The International House of Mojo

Never you mind about what Rotten Tomatoes or some Reddit mega thread has to say. The final word on cinema, as on all matters, is Mojo’s, and you are all her constituency. With pride in this civic duty, we bring you our release date review of Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny. After reading it, you will require no other review, or much of anything, because you’ll be dead of old age. Cripes, Jason.

Disclaimer: While we tried to be mindful about spoilers by refraining from any explicit summary of the plot beyond the first act, we can’t vouch for what your personal standards are. Go to the cinema clean if you want to experience the movie that way. And who are you kidding, anyway -- it’s not like you aren’t going see this like a good little consumer.

The best thing to happen to Mojo is the rise of YouTube interviews: Others create content; we reap the benefits. In this case:

We’re there tomorrow.

If you want to play The Legend of Monkey Island DLC from July 20, you're going to need the base game Sea of Thieves. And if you don't have it yet, to celebrate its 5th birthday, Steam have it on sale at half-price, as well as the other related soundtracks, wallpapers etc, for the next day.

Go buy it the instant you have Dialed up your Destiny. Or now. Whatever.

Source: Steam

By now you’ve probably watched one or two DOTT-related celebrations, so why not make it a trifecta? Laura Cress will be streaming a Q&A with Tim Schafer tonight at 8 pm. What 8 pm is that? Who knows! Presumably, BST, which is 12 PDT, which is... Oh, just check the conversion table.

Fun is sure to be had!

I have no problems admitting I don’t really “get” speedruns, but as others do, I feel like I should link this “Monkey Island 2 Speedrun History” video.

Ron even makes an appearance, so that must be worth something even for those who don’t hurry through games.

I haven’t watched the video yet, but I can only assume it takes place to the dulcet tones of “The Cook Chase.”

Source: Legend of MI

Sure, by being someone who is “with it” and therefore a confirmed reader of the forums, you’re about to be told redundant information, but a new version of DREAMM always has to hit the broadsheets. Here is Aaron with the rundown of your newest testing mission, DREAMM 2.1 Beta:

Source: Aaron Giles

The thing’s a week away and so the marketing machine is belching out exhaust in choking quantities now. How diligent do you expect Mojo to be about collecting all that smoke with a butterfly net? Well, we’ll see what we can do.

First off, we’ve got a new piece from Variety with James Mangold that’s reasonably substantial as far as these things go. There’s some new behind-the-scenes photographs as well as a little more light shed on the process of Spielberg passing the torch.

The director gave another good interview to Uproxx as well. If reading bores you, Mangold and the cast have been junketing their way through no end of taped puff pieces for morning shows and the like, so a “fun” day on Youtube awaits the PR-addicted. I think the most worthwhile plug is gonna be an upcoming appearance by Ford on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, likely dropping Monday. It’s comforting to know that despite Conan’s television show being over and the general improbability of a fifth Indy with Ford even existing, that the tradition of the two of them behaving like jackasses survives for one final round. A good sampling of the arts they’ve worked together in the past:

There’s also a bunch of new clips, promos, and featurettes. Probably more than the four below, and there’s undoubtedly more to come, but I think we’ve done our part by now. On the Dial of Destiny score, let’s agree to meet up again at Mojo’s release day review. Our topicality streak can’t possibly last, but why not go out swinging?

We’ve already granted you access to one YouTube celebration, but, not surprisingly, more keep popping up. And equally not surprising, Daniel Albu is responsible for this one.

One June 25th, one Dave Grossman will face the interrogation squad. Exactly why the description says In this conversation they discuss the history of the SCUMM engine and go over all the major milestones in Aric's career! is anyone’s guess, though maybe Dave will talk a lot about Aric? Or it’s a typo—who can even say these days?! (Mojo famously has none of those. (Footnote: citation needed)) Anyway: June 25th is when it all goes down, so check it out.

Breaking news! The typo has been corrected. On the YouTube page that is. Mojo will keep having 'em.

