Mojo would like to extend a big (belated) birthday greeting to Ian Biggar, known to many in the community as Skyfox. For those who unfamiliar with the name, he's the founder of The SCUMM Bar, one of the largest and longest-running Monkey Island websites out there. So go leave him a message (or 25) already!
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Mojo would like to extend a big (belated) birthday greeting to Ian Biggar, known to many in the community as Skyfox. For those who unfamiliar with the name, he's the founder of The SCUMM Bar, one of the largest and longest-running Monkey Island websites out there. So go leave him a message (or 25) already!
There's a new poll up at the official LucasArts website related to the the LEC 20th Anniversary theme. This time around, LucasArts.com asks: When did you first play a LucasArts game?
I remember my first LucasArts gaming experience fondly. The year was 1992, and I stumbled upon the work of genius that is none other than Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for Super NES. From then on, I was hooked.
Mixnmojo proudly presents Part 2 of the Wilmunder Memoirs, which may be the final addition. In case you didn't read Part 1 last week (for shame), the Wilmunder Memoirs are a small series of stories and memories shared by long-time LucasArts programmer, Aric Wilmunder. Aric worked at the company from the early 80's until the late 90's and has seen everything from jaggi aliens to evil demonic pirates. Check out Part 2 here!
A curious finding. While surfing the internet, one of our readers named Tim (no, not Schafer) discovered that if you go to www.indyjones.com, you will be redirected to the LucasArts 20th Anniversary page. Upon doing a whois, it seems that LucasFilm registered this domain name back in March.
What, if anything, does this have to do with LucasArts' 20th anniversary? It's far too early to make wild speculations, but let's face it. The internet was built on wild speculations! We'll keep our eyes open in the meantime.
LucasArts.com continues in their tradition of Friday updates. This time, they have released five new screenshots for the upcoming PS2 and Gamecube title, Star Wars Bounty Hunter. I must say that these new screenshots are quite impressive. Check 'em out.
Paco Vink has released page 14 of his infamous Monkey Island 1 comicbook on The World of Monkey Island. This page shows Guybrush's quest for the treasure of Melee Island. Read it. Now.
While developer Raudaschl was unable to release the full demo of his fan game Indigo Island: Grim Fandango II due to legal reasons, he has released a technology demo which shows off the engine of the game.
I suppose I kinda just left the GF community suddenly about one year ago. Lucas Arts closedIt's a really impressive engine, I especially like the reflection from the ground. You can download the tech demo here.
down the GF2 project and I went to discover other areas where my game making skills could be
put to use. Since nobody actually was able to see the game running I have decided to release this
tech demo. It demonstrates the GF2 engine in action. I hope you all enjoy it.
Wired News has published an article entitled, "Making Those Games Sound Right." The article discusses the combination of the LucasArts sound department and Skywalker sound to create, you guessed it, sounds for the upcoming Bounty Hunter game. The site features some interesting tidbits and even some pictures from the recording sessions. Here's a quote:
Jeff Kliment leans against the wall of the tiny control room of the audio effects lab, listening to the sound of gravel crunching under the feet of Montross, the villain in LucasArts' upcoming video game, Bounty Hunter.Make sure you read the full article!
"Uh, tell him we can hear his pants," Kliment says to Larry Oppenheim, the man recording the footsteps.
Everyone's favorite mysterious column writer is back in his new article, Just Because You Can't Play, Doesn't Make It Bad - Why Console Only Ain?t Worth Complaining About. In this article, el capit?n takes his right hand and promptly slaps in the face those who complain about LEC possibly releasing games exclusively for the console. (Hey even I'm guilty of this one.) ;) Here's a clip:
That's a quote following the now-defunct rumors about Full Throttle II being made only for consoles, with no PC version in the planning. You know something? That's not bad news.It's an interesting read so make sure to head over to The SCUMM Bar and read it.
LucasArts has posted a customer questionnaire which asks you a few questions about console preference, hardware choices, and also making an appearance are questions about LEC original games. So if you have about 10 minutes, head over to the LEC survey and fill it out. Sadly, if your favorite LEC game is "Night Shift" you won't be able to choose it so pick another fav. :) The survey will be up until June 30.
