The International House of Mojo

It's about time we updated our poll. Last time, we wondered what would convince our readers to give up life as a Storm Trooper. Overwhelmingly, you responded that you would abandon the Galactic Empire in order to become mighty pirates.

This time, Mojo wants to know: What's the most important aspect when buying a new game? Vote away, dear readers!

Tim Schafer has update DoubleFine Productions' website with lots of... words! Like these:

The other point that I am making on accident is this: With the increased frequency of postings, the quality is going to go WAY down. From the very low mark it already set for itself. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the sheer volume of it all.

Check out the site for the full update.

In case you didn't believe us about Editor's Day, read something else! There's a take on the press event over at GameHelper.com Here's a clip:

It?s that time again! Time for BBQ cookouts, Sack races and LucasArts Editor?s Day 2002! Each summer the agents over at LucasArts host a secret meeting at an even more secret location in which they reveal all of their current top secret weapons to the press. Otherwise known as the LucasArts Editor?s Day this event gave us a peek at the not so top secret titles from their upcoming barrage for Star Wars fans.

Check out the full article here.

Got this in the ol' mailbox:

LucasArts Entertainment Company is pleased to announce that Alexis Mervin has been promoted from Public Relations Coordinator to Public Relations Specialist. Alexis joined the public relations department two years ago and has since become an invaluable member of the team.

In her new role, Alexis will continue to work with domestic press as well as participate in trade show and event coordination.

Alexis was one of the cool PR people we met at Editor's Day. So congratulations to her! Hopefully she will be responsible for giving us exclusives for years to come! (heh) Also, hooray for Strawberry Village.

Forget Scientology?, there's a new hip religion on the block that will have celebrities lining up around the corner to get in. I'm speaking, of course, of Jediism. You will read. You WILL read.

Jediism is not the same as that which is portrayed within the Star Wars Saga by George Lucas and Lucasfilm LTD. George Lucas' Jedi? are fictional characters that exist within a literary and cinematic universe. The Jedi? discussed within this website refer to factual people within this world that live or lived their lives according to Jediism, of which we recognize and work together as a community to both cultivate and celebrate. Jedi? Apprentices, Knights, Commanders, Scholars, Masters, Scribes and High Councilors embrace Jediism as a real living, breathing religion, and sincerely strive to seek out and emulate real life examples of Jediism in the long rich history of mankind. Jediism bases less of its focus on myth and fiction, and more upon those real life examples of Jediism.

Sounds like a hoot! If you're as sold on Jediism as I obviously am, click here to join up.

Source: Volt3kker
(links to #jedikn

Just a quick note to mention that the Mojo Forums have (finally) reached 10,000 posts. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, read, posted, and made things happen. Keep it up!

Here is some news that many of you may find interesting. In our recent visit to San Francisco, Tim Schafer informed us that a few of his fellow employees work on an independent comic in their spare time entitled Hickee.

Among the people who work on this comic are Joe White, Graham Anable, Dave Bogan, and Razmig Mavillian (whose name "Raz" is being used for the main character in Psychonauts). All of these guys worked at LucasArts on such classics as The Curse of Monkey Island, Outlaws, and Grim Fandango. But that's not all! Two fellows named Nathan Stapley and Scott Campbell also work on the comic and are currently employed at Double Fine Productions.

If you're a big fan of comics and witty writing, you might want to check this out. You can find out more information on Hickee at this website, which also houses Graham's own comic called Grickle. Or, you can read an interview with these guy and view pictures here.

LucasArts.com has again updated it's 20th anniversary site with a new image, as well as making some necessary (ahem) corrections. The new image is concept art from The Empire Strikes Back, which I assume was made into a LucasArts game at some point :).

In other news, the Star Wars Galaxies site has been updated with some panoramic shots of the planets you can play and live on in the game. I want to be a wookiiee hairdresser turned mob boss. Ahh yeah.

Source: Shacknews

Yep, it's one of those frustrating and probably stupid "goodbye" posts. Just letting everone know that I'm moving out of Mojo House for a while. I'll probably still be around helping out "behind the scenes," but I won't be around really on the site, or for help.

For the time being I guess you'll all just have to crawl along without me... somehow (*cough cough*). Luckily you have DJG, telarium, Metallus, and the rest of the crew around (spaff, however, essentially quit months ago and is in denial).

Update: No, I'm still leaving, I just forgot to say bye! "Bye!"

We've published our writeup from LucasArts's recent Editor's Day, their bi-annual chance for news sites to come and play upcoming games. As the Editors Day hype-masters would put it, we got to look at "More than two amazing titles!" They were The Clone Wars, Bounty Hunter, and Jedi Knight II for consoles.

