Here's a quote which clearly suggests that Brian is in love with Harrison Ford:

Usually, when modeling a face or body, I only model one side and mirror the face when I'm done, not the case with Indy. The greatest thing about Harrison's face is the asymmetry, his nose turns slightly to the left, his top lip is higher on the right than the left, and of course you can't forget the scar on the left side of his chin and the mole to the left of it. His eyes were very difficult to capture, the lids are buried under his brow and turn down slightly. On either side of his nose are heavy laugh lines that I modeled into the form as they make for another important landmark.

The report has some interesting screenshots of the work in progress on the model, so click here and read this thing.

Source: VE3D

More LucasArts.com updates. The official box art has been posted on the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic product spotlight. Several new screenshots have also been added, and judging from these new screens, it seems that the game might actually have some funny dialogue.

It has also been revealed that an Xbox demo of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb will be released in the March issue of the Official Xbox Magazine. Sadly, no word on a PC demo, but this new screenshot may help to dry up those tears of disappointment.

Star Wars Galaxies Warcry has conducted an interview with Haden Blackman, producer of Star Wars Galaxies. In the interview, Haden gives us a bit of a rundown for one of his days at work. Here's a clip:

2 AM: Stop working on the manual and go to bed.

9 AM: Roll into the office, starting answering e-mail. I typically have several dozen unread e-mails in my inbox by the time I get in because the Development team is in Austin and has two to three hours to send me e-mail before I can respond. :) I also take a few minutes to draft a description of Keren, one of the cities on Naboo.

10 AM: Meet with Marketing folks to go over proposals for an "Art of..." book. The layout looks great; now, we just have to organize all the assets...

11 AM: I spend the next hour jumping between finishing up e-mails, a phone conference call re: some press opportunities, and actually playing game (fortunately, I have two machines that I can flip between).

12 PM: A lunch meeting with other Producers.

12:30 PM: Interview with a potential company hire.

Unfortunately, I was not that potential company hire... but I digress. It's a good interview, so make sure you read the whole thing.

Music 4 Games has published an interview with Skywalker Sound. The interview discusses the company's work on Star Wars Bounty Hunter as well as the possibility of doing more video games in the future. Here's a clip from the interview:

M4G: Skywalker Sound doing games? Why video games?

AG: At Skywalker Sound we feel that video games are at an exciting point technology wise, and as the technology improves the sound in video games will only become better. The experience of playing a video game will become more like watching a movie in the coming years, and as the world's best feature film sound facility we feel that we're in an excellent position to provide cutting edge sound for games, now and into the future.

Be sure to check out the full interview.

The official Gladius homepage at LucasArts.com has been updated. On the webpage, you can now find five new screenshots, new character models, updated character classes, and an update of the game's progress from the production team. Here is a highlight from the team notes:

Focus on the art side is now turning toward telling the story of Gladius? in hand painted and real time animated cutscenes. In December '02 we finished voice recording for the two storylines and we are quite happy with the results. We managed to get great talent all around especially for our lead heroes, Valens and Ursula.

Also, QueZTone points out that Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is now available for pre-order along with some kind of free crazy pen. You can also buy some new Indiana Jones Boxer Shorts (???) from the official company store as well. Enjoy!

boeffl points out that the official PC requirements for Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb are now up on LucasArts.com.

According to these specs, you'll need at least a Pentium III 733mhz, 128 megs of RAM, and a GeForce 1 video card to play this game. Oh, and at least a 4x CD-ROM... but really, if you have anything less than a 16x CD drive at this point, you really need to get with the times and live a little.

Check out the full detailed requirements here.

IGN has published another Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic interview with BioWare producer Casey Hudson. Here's a highlight from the interview concerning the game's *gasp* story:

The game is set 4000 years before the Galactic Empire. Two charismatic young Jedi have led the Republic to victory in a distant war against the Mandalorians. When they returned however, they came not as saviours, but as conquerors, at the helm of an unimaginably large fleet of Sith warships. Something had twisted them to the Dark Side, and the Republic has little hope of defending itself. Though the Republic was able to kill one of the Dark Lords, his powerful apprentice Darth Malak still survives, and is focused on his war of conquest.

Sounds promising. Read the full interview here.

Fangoria.com has published a small interview with Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean film. If you don't know why this is indirectly related to LucasArts, read our previous report. Here's what Bruckheimer had to say about the movie so far:

"The pirates ? what happens is they stole this cursed treasure and unless they put the treasure back, they never die, they can't enjoy life," Bruckheimer continues. "They can't enjoy food or sex. All they want to do is plunder and get more and more and more gold. And in the moonlight, they turn into skeletons. So, you can just imagine the effects. ILM is doing the effects. [Director] Gore Verbinski, who did The Ring, is very imaginative and is working with ILM. I've never seen skeletons like this. They have actual features and pieces of flesh and their costumes still on, so it's fascinating."