That's right yet another tab has (finally) been filled in on the Mojo8 navbar. Head over to the brand-spankin' new community section. There, you can find late breaking news on community sites, as well as Mojo headlines, new forum posts, featured mojo site, a hosted sites browser, and a history of Mixnmojo. A great potential home page (hint)!
So make sure click on that handy community tab on the top of the page. Now stay tuned (possibly for quite a while) while we try and get that Hints & Tips section up and running. ;)
The House of Mojo wishes our long time staff member, Andrew "telarium" Langley a happy 22nd birthday! Sure not much happens at your 22nd birthday but whatever. :)
For those of you that don't know Andrew, he posts lots and lots of news, writes content (yes the 'c' word) and makes cool Flash things like Pitfall and the coolest animation ever. Happy Birthday!
It seems that most of you (or most of you that actually vote) visit Mojo one heck of a lot. Mojo loves you. As for you casual viewers please don't go too long without visiting. ;)
With the formation of the new Dominic Armato fanclub, others can't be far behind. So tell us which one you'd most like to join! (No we're not starting one, we just needed a new poll idea.) :)
It would seem that on Monday, LucasFilm announced that it will expand THX into car audio systems and video game consoles. The newly formed independent company will be an extension of the current THX company, which provides sound standards for motion pictures. Perhaps this will cause LucasArts' strong support for game audio to evolve in new ways, eh? It will be interesting to see how this technology will be used to enhance future titles.
Source: Internet Movie Database
Well it's almost that time again when we flog off some of the great stuff we've collected from LucasArts. But before any of that can happen I would like to hear from the last people that bought stuff.
I havn't heard from anyone so I dont know who has their stuff and who doesn't. Of course this round of Ebay auctions had as many problems as the last round, with late deliveries all round, and Inter-border-super-paranoid-Customs-officials destroying Grog left right and center.
Mail me / leave a comment if you do / do not have your Ebay stuff. And everyone else beware that we are the worst shippers in the universe!.. but the stuff is always good :) Coming soon: EMI Posters & signed goodies.
James ?Ender? Brown, Project Leader on ScummVM, received a request from LucasArts Legal Affairs earlier today asking that he close his site by July 1st.
ScummVM, in case you don?t know, allows some of the old LucasArts adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Sam and Max Hit the Road to run on a variety of operating systems. For example, you can faithfully play these older products under Windows XP or even different platforms like Sega Dreamcast using ScummVM.
In the e-mail to Ender, LucasArts defended their actions. ?We are grateful when fans take such strong interests in our games,? the letter said. ?In order to protect our intellectual property interests, we must ask you to take down your site as it infringes on LucasArts's intellectual property ownership interests.?<:MORENEWS:>
LucasArts also points out that the SCUMM engine is ?still proprietary to LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC (?LucasArts?) and is not released under general public license as referenced in the FAQ section on your site.?
Ender replied to LucasArts, discussing the very nature of his project. ?ScummVM is NOT the SPU [Script Presentation Utility] engine as used internally by LEC,? Ender said. ?ScummVM is a valid clone of the SPU engine, designed to facilitate the playing of LucasArts adventures on modern machines and operating systems. ScummVM allows the data from LEC adventures to be played on many platforms (Intel, PocketPC, etc) and operating systems (Linux, Windows 2000, etc) which are not supported by your own SPU engine.?
ScummVM, as described by its project leader, is the product of reverse engineering without using any information from LucasArts itself. ?The [reverse engineering] techniques used are generally protected in most states under what is generally known as the 'compatibility' clause,? Ender said.
At this point, Ender has informed LucasArts that he will not be taking down the site. ?We are distributing our own software designed to mimic the functionality of the SPU(tm) engine, which we have licensed under the GPL (General Public License),? he said. ?We are not distributing proprietary LucasArts software itself.?
Most fans would argue that ScummVM has done nothing but support the classic adventure games of LucasArts rather than damage them. However, it is interesting that LucasArts? lawyers took this opportunity to attempt the shutdown of ScummVM, which has existed for almost a year. Speculation has been made that these actions could have ties to the comment LEC President Simon Jeffery recently made to Mixnmojo concerning the update of its older graphic adventures. Mr. Jeffery discussed the ?streaming? delivery of these games over the Internet, which would require that they actually work on Windows 2000 and XP.