If Star Wars isn't your bag (oh, I joke), you should still give the story a look, as there's some Mojo goodness in there you might enjoy. Also, you can check out LucasArts' official Editor's Day page.

Looking for some other place to go to leave comments or chat it up until you're blue about LucasArts and friends? You might want to try our recently completed Other LucasArts Communities page, the final part of the Community Tab available at the top of every page.

The Other Communities page has links to discussion forums and the like for many sites both on and off of the Mixnmojo Network. Thanks to Metallus for finally getting this done. Click!

Attention all hosted site owners. Please backup your MySQL. We are taking backups but in case they fail for some reason (unlikely) or you want extremely recent ones (these were taken on July 26th) just make your own. That is all. Non-hosted site personel avert your eyes! ;)

Update (DJG): I just think the new update convention looks neat and I haven't done it yet. :) Anyway, also remember to change your nameservers (if you run a domain) to ns.lfnetwork.com and ns2.lfnetwork.com!

Double Fine Productions, game studio of Grim Fandango creator Tim Schafer, has turned two years old today, and has a pretty cake on their page to celebrate. You love it! "Two years, no product" - Tim Schafer.

LucasArts has updated their 20th Anniversary Page with some lovely concept art from what appears to be the end of The Dig, though I guess the final product changed a lot between the time that concept art was drawn and the game shipped (go figure, it's The Dig). I haven't played The Dig forever.

Update: A-ha! I think my original suspicion that this shot is in fact from Loom and not from The Dig might be correct after all, after looking at this screenshot from LucasFans. Also you can sort of see it flying away at this site. Heh.

Update: Ok, LucasArts has fixed it at this point, but if you really want to see the goof-up, it's right here.

No, that's not the title (or at least we *hope* that's not the title), but it seems at LEC's press event, IGN beat out of them that Peter Hirschmann (Medal of Honor) and Larry Holland (Luftwaffe, XvT) are working on a World War II aerial combat title.

In this World War II aerial combat fighting game, players can engage themselves in the world of a handful of fighter pilot aces in air-to-air and air-to-ground battles in a slew of combat theaters across Europe and relative territories. A story-driven game, LucasArts' title enables players to take on the role of an elite squad of pilots who must confront military enemies in some of the most difficult and dangerous missions of the war.

Check out IGN for the full article.

Source: M4r3k

LucasArts.com has been updated, featuring this new screenshot from the upcoming RTX Red Rock. The screen shows our hero EZ Wheeler encountring some unlucky skeleton. I wonder if his name is Bob.

Our good friend Marek over at Adventure Gamers has published a great interview with Hal Barwood, director of the upcoming action/adventure console title from LucasArts entitled RTX Red Rock. In the interview, Hal discusses that project as well as his previous games like Fate of Atlantis and Infernal Machine. Here's a quote from Hal about RTX:

I felt an urge to do some science fiction. I'm a Mars nut. I believe in heroes...and villains. As much contrast as possible. I like the idea of sending the player up against a group of strange and daunting space aliens that have their own purposes, and also their own weaknesses. I like the idea of getting into the game with a vague notion of the victory conditions (reconquer our colony on Mars), and also discovering, little by little, the deeper currents that run through the story.

Be sure to read the full interview, or else you will be killed by a lava monster.

LucasArts.com has posted the final box art for the massive multiplayer game, Star Wars Galaxies. You can view the box art under the Galaxies product spotlight or directly here. The box art design is pretty simple, yet effective. And let's face it, it's more likely that people are going to pick this game up in a shop because of the massive press and word of mouth rather than the pretty box.

Sorry for the slow news week, but a few of your Mixnmojo staffers were hard at work attending an Editor's Day hosted by LucasArts. More on that later.

For now, LucasArts has posted a link to a new interview with LucasArts President Simon Jeffery at HomeLAN.com. While the interview doesn't reveal any new groundbreaking info, it is still an interesting read. Here's a quote:

HomeLAN - Similarly, the PC platform in terms of technology continues to grow and change at an accelerated rate. In your opinion, where does LucasArts see the PC gaming industry developing in the next year to 18 months?

Simon Jeffery - The PC gaming market will continue to evolve in an organic fashion as technology improves. We will not abdicate the PC market, and will continue to develop games, particularly games of certain genres, for the PC.

Check out the full interview if you are interested.

