The International House of Mojo

Want to get your site advertised on the main page of Mix'n'mojo? For FREE?

Just e-mail me in the next week with a link to your site, and if said site fills the criteria you will be added to The List. All the sites on The List will then be given a banner at the top of this page, advertised according to the chronology of The List.

What are these magical criteria? It's nothing special. All we want are sites that are LucasArts+ related. Here are a few examples of sites we mean by that:

• A Double Fan news blog!
• A Loom fan-game homepage!
• A Dominic Armato stalk pad!
• An adventure game fan-site that also covers Telltale's games!

...basically, if we cover it here, and it's on your site, then you can join The List. If in doubt, e-mail me with your site anyway and I'll get back to you. Mojo hosted sites and other LFNetwork sites can also join in on this.

Hopefully this way we'll give some more coverage to fan-sites already affiliated with Mojo, as well as making friends with some new sites.

In what I can only assume is a big (force) push in marketing as we head towards a release date, LucasArts has allowed GameTrailers to interview them about Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. There are three separate parts to the interview:

1. Game lead Hayden Blackman chats about the game, and takes his cues from the poster behind him. Still, he does mention being able to choose how to 'level-up' your character's force powers, similar to Jedi Knight (again).
2. Chat about narrative, exploration, and most importantly - choice. It seems you will be able to choose light-side or dark-side, hooray. However, there will be no slaughtering the younglings. Boo.
3. Talk about the lightsaber and the Wii, and explaining why the combat seems so dull - they want to cater to the 'button-mash' players as much as the people who like pulling off A-X-B-A combos, just not for people in between. The Wii version sounds really cool though, and there'll be a Wii-exclusive Duel Mode which sounds the best thing I've heard about this game. Oh, and Princess Leia's in this one too. She'll play a big part in the game.

The more I see the more I think LucasArts might possibly have a fun game here, although we're still waiting on Indiana Jones guys...

Telltale has put up the page for the next Sam & Max episode Night of the Raving Dead here so what are you reading this for? There be trailer and screenshots for everyone!

Update! It also turns out they've moved the release date up two days to February 12th. for GameTap subscribers and to the 13th. for everyone else!

Pardon the mess... it's all those brain donors.

If you were to click here or look over to the right you will see the thing we at Mojo have been dying to show you for about a month now - some awesome art by Dan Lee! While that in itself is really enough to cover us for any new content for at least a year or so, we decided to make an article to go along with the art - the promised Maniac Mansion extravaganza that kicks off Mojo's new articles series, "LucasArts' Secret History."

The article contains a brand-spanking new review for the game, as well as some hopefully time-wasting bonus material we were able to scrounge up. Hope you guys like it! And remember, we'll be doing this for every LucasArts adventure game down the line on a (probably) monthly basis. Think of it as episodic articles - we're just like Telltale, only more furry and less 3D.

Next month we'll be doing Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, and like last time I encourage all of you to prepare by playing the game again, or for the first time. C'mon, you get to shred a goldfish in a garbage disposal. What kind of fool wouldn't want to play a game that let's you do that?

Telltale has started their spring cleaning early and the first update brings you new versions of all the season one episodes. They're now Vista compatible so if you've been having problems running these episodes under Microsoft's new OS, they should now work fine.

Clicky!

The new issue of Empire Magazine will be out shortly in the UK, and they'll have a short new preview of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull along with a couple of new pictures.

Check out a preview of the preview here! Doesn't Indy look uncomfortable with that rocket launcher? Considering he carried one on his back for a lot of Infernal Machine just six years previously. And tried to blow up the Ark (Ren?).

Another pic will be of Cate Blanchett's Russian Agent Spalko. Producer Frank Marshall says John Williams is about to start recording and that tonally the film will be "closest to the third one (Last Crusade). It's all adults. I mean, you have the sidekick in Shia (LaBeouf), but you don't have a Short Round and I think the banter between the characters is as fun as it was in the third movie".

In other Indy IV news, we actually have a picture of the titular Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Okay, it might be slightly different to how you're imagining it. Notice Agent Spalko and Shia LeBeouf above Indy. And what do those skeletons have on their heads? Is that a Conquistador's hat on one? Undead Spaniards in Indy IV! You heard it here first!