We will be sure to keep you posted on these matters, and hopefully a favorable resolution will be reached soon.
In an effort to help celebrate LucasArts' 20 Anniversary, we are proud to introduce a new feature entitled Wilmunder Memoirs. Many of you may not be familiar with Aric Wilmunder, although you definitely should be. Aric started out in the early days of LucasFilm Games and remained at the company until 1999.
During his time, he helped co-create the famous adventure game engine called SCUMM and had a hand in almost every legendary LucasArts title. In this feature, Aric shares some of his favorite stories and memories of working at the company during the early days. Don't miss this one, folks. Read it here!
Have you always felt empty inside because the world seemed somehow empty? Well not anymore! GJ has formed her own Dominic Armato Fanclub, which can be found at this location. In case you don't know, Mr. Armato provided the voice of Guybrush Threepwood in the latest two installments to the Monkey Island series, and has continued to do a variety of voices in other video games and cartoons. If you join the club, you'll be given access to message boards, fanart galleries, and more. Of course, stalking is strictly against the rules.
The LucasForums.com domain name is back working again, which means the forums are once again in their proper place. You can get to Mixnmojo's forums by going to forums.mixnmojo.com, or by clicking the "Forums" tab in the navigation bar at the top of the site.
In addition to Adventure Developer taking up a temp address of www.adventuredevelopers.com, its hosted site subdomains are now at this URL. Therefore, if you wanted to access ags.adventuredeveloper.com, you can now find it at ags.adventuredevelopers.com. Sorry for any inconvenience. Hopefully we'll have the old domain up and running before you know it. :)
LucasArts' official website has been updated today, kicking off the celebration of the company's 20th anniversary. At the 20th anniversary site, you will find a video montage of all the LEC logo uses through the years, an article about how the LEC logo "Gold Guy" was created, and a Shockwave trivia game.
Additionally, the Ask LucasArts section includes the question, "What was the first game developed by LucasArts?" Stop by the site for all of the fun! Weeeee! Thanks to QueZTone for the notice.
Update: You can look at the entire 3D Gallery by heading over here. Sadly no 3d rendered ghost galleons, but plenty of spiffy SW thingies and the dude from RTX :)
Michael Nusair has informed us of his new Day of the Tentacle online comic strip. The comic features art and characters straight out of the LucasArts adventure game classic. Be sure to stop by and read it at this location.
Inspiration for us all: reader Owen Clayton wrote a school paper on commercialism in the Monkey Island games and submitted it as an article on the SCUMM Bar. DJG was laughing at the idea, but after reading the school paper DJG wrote on the feeding habits of ghost pigs, I don't think his opinion counts for much.
This is nice for those who really only wanted to see the LucasArts E3 trailer for its Full Throttle II content: reader Unno has put together a short 2 meg edited video which focuses exclusively on the FTII stuff in the trailer. For best results, right click the link and save.
Note: there is no new footage here that can't be found in the full LucasArts E3 mix trailer. It's just a re-edit that cuts out all the non-FTII stuff.
Source: Ben_Whatsisname
A new interview with Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe has been conducted by Adventure-Treff. As you all know but probably shouldn't, Leisure Suit Larry was a comedy series of sexually raunchy adventure games released by Sierra. Although the Larry series never had any involvement with LucasArts, Al Lowe does discuss his current views with the company during the interview. Here's a quote:
A-T: Let's talk about LucasArts. Do you like their adventures?Read the full interview for another LucasArts-related question.
Al: I used to. The Monkey Island games are some of my all-time favorites. But lately, what they call adventure doesn't sit with what I consider to be adventure.
Source: Adventure Gamers
In today's announcement of the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2002, Psychonauts deservingly earned the award for Best Original Game. Here's a quote from one of the many critics who loved the preview for this upcoming title:
Tim Schafer is a man so creative that we?re almost inclined to kick him out of the gaming industry. Why? The bottom line is that he makes everyone else?s games look so damn derivative.How true. Big congrats to Tim Schafer, the Psychonauts team, Double Fine Productions, and hell, even Microsoft for a great job!