LFNetwork graphic designer TheJackal has whipped up a nice new design for the latest board to be featured at LucasForums: LEC's 20th Anniversary! This new section contains several forums for discussing current titles, classics, and future releases from LEC, as well as a forum for giving LEC some feedback (careful, they might read it). Check it out!

Aaron Giles, a former LucasArts employee who made many Mac ports of classic LucasArts games, has updated his website with a special Sam and Max treat. Back when Aaron had just completed his Mac port of Sam & Max Hit the Road, some fan sent in this piece of fan art with their order. Hilarious and yet oh-so-true. Thanks to Aric Wilmunder for the heads up!

I forgot to mention that in Friday's amazing 20th Anniversary update, LucasArts.com has also posted a new Gladius screenshot. This new screen features a really cool skull-like rock formation. Gaze in awe.

Just a quick note for those of us currently obsessing over Double Fine.com and their fight against infestation: The site's been updated with some of the usual silliness of course, but they've also added a tally running in the left hand sidebar which I assume is the number of rodents squashed to peanut butter coated bits.

Update (telarium): The rodent death toll is now at five! I repeat, the rodent death toll is at five!

Update (Metallus): Be sure to mouse (OH THE PUN) over each rodent to read a brief cause of death. You might be able to find some more interesting secret fun around the site as well by setting your mouse to "hover" over some of the other images. Watch out for traps!

In the usual LucasArts.com Friday updates, long time fans of the company can sure find a lot to get excited about. It seems that LucasArts is finally getting around to celebrating its 20th anniversary properly. First, in the LucasArts Theatre, you can view QuickTime clips of cutscenes from the original Full Throttle. Not bad, although they do seem to suffer from some interlace problems.

Next, in the History Section, you can read about the early years of the company between 1982 and 1989. The feature is not unlike our own Wilmunder Memoirs, and will continue to be updated to cover the 1990-1994 years.

Don't miss the 20th Anniversary Art Gallery, where you can find some never-before-seen treasures. First, there is this amazing high-res scan of the Monkey Island 2 map, a piece of concept art from Grim Fandango, and another Peter Chan concept scan from Full Throttle!

After that, you can read an interview with Jon Knoles, who served as game designer for many Star Wars games and is currently directing Bounty Hunter. The interviews continue next month with a profile of Fate of Atlantis and RTX Red Rock designer Hal Barwood.

And finally *phew*, check out the Flashback section with a few favorite memories of some LucasArts employees. The stories include finding bugs in such classics as Grim Fandango and Fate of Atlantis. These are really interesting and remind us of the many late nights these guys have to put up with.

So there you have it. It's great to see LucasArts opening up again and taking a look at its previous products and their employees. It reminds me of the old days of The Adventurer, and I hope they keep this up.

Sorry for the downtime earlier today. We were moving to a new server. Amazingly smooth this time, eh? Better than that one time a few months ago where we were offline for half of the year. Yeah. Anyway, we're back!

Update (Metallus): Actually, we haven't moved yet. It shouldn't be too much longer before the move is completed, however.

There's no way to put this in a news post so I'm just going to make this update a big blockquote:

Feast your eyes on this monstrosity: Click Here

Looking at it I feel like a perverted psycho, but it is hilarious (I should consult my psychiatrist about that first though)...

Now that I have this, I want to make a sort of a Tim Schafer bullshit fan site, but as a Tim-oriented religion. I call it:... well, I still don't have a name for the religion, and I could make a concours as soon as I can make a website around the picture... As I see it now, the main aspect of the website will be a messageboard with a bio of Our Beloved God... With hymns and a fake Paypal way of paying for indulgences... Whaddayathink?

That was from Kingzjester. Enjoy! (heh)

In Dave Grossman's weekly poetry e-mail list, he has informed his readers of his new website, www.phrenopolis.com. Dave, as you probably know, was a writer on the first two Monkey Island games, co-project leader on Day of the Tentacle, and continues to write for children's adventure games like Moop and Dreadly and Ollo.

On Dave's website, you can read his weekly poetry, look at some of his crazy artistic projects, and more importantly, you can buy Dave a cup of coffee via Paypal! And we all know how those game designers thrive on coffee. But wait! There's more! In the future, Phrenopolis will be the place where you can buy Dave's upcoming book, Ode to the Stuff in the Sink. That should be available in the fall, but make sure you stop by in the meantime!

As pointed out by Emma, Mojo and our Ron Gilbert Interview were mentioned in this month's PC Gamer UK in the "This month in action/adventure games" section. Um, yay us! Woo! You can read the whole thing in the image below.