Steve Purcell has been in a piratey mood again and posted more pirate-inspired paintings at his blog, SPUDVISION.

Go take a look!

You may be familiar with the internet rumor resource Surfer Girl. Well, since we haven't heard anything about LucasArts' Indiana Jones game (the non-LEGO one) since, oh, E3 2006, let's just for fun see what an unofficial source has to say on the matter. The following bits are taken from the site's frequent news entries:

11/14/07
-Indiana Jones has "a brand new development team on board" and is "back on track." I now understand why someone who was working on the title was a bit nervous when I talked about it with them a few months back.

12/25/07
-A2M is working on Indiana Jones for people who cannot stand to play consoles with the number three in the name--DS/Wii/PS2/PSP.

12-26-07
-The current version of Indiana Jones has pretty much nothing in common with what was seen in the E3 06 trailer. The version where Indy is Ali rhythmic taps of the A button is no more and a signature, announced feature or two may have disappeared.
-A2M's Indiana Jones title, which has had a far mroe stable development, follows same plot its big next-gen siblings, but in an alternate universe sort of way. Waggle-lovers shan't worry, Wii is the lead SKU for the title.

"A new team?" "Back on track?" "Nervous" team member? Stripped features? Also, this is the first we've heard about the 3rd party ports to all the platforms that aren't 360 and PS3, but it's not surprising either considering it's in line with how The Force Unleashed is being handled. Anyway, you may find some more stuff over there while you keep waiting for LucasArts to say anything official about the game. Should give you plenty of time.

Was in Waterstones the other day (bookshop, y'know, sells books, papery things with words in, like comics without pictures), and was on my way up to the Graphic Novels section as usual when a book caught my eye. My heart leapt in excitement, then I found myself utterly disappointed.

This is the book. Things like that should be stopped.

In what seems like a long time (I am not doing that pun), Star Wars: The Force Unleashed seems to have come on in leaps and bounds, as shown in this amazing new video at GameTrailers.

LucasArts can feel proud now, for they have created... another Jedi Knight game. A good-looking one (very much so), but still Jedi Academy with some nice new tech. Still, there hasn't been a bad JK game as this seems to be exactly what Star Wars fans actually want (instead of, say, Super Bombad Racing or Demolition), and it does look extremely fun.

Let's hope the story passes muster, being able to choose Light Side or Dark Side is an option, and that we get some new Indiana Jones info soon.

In an almost new preview IGN takes another look at the DS version of Insecticide, which is due out in a mere month. It seems like only last month that the game was two months away from release.

IGN tells it like it is in their write-up, meaning that they say a lot of nice things and have a bunch of new media to share. That includes new videos - check them out - as well as some literary gems like the following:

Insecticide is an action adventure game, presented as a film noir copy mystery set in a bug city. The cartoony character design is a bit misleading because Insecticide is actually a fairly dark game, both figuratively and literally (sorry die-hard original DS fans, this game is going to be a pain to play). Murder, gun fights, and haunting dream sequences make up just the first few minutes. While it's certainly not as dark as Gamecock's last title, Dementium: the Ward, this game still has a brooding feel to it that may establish Gamecock as a darker publisher.

Read all about why IGN and Insecticide should just get a room already. Also, stop putting off pre-ordering the game. My Bug Blaster has made me the envy of all my friends.

If any of you want to share your opinions about Maniac Mansion for inclusion in our upcoming article, you're running out of time. Send me your stuff already; you have until the end of the week. Also, as I recommended last time, replay Maniac Mansion. It's only like 650kb so it should be a pretty convenient download purchase off of ebay. Stay tuned for the article in the coming weeks!

Game Informer, which you'll remember also gave us the first look at Br?tal Legend, has now turned its magic eye to look at Lego Indiana Jones.

If you're in the United States of America, then the magazine should already be available at newstands. Inside are four pages of new screenshots and information, some of which has been divulged by the cheery elves at The Raider.net.

It looks pretty sweet!

Update: Scans of the article in question are now up on TheRaider.net's message forum. One interesting point is that unlike Lego Star Wars, all the guns in the game will have limited ammo - so much like in Emperor's Tomb Indy will be doing more brawling than shooting. Cool! Brawling with Lego!