The winners of the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2002 were announced today, which are voted on by editors from nearly 40 leading outlets that cover games. Star Wars Galaxies walked away with the award for Best Online Multiplayer. Here's a quote:
With all of the depth and trappings of the Lucas legend at their disposal, the developers could easily have thrust a rush job online and the faithful would have come. But based on the demonstration witnessed, it appears that the project is getting plenty of TLC -- evident from the fine tuning allowed in the character customization options to the realism of settings such as Jabba?s Palace. Whether gamers are searching for combat or they want to explore the eight or more planets expected initially, this is a Star Wars episode that has plenty of Force behind it.Congrats to LucasArts and Sony!
Continuing our comprehensive coverage of Monday Money Madness? (yawn), The PR Newswire has released this report from Activision on the success of Raven's recent titles. Of course, Jedi Outcast was a major part of this, and here's what the article had to say about all that:
Additionally, LucasArts Entertainment Company's Star Wars? Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast(TM), which was also developed by Activision's Raven Software, and is published by Activision internationally, continues to be a top-10 selling title in the U.S., U.K. and Australia since its initial launch in late March. Star Wars [Dark Forces III] Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was the #3 best-selling PC game in the U.S. in revenue for the week of May 26 - June 1, 2002, the #7 selling PC game in the U.K. for the week of June 8, 2002 and the #5 PC title in Australia for the week ending June 6, 2002.Yes, this is the most exciting news we have today. You can go about your business.
Source: TheForce.net
According to BusinessWire.com, the PlayStation 2 sequel Jedi Starfighter was number three on the chart for Top 10 Renting Game Titles For the Week Ending June 9, 2002. For that week, Jedi Starfighter earned $130,000 giving a total earning of more than $2 million. More money to help fund original and/or adventure games, I hope. Be sure to read our Jedi Starfighter review while you're at it.
Source: TheForce.net
Continuing the Mojo themed polls, we've got a new one up, asking how often you read our site. To vote, just click your choice on the little poll over to the right.
The last poll, "Is Mojo's purple color scheme evil?" ended with a fortunate 67% being satisfied with the color, 27% being apathetic, and 6% being lameos who say that purple is a stupid color.
More GameSpot madness: GameSpot has put up their regular GameSpotting article, where each member of their site's staff sounds off on a random issue. This time around there are two relevant (only one on purpose) articles.
The first talks about how 2002 is seeing the revivals of numerous "dead" genres, like RTS and adventure games. The second one, though, is classic:
About a month or so ago, I was having a conversation with a few people about the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the various Disney theme parks and how cool it would be to get out of the boat and start pretending that you're one of the pirates. Then it suddenly dawned on me that just about every really good video game has some reference to pirates, whether it's one of the actual scurvy dogs or a ship.Sounds like the words of one particular R. Gilbert (thanks SCUMM Bar), and the notion that spawned the most piratey games of all time. Oddly enough, the article doesn't mention Monkey Island at all. It does mention Mario 3, though, so it's okay.
GameSpot has released a reader's choice Top Ten List for Best Voice Acting. LucasArts deservingly won several spots on the list for its superior voice talent. Full Throttle placed fifth on the list, Curse and Escape From Monkey Island share the number three spot (hey, is that really fair that they have to share!?), and Grim Fandango lands at number two. Here's a quote from the article concerning Monkey Island's voice acting:
In a word: Guybrush Threepwood. (OK, OK, two words.) I mean, Dominic Armato just rules both Curse and Escape. And he's complemented by some of the finest voice actors around, too. LeChuck kicks butt. Murray the talking skull pronounces doom upon us all. And Elaine is one independent woman in both Curse and Escape (with a different voice in each game). And after only two lines of dialogue, Dominic Armato is Guybrush Threepwood. It's incredible.Well said. Even Loom gained some special recognition at the beginning of the article. Be sure to read the full list, and thanks to Debbie Ervin for the heads up!
Lycos has published an interesting article entitled, "Online Gaming: The Future is When?" This news item discusses the status of online gaming, the successes, the failures, the problems, and the potential. LucasArts' first online adventure, Star Wars Galaxies is mentioned. Here's a quote from the article:
Online gaming is far more difficult than just slapping together a cool world. In the mid-'90s, 150 games were put into production, according to DFC analysts. Of those, only a tiny fraction ever made it to retail, and only one, Ultima Online, made a dent in the commercial marketplace.While Galaxies is only mentioned in passing, it's a very interesting read and reminds us why game publishers are so apprehensive about making something original and risky. There's a lot of money to be lost. Take a look.