It seems everyone is crazy (oh the jokes!) for Psychonauts and the man behind the magic, Mr. Tim Schafer. This time, IGN Insider has posted an interview with Mr. Double Fine himself. As always, Schafer has loads of interesting things to say about the state of gaming, innovative game design, the company's relationship with Microsoft, and of course, Jennifer "J-Lo" Lopez! This one's worth the money, folks.

Update (Jake): I'm a big fat liar. The "free trial" they're talking about mysteriously requires that you sign up for at least a month. Then you get a month and a free week! What a ripoff deal!

It's that time again, when El Poll Diablo demands that you do the right thing and vote in a new poll! But first, let's check the results of the last poll, "Have you ever had a LucasArts-related dream." It seems 53% of you (including Mojo staff of course), are sick, sick freaks. Shame on all of your subconsciouses!

Anyway onwards to the new poll! If (hey it could happen) you were a Stormtrooper... what would cause you to give it up? It's like that question "What would you do with 1 million dollars?" So choose your dream profession. Now.

More Indy news comes today in the form of an interview with Nate Schaumberg, lead producer on Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

GameSpy: Tell us about the storyline of this game. When does it take place (before or after the last motion picture)?

Nate: Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb takes place in pre WWII 1935. In the Indy timeframe, this is just prior to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Where Temple of Doom begins in China, our game ends in China.

The interview covers two gamespy pages and gives a bit more insight to the upcoming adventure! It also has a fair share of lovely Indy screen-shots for those people who just like to look at the pretty pictures.

Source: ShackNews

Do you love Adventuregamer!? We know you do. Well then, You'll certainly love this page! Everyone in the world loves Marek Bronstring, and now you must too.

On a side note, this page was made by the same person as the Dom Fanclub (coming soon to Mojo)... nice. I'm glad I never got one made, that's all I can say! And no that isn't an excuse to suddenly make one.. be warned!

Update (Jake): The Dom Fanclub's coming to Mojo? Heheh.

Once upon a time, Roko Zaper and Rob Diaz-Marino set out to record the music from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis using a high fidelity soundfont. The original intention? To sell it of course!

But their plan was foiled when they failed to get the permission from LucasArts and Mr Zaper disappeared. So instead, 42 mp3s, spaced over 2 CDs have been posted for all to download! Woo-Yay!

GameSpot recently got the opportunity to see the latest progress of Psychonauts. Here are two unrelated paragraphs that appear to deal with Psychonauts:

The game's structure seems to be a slightly twisted hub system. As you explore the campgrounds and surrounding areas, you'll encounter people whose minds you'll enter. Each mind is basically an entire new level to explore. Schafer cited the Zelda series as an influence on the game's development, noting that you could view each mind as a "dungeon." In addition, you'll find that there are quite a few hidden areas to discover in the real world.

Graphically, the game was quite impressive, despite being so far off from release (Psychonauts is currently slated to ship in spring 2003). The character models featured a generous number of polygons and a great deal of detail. The real and psychic environments that we saw were richly detailed, and they even featured some small bits of ambient touches such as pollen floating through the air.

If you have paid for a GameSpot subscription, you can continue reading an actual interview with Tim Schafer (Hey Tim, I finally got grimfandango.net!) For those of us who don't have the luxury of paying to read random interviews, check out yesterday's Double Fine update. Popeye is dead! Down with all plague-carrying mice! Err... what am I even doing here.

LucasArts will be actively recruiting new employees at SIGGRAPH 2002, in San Antonio, Texas, USA. This event takes place over a 3-day period starting on the 23rd of this month and going until the 25th. LucasArts will have representatives from Human Resources and hiring managers from the LEC Art Department at SIGGRAPH on the 23rd and 24th. Check out the LucasArts job page for details!

AdventureGamers is actively seeking new staff writers for their site! If you're interested in becoming a member of their team, inquire within. Here's an excerpt from the application page:

Adventure Gamers is now open for new writers! If you would like to contribute to our site, this is your chance to apply for the position of staff writer. We are looking for people who can write interesting, witty and concise articles on adventure games.

Sound good? Just make sure you submit a sample article and contact information before the 20th of August.

Nightlight Productions has cranked out another installment to the radio drama series, Tierra de los Muertos! Give it a listen here. 8 of 12 has decided to keep the first part online for a little while longer, so for those that missed it, you can check out part one here.

Out of the 150,000 applicants for the first found of Star Wars Galaxies beta testing, 100 lucky gamers should get an e-mail telling them that they've already been chosen. Kevin O'Hara informed the community in this message post that the testers were selected, and that more should be on the way. Here's a quote:

I know the first question will likely be, ?well, when are the Beta 2 emails going to be sent?? We?re not ready to nail down the start date for Beta 2 yet. Let us get fully into Beta 1 first. Each beta is scheduled to be more than a month in length, but that is very tentative. We will periodically do sanity checks during the betas and if we need one to last a little longer, so be it.