Telltale and Ubisoft have put out a PC demo of CSI: Hard Evidence, giving you a taste of the game's first case, "Burning for You," which tasks you with figuring out who set a bald cabbie on fire. So if you're still on the fence about this game, why not check it out? As previously noted, all versions of the game are now available: PC, Xbox 360, and Wii. Since I was able to get my hands on a copy of the Wii version over the weekend, I'll probably go ahead and add some impressions to our review soon.

Telltale also reports that the Sam & Max: Season 1 case file, aka that envelope of worthless goodies you can slide inside your DVD case, is being discontinued, so get on that if you're interested.

A new featurette is up at the Official Indiana Jones site, where production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas (who also worked on Superman Returns, another "return to the 80s" film, and has a great name) takes us on a tour round Indy's new house, as originally seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark and coming again in the new film.

Check it out here. If you're very eagle-eyed, you might notice some references to past Indy adventures, such as photos of Sallah, Willie Scott, and Gennadi VolodnikovHenry Jones Snr.

And I almost had a heart-attack too, after I thought I'd uncovered a secret Indy IV teaser trailer on the site too. Clicking on one of the three flags at the bottom left of the videos page takes you to http://www.indianajones.com/intl/uk/teaser, but unfortunately that's just a teaser website with no information on it whatsoever. A bit of a tease, if you ask me.

Okay, hopefully the fifty-seventh time's the charm: the latest rumor for the Indiana Jones 4 trailer is that it'll be aired during Entertainment Tonight on February 14th, and then officially posted online on the following day (the 15th, for those keeping score at home). The latest rumor was February 3rd, aka The Super Bowl, but hey, at least the month was right.

As with the last movie Mojo covered, At World's End, there will probably only be one, full length, trailer for KOCS as opposed to a teaser trailer first. Lucasfilm is employing the "Hey, Indiana Jones is its own hype" strategy, and unfortunately for us it's probably the right move.

I have a few pieces of miscellaneous news that I'd like to share with you, my internet babies.

• n0n4m3 from #monkey-island (irc.gamesurge.net ? join now!) has been busy hatching some Monkey Island t-shirts that you can see here, here and here. And there. They're very nice looking, and show what you can do with a few simple images and some plain t-shirts.


• I was doing a Google image search for A Vampyre Story the other day and came across this image from 2007's Halloween. It's great the way that Mona's clutching Leo's shoulders -- and I hadn't seen it before. Leo is a radio talk show host who works upstairs in the Autumn Moon cottage (as we learnt from this interview at The Pumpkin Post)


• Speaking of The Pumpkin Post: they reported that Gamers Hell have new screenshots of A Vampyre Story to be seen (with your eyes) over this way.


• Speaking of A Vampyre Story and therefore by extension Bill Tiller -- Bill Tiller e-mailed me months ago with a screenshot of the Lucky Charms web-site (presented below) that shows clouds very similar to the famous curly ones in the last two Monkey Island games. Just a coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not! You can still see the curly clouds on the web-site (which incidentally heavily implies that you should go take some exercise if you spent more than a few minutes on the site -- pretty damn cheeky if you ask me!)
  


• On the subject of food companies possibly being influenced by LucasArts+ games: "gamekill" on the Telltale forums noticed that a free sticker pack bares more than a passing resemblance to Max.


• Lastly, Zaarin (who is incidentally the latest addition to our 'staff' -- hello!) updated his long running hosted site, SoundFont Island, renaming it Soundtrack Island. Old content is being re-uploaded, but there's already a lot of very nice music. The site has a new design by ME (except someone else did the clouds and logo -- Zaar, plz edit this to make me sound less idiotic).

---------------------------------------
"Edition", my arse!
Detypoed!

--Zaarin

Theforce.net is reporting that LucasArts' The Force Unleashed, originally slated for November 2007 release, then Spring 2008, has been pushed back further still to wintery June 2008.