No skeleton sex, eh? I wonder if they can't get drunk either. At least Manny had that going for him. Anyway, read the full interview for more info. Arr.

Source: TheForce.net

(Re-post from yesterday! Submit more questions!)

Roll up Roll up! It's Question time once more. Our inteview with Reeve Thompson was so succesful, we are going to do it again!

This time Aaron Giles takes the stand as our Mojo-Bionic questions are fired randomly towards his ether.

Aaron Giles has been in the news recently for his conversions of Sam & Max and Full Throttle to windows XP for use in the LucasArts Entertainment Pack. He also worked on the old ports of LEC's finest adventure games to the Mac way back in the last millennium.

You can submit any questions you'd like to ask him in the normal way, which just so happens to be by leaving a comment.

If you still have no idea who Aaron Giles is look over here!

Lots of LucasArts.com updates this past Friday, so let's get right to it. The RTX Red Rock page has been updated with six new screenshots, four desktop wallpaper images, and some new concept art featuring some kind of weird box office.

The Gladius page has also been updated. There, you can find a new arena map, part two of The Lost Scrolls which tells about about the story's background, and information on the battle equipment.

And finally, the Knights of the Old Republic page has posted some information about the world of Tatooine and one new screenshot.

Okay, I'm done.

The wait is over. Mini-MI Legend's reign of terror has come to an end with the launch of the fifth version of The Legend of Monkey Island. The site sports a great new design by the webmaster, Blondebeard, as well as a couple of new sections, and many more on the way. What are you waiting for? Journey to the site where every visit is an adventure!

The New Years poll is over. Apparently Mojo's New Years resolution is 1024x768 with a 47% vote, silly and overused as that joke may be. Our second most popular new years resolution is to quit sucking up to LucasArts (*cough cough*) with 17%, and third most popular was a tie between stopping with the bad jokes and stopping with the fingernail biting at 11%.

With New Years out of the way its time for a new poll. Mojo sucks, you know it, we know it. It breaks all the time. The current poll asks What breaks Mojo for you? Note that we left "excessive downtime" off the list, as we knew it would destroy the rest. Yes sadly "excessive downtime" is the "Monkey Island" of "what breaks Mojo" polls.

LucasArts have kindly pointed out that there is an upcoming chat session with the folks behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic:

Come and join BioWare?s art director, Derek Watts and producers, Casey Hudson (BioWare) and Mike Gallo (LucasArts) for a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic chat, at Stratics on Jan. 16th. [snip]

In addition, fans can post questions ahead of time, at the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic official forums forums.bioware.com, and the developers will answer these questions at the chat on Jan. 16th.

If you fancy heading along, you can fire up your favourite irc client on Thursday, Jan. 16th at 6:00 pm Pacific Time and connect to one of the following servers:

• irc.frws.com port 6667 USA - Colorado
• irc2.frws.com port 6667 USA - Colorado
• irc.glowfish.de port 6667 EU - Germany
  

#StarwarsHOC is the channel!

More information can be found here. Nice to see that they're using IRC this time instead of that wacky Java client from past chats.

Update: As pointed out by Ronda Scott from LucasArts in the comments, this chat is art-specific - focusing on the graphics and visual design of the game - as they've already done a general Knights chat.

Juztyn has sent word that his LFNetwork site, the popular SWGalaxies.net has been redesigned. And he's not lying! Although similar, the site sports a nice, clean new layout (done by Kedri) and random image captures from the upcoming game now decorate the top portion of the site. Fun!

The Legend of Monkey Island, a large info and community center on the network, has been stripped down to mini-form to make way for...erm, something. According to the site, there are only one or two days remaining until...well, something will happen, I suppose. It's all very exciting, so make sure to keep an eye on Mini MI Legend. Word.

Reeve Thompson, producer of Hal Barwood's RTX Red Rock, fields questions from the Mixnmojo community in our new interview. Here, Reeve answers questions about the story, the gameplay, the characters, and why E.Z. Wheeler's pants are now a different color. Fascinating, eh? Check it out!

Mixnmojo's own iMuse Island music community website has posted an extensive review of The Best of LucasArts Original Soundtracks CD. The review tells you exactly what to expect from the soundtrack, so if you can't decide on whether or not you want to buy it... then you really should stop being so cheap. Live a little, man. But be sure to read the review regardless.

Source: The SCUMM Bar

Aaron Giles, the man responsible for the LucasArts Entertainment Pack, has written an article on his website with an overview of some of the new SCUMM game features.

If you don't remember, the Entertainment Pack was issued by LucasArts in the UK with Windows-friendly versions of Full Throttle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, and The Dig. Aaron, if you didn't know, used to work at LucasArts porting many of the classic games to Macintosh systems and was contacted by the company to update the old games once again.