If you're feeling depressed because you weren't picked during this round, cheer up. You can check out the new screenshots to help ease the pain.

The Kickstand is back! With a new look, new content, and a new "engine" *no pun intended* (no really) called Kick?, make sure to check out The Kickstand for all your Full Throttle needs.

Just a quick note to let you know that gaming news site Shacknews has added Full Throttle to their list of reader-reviewable games. Reading and writing reader reviews is somewhat silly, but its a fun time-passer and sometimes interesting to hear different peoples takes on old (and new) titles. The Shack has some other LEC classics like CMI, EMI, and Sam & Max up for review if you're interested.

Double Fine's official homepage has been updated yet again by Tim Schafer. However, this time, Tim does discuss his upcoming Psychonauts title... sort of. But more importantly, Tim continues to tell the saga about the office rodent problem. Check it out!

Orson Scott Card, probably best known to you guys as the dialogue writer for the LucasArts graphic adventure The Dig, has gone on record to say that he hated Attack of the Clones. Mr. Card writes a weekly review column for The Rhinoceros Times, and in his July edition, he discusses the difference between Men in Black II and Episode II. Here's a quote:

... Attack of the Clones is a wretched waste of time and money - the filmmakers' and ours - while MIIB pays off exactly as well as it should. And it doesn't try to give us a bogus religion in the process.

Why the difference? MIIB has a good script and a director who knows how to get the best out of his actors."

Hear that? That's the sound of Orson Scott Card being blacklisted from all future Lucas projects! Just kidding... ?

Source: TheForce.net

Modern-Mac using folks rejoice (the three of us)! Drigo, of the MacSCUMM site, has informed me that his SCUMM Revisited-like tool, SCUMM Explorer, has been updated to run native on MacOS X.

For those who don't know, Scummrev and SCUMM Explorer let you browse through the data files of SCUMM-based games like Monkey Island 1, 2, and 3, and Full Throttle and view the original art, sound, and music. Here's the page for the OS X version of SCUMM Explorer, and here's a screenshot.

Our own hosted site, The Monkey Island Art Connection, has published a new interview with Curse of Monkey Island lead background artist, Bill Tiller. In the interview, Bill discusses fan art, other LucasArts employees, what he's doing now, and the possibility of making his own 2D graphic adventures. You can find the entire interview here at Geocities. Don't worry... it should change locations soon.

According to Mixnmojo reader zebulon, our previous post about a new LucasArts classic game compliation pack wasn't entirely accurate. Here's a quote from zebulon:

After reading your news entitled "New European LEC Classic Collections", I wrote a mail to UbiSoft (which distributes LucasArts games in France) and their Consumers Department says there is nothing planned. There is a compilation called "LucasArts Edition Collector" actually, but it was released in December 2001, and the price was the one you mention, i.e. 60 ?.

Indeed, you can view the compilation details here at the UbiSoft website and see what games it includes.

Luckily, Double Fine's website got an update today. Though it has nothing to do with their upcoming game Psychonauts, it does tell the terrible tale of Tim Schafer's soiled parmesan cheese packet and the (tiny, hypothetical) beast that may be responsible.

Inside I find all these little, plastic tubs that the pizza guy brought years ago--still filled with parmesan cheese, and chili flakes. (Not the gross part yet.) One of them has spilled, and so I pick it up, and see that the lid had been CHEWED OFF BY SOMETHING WITH A LITTLE, TINY MOUTH!

There is a game being worked on in there somewhere, we're sure. But, until that comes out this serves as more than enough entertainment. Clickeh.

It being Friday night, LucasArts.com has been updated with screenshots from their newest titles. Two games, RTX, and The Clone Wars received new screenshots today. The best of the bunch, in my opinion, is the sole RTX Red Rock screenshot that was released. The Clone Wars screens can be found here.

Also, there's a new poll on the LucasArts site, asking "Have you played a massively multiplayer online game?" So far "I want to some day but haven't yet" leads with 44%.

Psychonauts, along with other upcoming big name software titles such as Doom III, GTA: Vice City, and The Sims: Online is featured in Popular Science's August focus on Gaming. Here's what they had to say:

Following the finest, funniest computer adventure game ever (Day of the Tentacle), Tim Shafer's latest effort showcases his knack for storytelling and witty dialogue, as a young would-be psychic hero struggles to build his powers by exploring strange subconscious minds.