Let's recap Jim Ward from 2005;

"There's an attitude in this industry that says in order to make a great game, it takes whatever time it takes and it takes whatever money it takes, and that 'that's okay," Ward claimed. "Well it's not okay ? it's wrong. It's not okay in other entertainment businesses. In other businesses it's big trouble... When you have EA failing to bring Superman out with the movie, that's inexcusable. Moving games like Medal of Honor and Godfather out of the fourth quarter -? that's the old way of thinking and you can't do that any more... We've adopted new philosophies at LucasArts which, frankly, the whole industry should adopt. We make kick-ass games, but on time and on budget. Failure on any one of those three points is failure for the project. We are very serious about that strategy and we're able to deliver on it."

But to be fair, the push-back may well be for marketing purposes, perhaps to piggy-back the game's launch with the Clone Wars animated TV series?

Source: theforce.net

Adventure Gamers have posted an interview with Larry Ahern & Michael Levine of Crackpot about their upcoming game Insecticide, their time at LucasArts, and their side projects such as bounty hunting.

And you'll find the reason for that headline title in a few days...

IGN is reporting the death of Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, 43, a former employee of LucasArts, whose credits include Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Big Sky Trooper, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault, Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron.

Mojo extends its condolences to Mark's wife, children, extended family and friends. :(

Source: IGN

That's right, ScummVM 0.11.0 is out! Couldn't get your favorite adventure game working with the previous version? Maybe now you can!

Classics like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, and Elvira 1 and 2 are now supported and there's also an iPhone port available for all you wannabe hipsters out there.

I know what you're thinking. "Why was Moai Better Blues so short? Normally I can play these episodes again and again and that usually tides me over until the next episode! But 202 was so particularly short I've already finished it twelve times!"

I hear you brother. But why did Moai Better Blues ended feeling so much more brief than the rest of the episodes?

Well, if you were one of the unlucky/lucky folk who downloaded the Early Gametap Version, such as this fella here, you found the answer.

Simply, the episode was longer, until very late in the day (later than the first Beta released but just before the Final version) some major puzzles got cut out. Also wondering why the babies at Tiny Tiki don't do more? Well, they did! The "waitress guild" puzzle was a lot more complicated before, and they all took part.

According to Tanukitsune on the Telltale forum who noticed the differences, the main reason this was cut out was simply because it was extremely irritating. So the final version is shorter, but more fun. Interesting, right?

After a slight delay that prevented it from being released with its PC and Xbox 360 counterparts this past fall, it seems that the Wii version of CSI: Hard Evidence, Telltale's first Wii game ever, is now shipping. Get it while it's hot!

For all those like myself who were desperately trying to condense that Portrait teaser poster of Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Evil Demonic Skull (have we done that one? Probably) into a Landscape so we can all use it as our Desktop Wallpaper, our prayers have at last been answered!

Yes, the Official Indiana Jones site has been updated with a load of wallpapers, buddy icons etc.! Including this one!

Hooray! No more hat-and-whip-on-a-box background on my computer!

Mike Levine of Crackpot Entertainment talks to Cubed3 about Insecticide, LucasArts, Telltale and more.

AR: You previously stated that Crackpot is ?all about the IP?. Does this mean you will continue to work on creating entirely new games or would you ever consider doing what Telltale Games has done and prise another adventure IP from a company such as LucasArts (Grim Fandango, for example)?

ML: We?ve paid our dues in the past and we?re looking to keep things fresh now. I don?t think I?d say absolutely not ever, but we are certainly focused on new IP?s right now. This Industry needs new IP before a new Grim, and besides, I think if that were to happen Tim Schaefer should make it, those are his babies (and Dave Grossman?s for the early ones too!)

Also the same old Wii questions pop up, as seem to be required in every gaming interview ever.

Source: Cubed3

Hey, remember when everybody in the world wanted Sam & Max: Season 1 to be ported to the Wii? Well, it seems that JoWood, publisher of the retail version of the season, will be doing just that in the near future. The proof? This press release. It's in German (and also primarily about Agatha Christie), but the tiny part about Sam & Max on Wii is somehow in some sort of universal tongue.

The next question you'll have is, "When's it coming out?" followed by "Is Telltale developing it?" Don't know yet; stay tuned!

Update: It might be wisest to wait for Telltale to say something about this before believing it.