About $300 million was essentially thrown out the window in the grand pursuit of the mighty online game at the end of the '90s.
Sometimes things go wrong and the day just owns you. Seems like something like that was up at LucasArts yesterday, as the E3 "game trailer mix" video, along with the rest of Friday's update, came out in the middle of the night. Regardless, the E3 game montage video is up in two different sizes at LucasArts.com.
Of special note are the first bits of direct-feed video from Full Throttle II and RTX Red Rock, though all the footage looks pretty nice! Music... possibly questionable.
The E3 page also contains the good press and awards that each new LEC game got at the show this year.
Also of note in the Friday update is the beginning of LucasArts' 20th Anniversary celebration. The zaniness starts June 20th with "a special video celebrating the LucasArts logo animations through the years."
It occured to us earlier today that we've never (to my knowledge) uploaded a version of the crazy E3 Psychonauts teaser video with a working soundtrack. If you haven't seen it yet with audio, you've seriously missed out, and need to get this immediately! Here is the file:
Psychonauts Trailer - AVI 23.4 MBIt's recommended that you right click the link and choose "Save As..." to prevent it from messing up. Also, apologies if the server is slow for anyone.
For those who still don't know, Psychonauts is the latest game from the creator of Grim Fandango and Full Throttle, Tim Schafer, and his new company Double Fine Productions. You can read our first impressions of Psychonauts here.
Check LucasArts.com tomorrow for a trailer reel that hilights little clips from every game at the show this year. They were playing this montage trailer on the giant screen at the show along with the other "full length" trailers which are currently available at the E3 site.
Hopefully we'll be able to get a non-ShakyCam glimpse at RTX Red Rock and Full Throttle II, as neither of those games have full official trailers online right now. Though, I don't remember for sure if FTII was in the montage trailer or not. We'll see!
Update: I've been asked a couple times if this E3 montage video is the same as the LucasArts 20th Anniversary "game history" video they showed at the press screening before E3. As far as I know, this is a different video which focuses only on the current games (though I could be wrong). Hopefully they'll put the 20th anniversary video online at some point though.
IGNCube has interviewed LucasArts game producer, Reeve Thompson about his and Hal Barwood's upcoming 3D action/adventure, RTX Red Rock. Sadly the article is locked by IGN unless you pay for their Insider service (which I do actually recommend), but here's a question from it:
IGN: We understand that NASA had a big influence on the game itself. How far did that influence reach?The rest of the interview discusses why RTX is different than, say, Tomb Raider (some differences given include the ability to control crazy little robots, not to mention the fact that they're trying to have an actual story within RTX), and about Eugene's special abilities.
Thompson: We've tried to infuse a sense of realism in RTX Red Rock... this is a world that might exist someday, and we want it to feel that way. For that reason we've spent a lot of time looking at NASA plans and designs, and use them as inspiration for almost everything we're designing.
Of course we have to imagine 100 years have passed, but overall we want people to recognize some of the visual elements of the game. We've also spent a lot of time thinking about how people would live on Mars, and what the lives of the colonists would be like. You'll find details in the game, like ceilings painted to look like Earth's sky, or pictures of Earth's forests, that we believe future colonists on Mars would like to have around.
Worth reading if you already have an Insider account, but don't feel too worried if you can't see it. Hopefully we'll get our own interview with some RTX people sometime in the near future.
There have been many reports in the past few months that Disney is in the process of turning its favorite theme park rides into feature length films. This was confirmed when production The Country Bears began, which is based on a ride of the same name. Word is that there's also a Haunted Mansion movie in the planning stages.
What does this have to do with LucasArts? Nothing directly, but Pirates of the Caribbean is said to be heading to the big screen as well. In case you don't know, this particular theme park ride was the major inspiration for Ron Gilbert to create The Secret of Monkey Island. <:MORENEWS:>
According to this article from Movies.com, Jerry Bruckheimer of Pearl Harbor and Con Air fame (shudder) will produce this picture that may star Johnny Depp. The plot is said to "involve a daring rescue from a crew of pirates and the reversal of a terrible curse."