Also, if anyone can get a scan of this article, or a URL where it can be found online, please leave a note in the comments.

Kenn Hoekstra, project admin for Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, has announced that LucasArts will release the v1.04 patch tomorrow. Here's an excerpt from Kenn's .plan:

LucasArts will be releasing the 1.04 update for Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast tomorrow (Thursday) evening on their website at [URL]. Feel free to download and mirror it once it is available.

The update includes all of the fixes from 1.03, so if you don?t have that update yet, this is the only one you?ll need. A list of the changes in 1.03 can be found here: [URL]

The primary focus of 1.04 is multiplayer balance.

Thanks to JediKnightII.net, as usual, for the news.

Update: You can grab the 1.04 patch here, courtsey of Shacknews.

Adventure Gamers has republished their preview from July 2000 of Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths. As you may remember, Tony Tough is an old fashion 2D point 'n click graphic adventure from publisher Got Game Entertainment and is being compared to the old LucasArts classics. Adventure Gamers discusses this as well, and here's a quote:

Had it not been for the Italian speech still in place in the demo and the occasional clumsy translation in the subtitles, I could've swore I was playing some unreleased LucasArts title from a couple of years back - Tony Tough is that much reminiscent of some of LucasArts' older adventures. The meter-long protagonist wears oversized glasses and looks a little like Wally from the Monkey Island series. The overall graphics style is pretty wacky and supports the game's cartoon atmosphere.

An English version of Tony Tough will be available in North America sometime soon.

Guybrush is currently getting absolutely whipped by Ryo at the GameFAQs character vote. It's not hopeless yet, though. Get on over there and vote for our favorite pirate.

Voting ends at Midnight MST tonight, so hurry up! Let's show them what this community can do.

Thanks to popular demand, Mojo now has editable comments! Yes that's right, typos no more! :) Here's how it works:

1) You can only edit your own comments.
2) You can only edit comments posted within the last 24 hours.
3) The number of times you have edited your comment will appear in the comments page.

So that's that... Enjoy!

According to a press release on XBoxAddict.com, TDK and Disney will create a new video game based on the popular Disney ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. LucasArts will probably not be involved, so why would would you possibly be interested? Because Pirates of the Caribbean was the major inspiration behind the Monkey Island series, so it will be interesting to see how the two games compare. Here's a quote from the press release:

"We are pleased to be bringing these incredible Disney theme park attractions to life in the world of interactive games," said Vincent Bitetti, chief executive officer, TDK Mediactive. "As we look to 2003 and beyond to be the `sweet spot? for our industry, `Haunted Mansion? and `Pirates of the Caribbean? theatrical releases will be incredible events with which to launch the game titles on a worldwide basis."

I suppose this may mean that the game will directly tie into the theatrical film we reported about in June and indirectly on the actual ride. Thanks to Scummbuddy for the news!

EBGames.com seems to have obtained the box art for the upcoming Gamecube title, The Clone Wars, which you can view here. Very nice looking box art, I must say. The site also says that the game will ship on September 18th, although that could certainly change.

Source: TheForce.net

Just noticed in this thread on the Mojo Forums, which mentions that some new LucasArts classic game compliation packs are headed to France and Germany (and possibly more countries). The new one at Amazon.fr, called (I think) "LucasArts Collector(s) Edition," is 60 ?, while the pack at Amazon.de, called "LucasArts Adventure Pack," is priced at 20 ?. The blatant price difference probably indicates that they're totally different packs with different contents.

According to Das Jan, the Germany-bound 20 ? version is supposed to contain Monkey Island 1, 2, and 3, and Indiana Jones 3, 4, and 5 (which are, to my knowledge, Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis and Infernal Machine). The contents of the French 60 ? version are unkown to me.

If you haven't played this bunch of games, now's your chance to scoop them all up at once (for cheap, too, if you're German).

The Monkey Island Art Connection, a well loved MI fan art and media site, is sort of alive again after dying about a month ago. Well, they're nowhere near fully set up, but you can at least view everyone's artwork. Go visit and show your support.

Well, the previous poll is over. It seems only a couple people were interested in actually being able to set a default tab to view when you load mixnmojo.com, but quite a lot of you thought maybe someone else would like it. Guess those in the second group there were wrong (as proven by the first group).

Anyway, this new poll came from Marek of Adventure Gamers. The poll asks: Have you ever had a LucasArts-related dream? If you vote "yes," share about it in the comments, because that sort of thing is both hilarious and awesome. As usual, to vote just click your choice on the poll off to the right, there.