Dagbladet has again arranged a Q&A session with people from Telltale Games. This time it's Dave Grossman, Brendan Ferguson, and Chuck Jordan.

The difference is that this one isn't one year old. We're improving, people!

Clicky!

Update: A bonus, unrelated interview with Ronzo Ronno Ron Gilbert has appeared on gaming hipster blog Rock Paper Shotgun.

The #monkey-island chat event with Bill Tiller was... a huge success! Bill answered a lot of questions and we got to fit in some friendly banter as well. Mainly we discussed A Vampyre Story, his upcoming adventure game due for release early(ish) 2008, but we also covered a lot of Monkey Island topics, and got his side of the story on the Bad Brain break-up (including his reaction to the David Brent comparison!) You can see a good summary of all the Vampyre Story details we learnt over at The Pumpkin Post.

A raw log with nothing taken out can be found here. But I'll be posting a cleaned up version next week, which will be much easier to read.

Thanks to everyone who came and joined in, and special thanks of course to Bill Tiller, who was so friendly and talkative, and who gave up so much of his time. We really appreciated it! :)

Update: the clean version is now online!

After an soul-destroying wait of what must have been almost minutes, the Telltale website's back up and they've brought more joy to the world!

Yes, Sam & Max: Moai Better Blues is now available to download! Do the hula in celebration! I know I am! Then play the game, of course.

Update by Jason: You just beat me! Anyway, be sure to check out some new reviews, the much awaited Season 2 upgrade offer, and of course the official Moai Better Blues walkthrough, complete with pictures!

And it is called Spudvision, updated by Purcell's alter-ego "Starchie Spudnoggen." The place is pretty quiet thus far, but there are some great paintings/drawings being shared so keep an eye on it.

You may remember "Spudvision" as Purcell's perpetually work-in-progress web site that eventually exploded, as well as the name of some sort of comic collection that was supposed to be published by the apparently defunct Tantrum Entertainment - a company that involved Gary Winnick of Maniac Mansion fame and that at one point sold those two signed Sam & Max posters you could later buy from Telltale. At any rate, keep an eye on Spudvision, the blog.

Fracture, which you may recall as the only original game in LucasArts' (3rd party) pipeline, was recently previewed by Gamespot, who were able to get some time with a new level from the game. Check it out, if you care dare.

... that way you don't even have to read our Moai Better Blues review, which, let's face it, you'd just ignore anyway. I mean come on, you will buy the game anyway. You know it, I know it, all of Mojo's 28 readers know it.

But hey, read it if you so wish!

What's that? You don't want more Insecticide bonus items? Well that's just too bad. If you need any more incentive to pre-order Insecticide from Gamestop (as if feeding Larry Ahern's family wasn't enough), you'll get a second bonus in addition to the art book.

The way it works is, when you get your artbook for pre-ordering the game, you will find a code in it. Type said code in the text box on this page, and you get a free Bug Blaster! Look at how cool that thing is! Buy Insecticide!

Yes! If you're not a Gametap subscriber, just hold your water until tomorrow, when the game will be released to all humans, and in the meantime you can check out Adventure Gamers' review of the game by the impeccable Evan Dickens.

Or, you could just say, "Screw 202. And screw 203 as well! I'm jumping straight to 204 which I can playtest this Saturday at Telltale's offices assuming I have the means to get there." And if you were to say that, I say more power to you.

(As Jason has knocked poor Ronno's new game's publisher's deal announcement off the top, I think Tim can safely have his own news post again)

Double Fine have released a new game, people! Play it here! Ace, ain't it? Who cares about that one with Jack Black as a hippie?

With a release only a day (for Gametappers) or two (for everyone else) away, reviews for Moai Better Blues are starting to accumulate. Take, for example, IGN's glowing review of the game which culminates with:

Moai Better Blues is shorter and smaller than previous installments in the series. Compared to the sprawling locales and stories of Reality 2.0 or Situation: Comedy, this episode seems almost too short. But size and length isn't an indication of quality. If anything, the smaller scale means that there's no filler here. Everything you come across is pure comedic content. Moai Better Blues never loses its focus so you'll get as much enjoyment out of its two-hour length than the three or four hours you spent playing some of the previous episodes. Add in puzzles that require multiple leaps of logic and a longer memory and it's easy to see why we're so encouraged by the direction that Telltale is taking this series.