Similarly, this article from Upcomingmovies.com reports that the curse mentioned may lead to the movie taking place in modern times with the pirates somehow immortal or stuck in time. In March, Variety reported that the Shrek screenwriters were brought in to give the movie a "more supernatural spin."
The release date is scheduled around the summer of 2003, but who knows what will change in between now in then. It's been a good while since we've had a old fashion pirate movie, which used to be a staple of the industry. However, it will be interesting to see how this movie will resemble Monkey Island in terms of curses, ghost pirates, and the like. Thanks to Scurvyliver for the website links!
By the way, don't confuse this movie with Treasure Planet, an upcoming Disney sci-fi animated film based on Treasure Island. They are two different projects.
Remember those old rumors that Ron Gilbert was dead? Oh, you don't? Forget I said anything then, but do check out our new interview with the man himself. In the interview, Ron discusses his new company, Dave Grossman's drink of choice, the intended fate of Wally in Monkey Island 2, and more! Give it a read.
New poll! This time, we're wondering if you think that the purple color scheme we use around here is a good idea, or if it's just terrible. Go ahead, be honest.
The last poll, "How long have you been visiting Mixnmojo?" ended with most of our readers appearing to be from way back! The majority of those who voted have been reading Mojo for two or three years. Thanks!
Of course, the people who have been here longer are more likely to have user accounts and a desire to vote, but quiet about that. To vote in the current poll (located below the login box on the right side), just click the option of your choice.
LucasArts fan art gallery The Monkey Island Art Connection has closed its doors for good after database and other unknown issues made the site's staff decide it was time to go away. Luckily, The World of Monkey Island has agreed to pick up most of the art (much of it very good), so at least there's that. MIAC was one of my (and many other people's) favorite sites in this community, and it will be missed.
Followers of Paco Vink's popular Monkey Island 1 comic will be pleased to know that he's published a new page, bringing the number of completed ones to 13. Check it out at World of MI.
It seems everything has gone wrong around here in the last couple weeks. First our server hangs delicately between life and death, then there was the AdventureDeveloper debacle, and now it seems another Mojo site, The Monkey Island Art Connection, has lost its mind.
Luckily, it's sort of fixed. If you've visited the MIAC in recent days and seen only error message after error message, there's a fix posted in their latest news update.
No, Adventure Developer isn't dead. The site, which creates a community among developers of fan-made adventure games, has been suffering from some Mojo-esque problems like server issues and domain registration mishaps.
However, you can temporarily find Adventure Developer at www.adventuredevelopers.com. None of the hosted sites are operational, but you can read news and leave comments in the meantime. Go on, it'll help fill the void.
Trapezoid, the pulsating brain behind the infamous Animutations, has created another LucasArts-related fan song. This one is called "Monkey Brain Soup for the Soul" and features rockin' remixes of various themes from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. I highly recommend checking this one out, so download it here!
LucasArts.com continues its long string of Friday updates, this time giving some attention to RTX Red Rock. The product spotlight for this new Hal Barwood title has been updated to include five new concept art images. The new art includes some mine drilling items and a tough-looking woman that may lead to some jealousy from IRIS. Check it out.
This week's poll on LucasArts.com closed with interesting results. The poll asked LucasArts website visitors which game genre they preferred. Unexpectedly, adventure games won the poll with 26% followed by RPG's at 18%. Does this mean that adventure games aren't dead after all? Does it mean that LucasArts should focus more original titles in this genre? Or does it mean absolutely nothing at all? Don't ask me, I just work here.
Our old friends (cough cough) UGO have awarded Double Fine's Psychonauts the second best action/adventure game of this year's E3 (second only to Sea Dogs II). DoubleFine.com says:
Check out UGO's list of the top eleven upcoming RPG / adventure games. And check out who's number two. That's right baby. We're number two! We're number two! Beat only by a pirate game. Ah, the irony.Makes you wonder what audience Tim Schafer is writing DoubleFine.com for. Probably for Tim Schafer.
Source: Double Fine (and Sarah)
Aspyr Media released an announcement yesterday stating that the Macintosh port of Galactic Battlegrounds has shipped to retailers. However, it is interesting to note that according to the site, network play for this port is Mac only. Thanks to Lord Savage for the heads up.