Some of the lesser known features Aaron points out are full screen mode, graphics smoothing, correct aspect ratio (a welcome feature, I must say), and more. Check out the article for this interesting read. Thanks to bgbennyboy for the heads up!

No not really. But after scraping about for news and finding this article I learned that he almost did himself some damage trying to perform his own stunt for an upcoming film. Look I even found a quote that makes it relevant!

The 60-year-old "Indiana Jones" star -- who insists on doing many of his own stunts -- was riding in a car driven by co-star Josh Hartnett when the vehicle went out of control during a chase scene and hit a wall. Luckily, both actors escaped serious injury in the wreck.

This article is also small , but after the reception of the last attempt to lengthen the news I think I'll leave it that way.

X-Entertainment has posted a fairly interesting article talking about the mail-away type freebies and other bits you could get with the old Star Wars figures. The article talks about things such as the secret figure free with 4 toy packets and 4-6 weeks waiting, painting contests and strange letters from Luke Skywalker himself!.

Much in the same way the Bossk figure was marketed, Kenner started adding teaser ads to the toy packaging to get a figure from the upcoming third film. They chose Admiral Ackbar. As a kid, I thought the figure sucked. And I wasn't the only one - long after Star Wars ran out of gas, Admiral Ackbar figures still warmed the toy store shelves. Apparently, it takes a more adult mind to appreciate the innate regality of a grumbling mutant squid who commands mile-long starships

It's a pretty long read, but for anyone bored at work* it's a God send. Also an interesting insight into 80's marketing, may it never happen again.

*note to Boss: I am never bored at work ..

Source: Fark

There are a couple of fine new screenshots for RTX Red Rock up on planetgamecube. Literally two of them.
It's hard to make posts with very little information in them amusing for people... maybe I should get a joke from somewhere... ok.

Disney have announced that their new film:Pirates of the Caribbean has been given a rating by the film classification folks... it's been rated Arrrrrrr!

AHahahahahahaha get it? ....I'll get my coat.

Update: Actually, these two screenshots aren't new and are up on the official LucasArts website... but they're still cool.

Update: Ahaha because these six screenshots on Eurogamer aren't on the LEC gallery.. meaning they could be *shock* New! It's so hard to tell these days. Oh well.

The Electric playground has posted an interview with Jim Tso, the producer of the 'we all want it now' Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

BJ: Share with us a favorite moment or story from the development of this game.

JT: One of my favorite moments was watching the Triad guys in the game for the first time. For a long time, the only enemies we had to fight against were ivory hunters and Nazis. These guys have a fighting style similar to Indy's, kind of a western brawling style. The Triad guys are totally different, they do flips and spin kicks. It was really cool to watch them do flips over Indy in the game.

The interview is a bit basic in question asking goodness, but is worth reading anyway! It also contains some screenshots that I hadn't seen before, but that doesnt mean they are new... but they might be... I doubt it.. no they are I'm sure.... argh I can't decide!

Source: Marek 'dik dak dok' Bronstri

Okay, so it's been a slow news week thus far. Hopefully things will pick up tomorrow or something. In that spirit, we bring your attention once again to Adventure Gamers, who dubs the announcement of Sam and Max 2 as the Most Notable Event of 2002. Here's a quote:

After the demise of the Sam & Max action/adventure at the now-bankrupt Infinite Machine, not to mention the IP belonging to Steve Purcell, Sam & Max 2 seemed to be just a fanboy's wet dream. When Sam & Max 2 was officially announced, everyone had to check their calendars to make sure it wasn't April 1. Sam & Max 2 was undoubtedly the most unexpected news we saw this year.

Hey, some news is better than no news.

IGN has posted the fifth designer diary for Knights of the Old Republic written by BioWare designer Lukas Kristjanson. Here's a quote from the diary concerning the fact that the game takes place 4,000 years before Episode I:

First off, we tend to think of futuristic settings as being relatively new, and that perhaps only a few years ago there were no starships. Does this mean that the only equipment with a respectable provenance will be primitive, like the same old swords and bows? Not so in Star Wars. At the time of the movies, the galaxy has had faster than light travel for over 25,000 years. The Old Republic, the venerable organization of thousands of worlds, was built around the discovery of hyperdrive systems. Civilizations have come and gone in this age of discovery, and many technologies have been lost to the ages.

Read the full diary here.

Games Domain has published a list of games they are most looking forward to in 2003. Along with Zelda, Doom III, and Halo 2, you'll find such LucasArts games as Galaxies, Knights of the Old Republic, and Full Throttle 2. Here's a quote from the list concerning the sequel to Full Throttle:

Details are still scant, but the game will feature the same lead as the original, Ben, leader of a motorcycle gang called the Polecats. It also promises a similar mix of action and puzzles.