Look out for more reviews of Moai Better Blues, or just stop being such an impatient idiot and wait for the game itself to come out.

The time is up, the Final Countdown done, and thankfully I have a wonderful announcement to make - elTee's plausible suggestion was wrong. Pinch me.

In fact, the even more impossible has happened. Check out Grumpy Gamer first, then come back.

Yes, that's right. Unless Ron Gilbert is seriously messing with our innocence gullible minds, he's got a new publisher for his Adventure/RPG game! That new publisher is Hothead Games, who are also publishing the upcoming Penny Arcade Adventures game On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One that Ronny G is acting as advisor for.

The new game is (again, unless we're being totally messed with) DeathSpank: Episode I - Orphans of Justice, so presumably it's gonna be episodic. The game's described by Ron Nee Gee as "the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG game play of Diablo". There's already a temporary website up for the game up here.

Guess we need to update that 'Untitled Ron Gilbert Project' game in the database...



UPDATE: No joke, it's Official now. Yay!

Source: Grumpy Gamer

GameTrailers have released their umpteenth exclusive trailer for Insecticide, and thankfully it's for the better looking PC version (confirmed as a two-part download, or "Downloadable Bi-Sodic Action Adventure"). Check it out here. The DS release date is 26th February and if you're going to be buying it pre-order it soon.

Preferably at GameStop because not only do you get a nice Art Book (Peter Chan, people) but the more preorders they get, the more copies turn up on the shelves for people to buy, which they then will buy, and so we get more exciting original humorous games in the market and things like this will never happen again.

Up until now no confirmed platforms for LEGO Indiana Jones had been revealed. Today Microsoft announced that LEGO Indiana Jones is definitely PC bound, so that's good news for those of us that won't be playing The Force Unleashed, Fracture Unleashed or (in all likelihood) Indiana Jones 2007 2008 Unleashed.

Source: Next Generation

Reports that Mojo has "sold out" to "the man" are confirmed when a screenshot from the upcoming Moai Better Blues review is leaked on the Internet:

Adventure Treff, in usual awesome fasion, have decided to provide a video series of footage from Games Convention 2007 (remember that?!). In Part Four there's an interview with Bill Tiller around the 9:00 minute mark, as well as some brief, awkward stalking of Tim Schafer near the beginning. In the interview (which is in English) Bill Tiller elaborates a bit on the "idea icon" that was borrowed from Brian Moriarty's version of The Dig and employed in A Vampyre Story. He says other things too, so check out the whole video.

Thanks to basti007 from the Adventure Gamers forums for the tipoff.

Source: Adventure-Treff

What with its release being this week and all, a couple of previews for Moai Better Blues have sprung up just in time to ruin the game. First there's the bipartisan thoughts of Gametap, in a preview that is actually really good and has a bunch of new screenshots. Tread their spoiler section carefully, however.

The Game Reviews also took a look at Sam and Max's tropical excursion, and unless you're a racist or something there's no reason not to read what they have to say as well.

Moai Better Blues will be released on the Gametap client this Thursday, and on Telltale's site Friday. From now on the season is on monthly releases, so get excited.

Ron Gilbert's site over at (which you should know by now) Grumpy Gamer seems to be counting down to something.

A big rippling '3' with Ron's grumpy cartoon was sighted yesterday, throwing up all all manner of bizarre theories. Today we have a muscly throbbing '2' to go with it. A deep penetrating '1' should follow tomorrow (Tuesday 8th), with the countdown ending Wednesday with a deep passionate sigh and a cigarette afterwards.

Question is, what are we counting down to? Let the mad speculation begin/continue!!

It seems that LucasArts president Jim Ward will be one of the guest speakers at the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit, at least according to Gaming Nexus. Well, them and the official D.I.C.E. site.

What will everyone's favorite LucasArts president with the name Jim Ward have to say? Find out at this year's D.I.C.E. which will be held February 5-8. Go here for more details.