Source: Business Wire
In a thrift store far, far away, our own Andrew "telarium" Langley obtained a perfect condition original box for The Secret of Monkey Island with the original 5.25 inch floppy disks.
Inside the box, telarium found something very interesting from Lucasfilm Games. What was it? Why, you'll have to read our new article to find out as telarium asks the question, "How well does LucasArts REALLY support their old games?"
Now that E3 has wound down and we're getting back to fixing the place up, it's time for a new poll: How long have you been reading Mixnmojo? Well?
The last poll, which was based around our interview with Simon Jeffery, was a toss-up between three options. Go take a look if you're interested.
To vote in the current poll all you need to do is click on your option of choice down to the left there on the main page.
This message was posted by LFNetwork administrator Aristotle on JediKnightii.net, and is being reposted here.
Just a quick note, that next week this site and the LFNetwork as a whole will be getting some server upgrades to deal with the major increase in traffic we've experienced this past month, network wide. The release of Ep. II brought in a whole new group of LucasArts gaming enthusiasts, and we have to adjust accordingly. We currently have 3 full servers for the network, but we'll be adding and upgrading over the next week to meet the new demands, including making sure we can serve all your File Download demands. Thanks for your patience.Hopefully the return of the notorious Mojo Downtime will go away again once we get the upgraded servers under control. Apologies to all.
PolyCount has put up a spectacular model of the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, for use in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast multiplayer. Check it out here. It comes complete with all the extras: Custom sounds, bot support, and CTF skins. What are you waiting for--go download it. It is your destiny.
Well, seeing as the Mixnmojo Community section is still being worked on (honest), I'll update about a couple of things going on in the realm of Mojo hosted sites and whatnot. I should have gotten to this post sooner, but sometimes real life issues get the best of people. But enough excuses, here's the news:
LucasTones has been updated with some new MP3 mixes of LucasArts tunes (found on the projects page). There is also word of more logos, ringtones, and an article coming to the site within the next week or so.
MonkeyGames Entertainment is back with a great new layout by netmonkey, as well as some new projects in development. Also be sure to stop by the MonkeyGames forum and leave some feedback!
Lastly, for those of you still reluctant to visit our message board, we've added some new community forums that you really ought to check out:
- Dig Discussion: Dig@mixnmojo.com's forum for discussing anything related to LEC's spacey adventure.
- SCUMM Hacking Community: Get advice from the gurus on ripping, compatibility issues, or anything else related to the SCUMM engine!
- LucasTones Forum: Give feedback on the site or request ringtones here!
- The Monkey Island Clan Community Forum: Like action games? Like Monkey Island? Want join a clan of fellow MI fans? Well, look no further!
- Full Throttle Discussion: Chat with your fellow Polecats about the LucasArts classic, or it's upcoming sequel.
Well, maybe not everybody. Or maybe so, it's hard to say. Anyway, GameSpot has ranked this future Tim Schafer title #4 on its "Top Xbox Games" E3 list. As you may know, we kind of snuck in to the GameSpot private preview of this title, but it's nice to see that they were also able to recognize the potential of this game. Here's a glimpse:
With the abundance of games blaring at us from all corners of the E3 show floor, it takes something special to stand out. Psychonauts caught our attention because of its quirky gameplay and unique premise.Be sure to check out their view on this game.
GameSpot has taken its crack at the long string of Best of E3 awards. This time, LucasArts grabbed more recognition as Star Wars Galaxies earned the #3 spot in "Top PC Games" as well as #8 in the "Top 10 Overall Best in Show" category.
However, this time Gladius earned some recognition as well in the "Honorable Mentions" section. Here's a quote:
Gladius is a game about gladiator combat and promises to be a deep, character-driven game with plenty of variety and lots of depth. It reminds me a lot of one of my PlayStation favorites, Final Fantasy Tactics--and I can only hope that Gladius has a similarly rewarding story and equally sophisticated mechanics. The flat, empty environments in which the battles take place seem a little simple, but it looks like the actual gameplay will be plenty complex. It's great to see LucasArts branching out again like it did in the old days. Hey, how about a sequel to Outlaws?Good point. Check out GameSpot.com for more.