Grim Fandango Network's hosted site Nightlight Productions has put the first episode of their original radio show, Tierra de los Muertos, online. TDLM is set in a land very very similar to that of Grim Fandango, but features all new characters and an original plot. Here's the scoop:

Welcome to Tierra de los Muertos, the Land of the Dead. A place of transition between the Living World, and the Underworld. It is here that a new soul has just made the transition, and a mortal has been found.

The presence of a mortal in the Land of the Dead is unheard of. He is proclaimed the chosen one, the one person prophesised to lead the people to the Gates of the Afterlife, to which he alone holds the key.

The series is 10 parts long, and is updated every week. Anyone interested in Grim Fandango, classic radio dramas, or fan creations should definitely give it a listen.

The Brim Stone Beach Club has interviewed Wally Wingert, known around here as the voice of Herman Toothrot in EMI. Mr. Wingert talks about recording EMI, his other voiceover work at LEC and more.

Also revealed in the interview is the fact that Dustin Diamond (the voice of Screech in Saved by the Bell) is a Monkey Island fan. Neat!

In what could possibly be a new series on DoubleFine.com, Tim Schafer has written The Double Fine Coffee Status Report. Click here to find out how today's coffee tastes in the Double Fine Productions offices, where programmers and artists work bug-eyed on the upcoming Psychonauts title.

Is it me, or do these creative gaming types have an unusual dependency on coffee? I know I've seen Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer talk about it many times... maybe coffee is like a liquid muse that gives you heart problems.

According to SFGate.com, the plans for George Lucas' huge Letterman Digital Arts Center in the San Francisco Presidio (a former military base) may be scaled back. As you may remember, it was reported quite a while ago that land in the midst of the natural park atmosphere in northern San Francisco was bought by Lucas to create a new facility. The buildings would house LucasArts, Industrial Light and Magic, THX, Lucas Learning Ltd. and Lucas Online. You can view concept art for the new facility here.

Preservationists, park service officials and others complained that the planned 900,000 square foot complex would ruin the historic and natural park atmosphere of the land. In response to the controversy, the plans for the facility have been reduced.

No word whether or not the scaling back of these plans will affect LucasArts in any way, but the plans should be revealed within a month. Read the full article for more information or links to previous Presidio news.

Despite the American holiday this week, LucasArts.com has been updated with some new goodies. First up on the menu this evening are five new screenshots from the upcoming PS2, XBox, and PC title, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

For seconds, LucasArts has put up its first 20th Anniversary merchandise at the company store. No, it's not a key ring. It's a coffee mug for $12.95! Of course, since LucasArts doesn't ship internationally, those of you living outside the US and Canada may be out of luck.

And finally, there's a new poll that I'm sure you all will want to take part in. The new poll asks which original classic LEC game is your personal favorite. Who knows, maybe now Zak McKracken will finally get the attention he deserves!

Can't get enough of those Game Boy Advanced Star Wars games? Well I don't care for them either, but I'm sure someone out there likes them. Anyway, THQ issued a press release announcing a new Episode II game entitled Star Wars: Episode II The New Droid Army. The game features a new story in which Anakin must stop Count Dooku from creating a new, more destructive droid army. Look for that title in November of 2002. Thanks to our friend Marek over at Adventure Gamers for this news!

For the 4th of July celebration, CaliGirl has posted mini interviews with Gaming Companies [Activision, iD, Westwood, to name a few], Clans, Known Gamers, and most importantly of course, Web Gurus. In the web gurus category is LFNetwork's Big Daddy, Don "Aristotle" McPartland. Check it out @ CaliGirl.net

Roy Conrad, most well-known (at least in the LEC community) as the voice of Ben from Full Throttle, passed away from cancer at the age of 61, in January.

As a tribute, Tim Schafer at Double Fine Productions has posted a page dedicated to Roy. Our condolences to the Conrad family, and we know the entire community's best wishes are with you.

Update: I just thought I'd include this signed note that Mr. Conrad sent me a long time ago. I, like many others, mailed a card to him after LucasFans posted about his illness, and he quickly sent back this thank you note. You could tell he was a very nice guy. - telarium

Source: Ben_Whatsisname

The former poll, Which fanclub would you join?, has ended. Tim Schafer has destroyed all with 40% of the voters choosing him. Ron Gilbert came in second with 25%. Spaff and "I love them all" fought it out for third at around 12% each, and "they all make me cry" got fourth with 6%.

Those who voted for Simon Jeffery, Tom Sarris, Dan Pettit, or Earl Boen (all of which were the true winners, you just don't know who to vote for), need not fear, though, as you have another chance to be bunched in with the winners. Yes, that means there's a new poll.