In a monster preview put up today, Gamespot has full biographies of all the Insecticide characters, so look at them. Included is a whole bunch of new screenshots and a video with some new gameplay footage coupled with the thoughtful input of the finest of today's youth. It also ends with the claim that you can pre-order Insecticide and get a free gift, but I can't find anything on that. See it all for yourself!

Update: The pre-order bonus is apparently some kind of "art book" that you'll get if you pre-order the game from Gamestop.

The January issue of "Games for Windows" contains a preview for the second and third episodes of Sam & Max: Season 2. Everything related to Moai Better Blues you know already, but here's what they say about Night of the Raving Dead:

This one centers around a spooky mansion in Stuttgart, Germany, where Sam and Max act as the first, last, and only line of defense against the zombie apocalypse. We're betting on hi-larious jokes involving such fun horror-related topics as brain-eating, severed limbs, and angst-ridden goths.

If you want to read the whole preview (except for what got cut off) and check out the two first ever screenshots of Night of the Raving Dead, you'll be wanting to view this scan.

Telltale has put up the first gameplay video for Moai Better Blues showing Sam (who is accompanied by Max) as they do some exploring on Easter Island. Sybil and Abe are steadily progressing their relationship, the Bermuda Triangle is responsible for a sizable Lost and Found, and the famous Moai heads may or may not be jerks. See it all, and look out for the game's release next week!

Update: Telltale has also put up some new soundtrack mp3s, both from 201 and 202. Books: Check 'em out!

More Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystalline Entity news here, as the latest issue of Empire Magazine comes with a free Indy poster!

Unfortunately it's not the recent Drew Struzan teaser poster that we all love here at Mojo, but is actually just one of Indy standing in shadow which looks remarkably like a close-up of this.

Anyway, you can buy it from 3rd of January here in the UK. Alternatively you could buy the proper one...

Variety Vanity Fair has recently ran a huge cover story on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that is now available for your enjoyment online. Included is tons of information about the new film and several new photos. And don't forget to read the Q&As with Spielberg and Lucas. There is also a video from on the set.

Source: Variety

Throughout the year Mojo is going to be doing articles that look back on each of the classic LucasArts adventure games. We will be writing new reviews for each title as well as tossing in whatever miscellaneous nonsense it takes to give you, the loyal reader, the high level of quality you don't pay for. Think of it as the 25 year anniversary LucasArts forgot to celebrate.

Naturally, we'll be starting with Maniac Mansion, and we want some thoughts from you to include in the article. What's that? You haven't played the game in years or, gasp, not at all? Why not revisit this classic along with us, and send us your comments/rants/reflections about the game that started it all. Your submissions can be negative, positive, or completely irrelevant; just send them over to jharang@gmail.com, or alternatively click my name above and mail me that way. (Yes, that actually works! I was surprised too.)

You have until the 31st. Get cracking!

Update: Oh, you don't have it in your games collection? Or the graphics hurt your eyes? No matter, go here to download the fabled Maniac Mansion remake. Enjoy!

The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet had an interview with Dave Grossman, Dan Connors and Emily Morganti of Telltale Games last year.

Find out if Dave really is in love with Tim Scarf Schafer, if Monkey Island is a racist title, and did the Sierra people ever mention that rubber tree joke?

Clicky!

Source: Dagbladet

Some new set pictures of suspicious origin from Indiana Jones and The Tingler Rigged The F***ing Poll have made their way to the forum corner of the accurately titled fan site Harrison Ford Web. The photos depict the interior set of some sort of ancient (Mayan?) temple. You heard it here first: Indy explores a temple. Man I wish I'd been more careful about the coverage for this movie!

There's also a possibly spoilerish description below the images, but read that at your own risk. Speaking of spoilers, did you know that the biggest ones about the movie have come from the upcoming LEGO sets and the product descriptions for them? Hoping to endear himself to LucasArts the same way he did with Telltale when he won a copy of Sam & Max: Season 1, JP recently sent the company photos of some painstaking Indiana Jones LEGO fan work, but the company only responded with, "It needs less canned animations and more Euphoria. Also, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron continues the immensely successful Star Wars Battlefront series, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide since its introduction in 2004!"