Yes, MacSCUMM. This site is an essential stop if you're a Mac user and own any of the older LucasArts SCUMM games. MacSCUMM is the home of "SCUMM Explorer," sort of the Mac equivilent to SCUMM Revisited (it's a program that lets you dig through the data files to games like Monkey Island and Full Throttle, play the sounds, look at the background art, and more).
In addition, the site also contains numerous patches and updates to SCUMM games (both official from LucasArts and unofficial patches for bugs LEC never fixed), as well as history and easter eggs specific to the Mac versions of the games.
There's more than that if you poke around some more, so go poke around some more.
CNET.com has posted their E3 best of show awards. Again, Star Wars Galaxies was recognized, winning the award for "Most Anticipated of 2002." Star Wars: The Clone Wars was also recognized as a runner up for the "Dark Horse" award while Knights of the Old Republic was runner up for "Best in Show."
This isn't directly related to LucasArts or Star Wars, but Tim Schafer's new game Psychonauts was runner up for "Best Bet Before Next E3." Congrats to everyone who got the great free press! Unless you bribed somebody. In which case, shame on you.
LFNetwork site LucasGames has relaunched its main site with a whole new look and tons of new content. Make sure to check out their E3 section where they have exclusive coverage on the games shown off by LEC.
As a special treat, they snagged an interview with LEC president Simon Jeffery! Their questions go in a different direction than the Mojo interview so if you read ours, make sure to read this one as well for info about the general operations of LucasArts. Here's a clip:
LFN: Since this is the 20th Anniversary of the company, what type of celebration can fans expect?Simon: Great Question! We are going to be doing some stuff on our website over the summer. I don?t want to give away too much now. We kind of kick off our own internal celebration next week. We have a company meeting that is purely about the 20th anniversary.
Clint Bajakian, music composer of many classic LucasArts titles, has been interviewed by GameSpy. The interview discusses Clint's background, his time at LucasArts, the composing process, and discusses working with a real orchestra for a recent project
Additionally, our own hosted site iMuse Island chimes in with some additional information involving Clint's use of a live orchestra. "The title Clint is speaking about here," the site maintains, "should be Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, which has been announced in the meantime. This sounds really exciting! A new, original Indiana Jones score performed by a real orchestra!"
While we haven't been able to confirm this yet, hopefully we will know more in the future. Check out this great interview and then stop by iMuse Island for the allegedly inside scoop.
After months of delay and general slacking, we've finally got our feature archive online. You can read any article since we came back in February or browse the archive by clicking the little "Features" tab up next to the Mojo logo at the top of the site. Amazing!
Older articles (ones that were written when we were on the old server with the old design) will be appearing slowly as Metallus converts them. Also, the other two tabs up there should start working later this Summer (God willing). For now, Features.
In case you have no idea what that headline means, (and why would you?) Mojo Network Site The World of Monkey Island has posted a short Q&A with LucasArts' head of PR, Tom Sarris. Since WMI could not actually make E3, they asked Marek of AdventureGamers to ask the questions on their behalf. Here's a clip:
1. Is it possible that we will see a Monkey Island 5 in the future or have you definitely closed the book on that franchise?
They are definately going to make Monkey Island 5 since it is their most popular franchise. However, we shouldn't expect it in the near future.
Check out the full Q&A over at The World of Monkey Island!
LucasArts.com has updated their Gladius product spotlight to include lots of new concept art, featuring some cool environments and some not-so-friendly-looking characters.
Additionally, LucasArts has put up a new poll on the main page in which you all must participate. The new poll asks, "What is your favorite genre?" The adventure game genre is currently leading the race, but it will be interesting to see which one ends up winning at the end of the week. Go vote! Vote for adventure games! This subliminal message was brought to you by Visa: It's Everywhere You Wanna Be.?
According to a very reliable source, the upcoming action/adventure Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb may feature original music after all. As you may recall in our E3 preview of this game, we were told that the music would consist of the original score from the first three films. Now it seems as though there might have been some kind of miscommunication on our part or on behalf of the man demonstrating the game.
The music is allegedly being composed by Clint Bajakian, who has written the music for the previous two Indy games as well as Outlaws and Escape From Monkey Island. Clint, as you may also know, went on to help form his own sound company called The Sound Department and has been doing freelance sound work for LucasArts. Hopefully we'll be able to get a confirmation on this in the near future.