The comedy adventure genre has been severely neglected in recent years, so it's good to see probably the most acclaimed publisher of adventure games getting back to its roots. We'll be waiting eagerly to see what they come up with.

You can check out the full list here.

Source: JediNet.com

LucasArts.com was updated yesterday as usual. This time, you can find over eleven new screenshots for the PS2 version of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. In addition, you can also find this new screenshot from Hal Barwood's RTX Red Rock. Oh, and check out this blurb about what force powers will be available in the Knights of the Old Republic RPG. It's Saturdaylicious!

It seems that LucasArts music composer Clint Bajakian made his live television debut yesterday. Tech TV's "The Screen Savers" ran a special on the live orchestral music used in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Matt K. Speckmann caught the show and gives us an overview:

Before he came on, they played clips of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb in action, as well as a short clip of the orchestra recording the score in Seattle. When Clint came on, he talked about the evolution of music in games, as well as the similarities and differences between scoring for games and movies. Then he was asked how he created the music for the game. He demonstrated how this was done on the computer. He came up with the themes on a MIDI keyboard, which translated into a computer program (Digital Performer - Ed.). The program records this music in various ways. When it was edited to Clint's liking, it was sent to Hollywood, where an orchestrator created the actual written score for the orchestra to play.

The website for The Screen Savers should have an article posted soon about the feature, so keep an eye out. Thanks to Matt for letting us know.

The Official Star Wars Galaxies website now has a variety of high-quality wallpaper images that relate to the game. The various images feature such familiar characters as Darth Vader, Boba Fett, stormtroopers, and one fierce lookin' wookiee. Check them out.

Our previous poll has now ended, with 36% of you wanting to see a return of Mixnmojo downloads and 26% wanting more secrets and jokes. 11% of you, for God knows why, voted for a return of Java games. Freaks.

But today is a new day with a new poll. This seasonal poll asks, Mojo's new year resolution should be...? Have fun!

Update (Jake): The rest of the staff apologizes for Andrew's terrible, stolen "1024x768" joke. We feel your pain.

The last few weeks have seen Mojo completely devoid of CBTS, but it's time for it's return on this shiny Thursday afternoon. Of course when I say shiny I actually mean flooding & dark.

Any vaguely Lucas shaped news? errrmmmmm, moving on.

Work (as in LFNetwork) has finally begun on sorting out a network wide newsletter which should provide some kind of entertainment for you Lucas fans out there, bringing you the best LFN news every month... or fortnight. Or something. In the mean time you'll have to make do with these ramblings.

So then... Let's trawl through my inbox shall we? Oh yes! A video! I have a feeling its fairly old, but it's great nonetheless:

This is a video taken in 6000 feet of water. An undersea robot is sawing a 3mm wide slit in a pipeline. The pressure inside the pipeline is 0 PSI while the pressure out side is 2700PSI. And then a crab walks by...

The Slogan generator would have proved useful several years back when we held a Mojo slogan contest, providing beauties like:

'If You've Got the Time, We've Got the Mojo'

'Only Mojo Can Prevent Forest Fires.'

Of course it also said this:

'151 Countries, One Spaff'

'But I'd Rather Have a Bowl of Spaff.'

Which are of course all true. I've had enough of looking for things to put in here, nothing amazing seems to be going on... I'll bugger off now to the pub I think, and leave you with a lovely picture DJG sent me of himself dressed as santa! Anyone got any interesting pictures of themselves at X-Mas? SHARE!

If Only Everything in Life was as Reliable as a Djg.

Well I just woke up and felt the pain... last night was pretty uneventful despite the b00z3, but hey, Now its 2003! wow.

Soon robots will take over all our jobs, including mojo news posting, so look forward to the incessant bleeping of the mind drones.

Mojo wishes all of you a happy new year, and lets hope this one will be one with a smaller number of server changes and down time fun!


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Adventure Gamers' controversial Top 20 Adventure Games of All-Time list concluded today, and number #1 on the list was none other than Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer's classic Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle. Here's what the article had to say:

There isn't a greater game, adventure or otherwise, in existence than Day of the Tentacle; I believe that with all of my heart, and if you have not experienced the game, you don't understand the heights that an adventure game can attain. Strong words? Absolutely. That's how strongly I feel about this game.

Well it's been a fun ride, despite Monkey Island 2 being completely robbed by placing 18th on the list... *tear*... I'm okay now.

Happy 2003! To celebrate the new year, we've done something very special. Well maybe not, but still, it's something worth looking at. Our own Andrew "telarium" Langley reviews Star Wars Bounty Hunter to find out if it's just another soulless cash-in on the Star Wars franchise, or if it's actually a quality product. Find out here!