The new poll is about our recently opened Community Tab, available at the top of the site. The new comunity area of Mojo features headlines from around the network, recent Mojo stories, and current activity on the forums. When designing this section we realized that it might make a very appealing homepage for Mojo readers. ... Or would it? Luckily, we have polls for things like this.

The poll asks: Would you be interested being able to set the Community Tab to replace the News Tab as "www.mixnmojo.com" in your user options? You can cast your vote by choosing from the options down in the right sidebar there.

Somewhat early news, but I refuse to be 5 minutes too late to post a new article again.

Game help supersite GameFAQs.com is having a contest pitting various game characters against one another in a popularity sudden death vote-off.. and next Wednesday, our favorite pirate Guybrush will square off against Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki. For me, it's a tough choice, them being the main characters of easily my 2 favorite games series of all time, but for you, the choice should be obvious.

If Guybrush wins, he'll likely be up against Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, and we certainly can't have him losing there, can we?

If you'd like, take a look at the full contest bracket here.

It's not every day you see a review of Jedi Outcast take a swing at Escape From Monkey Island. In ECSMag's assessment of Jedi Outcast, they stated the following:

Of late, [LucasArts] has stumbled with its experiments in adapting properties (like the Star Wars universe) to various genres. Even the most recent Monkey Island game made less of a splash, in part hampered by the replacement of insult swordfighting with Monkey Kombat.

By the way, they gave Jedi Outcast 8 out of 10 keys, whatever that means.

Mixnmojo reader Logic has informed us that in issue 109 of PC Gamer, quite a few LucasArts titles have been dubbed the top adventure games of all time in the "Big Game Hunt" section.

In the list, Day of the Tentacle comes in fifth, Sam & Max Hit the Road place fourth, Grim Fandango reaps the number three spot, the Monkey Island trilogy pillage second place, and surprisingly, Escape From Monkey Island is #1. Thanks again to Logic for the news.

Are you suffering from withdrawals since LucasArts doesn't seem to be interested in making 2D point 'n click graphic adventures anymore? Well, another game company may help fill the void. Gamer's Hell has published an interview with the makers of a new 2D graphic adventure called Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths. Although this isn't related to LucasArts, the article does compare it to the games we all know and love. Here's a quote:

Sadly and slowly classic Monkey-Island-alike 2D puzzle/adventures are disappearing, replaced by today's 3D frenzy and all those beautiful hand painted backgrounds and characters are starving. Luckily Got Game Entertainment and developer Prograph have still one SCUMM-alike title upcoming.

Read the interview if you're interested, and then check out the game's official website here.

TheForce.net claims that there are no plans at LucasArts to create an Episode II Insider's Guide CD-ROM. How do they know? Why, they just asked LucasArts, of course. The Phantom Menace Insider's Guide was a big hit among Star Wars fans, so this news comes as a bit of a let down. Hopefully this just means that LucasArts is concentrating the majority of their resources on original titles, eh? Thanks to SonGoku for the lead.

Double Fine Productions' official site has been updated with some interesting tidbits. Double Fine is, of course, Tim Schafer's new company that is currently working on Psychonauts. Here's a quote from Tim's update:

I have come down to the office, not for revenge, but to fix a light in the downstairs hallway. There is no one here but me, and the rat that lives in the ceiling over my desk. At least, I think he's a rat. I hope he's a rat. But really, he makes so much noise up there I think he might be a full-grown raccoon, or one of those miniaturized horses gone bad. Judging by his demonic scampering, I have to imagine that he's wearing four tiny, Gene Simmons-style KISS boots, and that he's dragging a two-foot long tail made of exposed bone, like a museum t-rex.

Tim then seems to have a nervous breakdown of sorts, writes a small song, and displays some unsolicited fan art. Check it out!.

Anyone that plans to be in London over the next few months might want to check out the Game on Exhibition at the Barbican Gallery.

The Exhibition is based on the future and history of video games, with many many consoles and computer games both old and new.

'But is LucasArts represented?' I hear you cry.

Why yes, of course it is. Apart from the few Star Wars games there, a little game we have all come to love called Monkey Island sits between Zelda64 and Myst. Further down the wall you will find 3 pieces of Monkey Island concept art by Steve Purcell.

I didnt have my still camera there, but we did film them, so maybe i'll upload some kind of crazy low res screen capture of them for anyone that cares!

Mojo represented its self by completing part one of MI, and leaving guybrush bobbing and very drowned in the docks.