Today we have two minutes of people blowing smoke up John Williams’ ass (note I don’t say it’s undeserved), with some hitherto unseen footage from the movie sprinkled in.

For those interested in owning up to 30% of the recorded score, an official release will drop ahead of the movie on June 28th, at least digitally. A pressed album will follow later in the summer. Here is the cover art, showcasing a level of effort that some have called “Remi-esque":

The Los Angeles premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny took place at the El Capitan Theatre on Wednesday. Still needing to fill some seats after indiscriminately inviting every TikTok profile with a fedora, Disney took the measure of hauling in some actual heavyweight dignitaries, including Temple of Doom reps Ke Huy Quan and Raj Singh (who played the doll-stabbing Maharajah in what some (Footnote: citation needed) have called LeChuck’s prototype):

The attendees were treated to a little John Williams concert before the screening, and here’s Spielberg giving an intro for it. George Lucas’s demeanor is best described as “My Consent Wasn’t Sought By Disney For A Sea of Thieves Crossover.”

We’re not far from the first part of the seminal SeMI-expansion release, and even with my tepid expectations I have downloaded Sea of Thieves. Hey, Monkey Island is Monkey Island, right? Right! And, over at the forums calls for new crews has already started. If I understand it correctly, Thieves allow for four-person parties, so if you haven’t joined one yet, now is the time to do so. In other words, jump on our forums and start organizing. I have no clue if there are any particular ways for crews to intermingle—I saw some mentions of fleets—but this also seems like a good way to spread the glory of the Mojo community. And create free grassroots advertising for us be part of something bigger.

To continue the SeMI chatter, more after the cut.

Read more...

Just in case you needed another reminder of your mortality: Day of the Tentacle turns thirty this year, more specifically on June 25th. To celebrate, the intrepid onaretrotip has put together a documentary that will premiere on that day.

What can you expect?

DOTT superfan Thrik has already set off two hours on his busy calendar—you might want to do the same.

They’re already melding Sea of Thieves with Monkey Island. So why not Indiana Jones with The Legend of Zelda? This summer, the tracing red line sets a course for Hyrule:

I will admit to having... mixed... feelings about Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island (more commonly known as SeMI), and after a while, my mind started wandering. What would my knee-jerk reaction have been twenty-three years ago after seeing the trailer? Anger? Probably! But would that have been fair? Probably not.

Therefore, I sat down and put some therapeutical thoughts down on paper in an article succinctly named 23 Years Ago I Would Have Written an Article Called “Not MY Monkey Island”. Read, if you so must, about my complex relationship with an unreleased expansion pack to a game I’ve never played.

Though there’ve been a lot of cheap alternates as well, the primary one sheet for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny by artist Tony Stella is quite credible -- a welcome throwback to the days of illustrated posters that fits in nicely with the iconic contributions of Richard Ansel and Drew Struzan. Regrettably, the artist had indicated that the studio meddled with his work, but it’s a testament to the quality of his pre-processed art that goodness survives whatever nonsense it may have been subjected to along the way. A reminder:

Unfortunately, “surviving” is not a status enjoyed by an international poster design that Stella had also been commissioned to do. Today comes a tearful Tweet from the artist, offering a tantalizing glimpse of his spurned masterwork as he crates it up for what I assume to be a one-way trip inside a cargo hold bound directly for Disney’s underground Fortress of Neglect. (Reportedly, that’s also where Ken Macklin’s The Dig backgrounds can be found.)

Speaking of Dial of Destiny alternates, it seems we overlooked one when trying to round them all up a while ago, so here ya go:

You can get it clean as well:

In 2024 (allegedly) we're getting a new game called Outlaws with a LucasFilm games logo stamped on it. It's not a western shooter though, more of a Star Wars open-world game. The trailer is chock full of impressive looking non-gameplay footage.

"Pew, pew, pew!"

Star Wars Wrath Warth Unleashed next?

Source: YouTube

We’ve gotten past “this exists,” so now let’s see if we can collect the cold hard facts that have come to light about Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island so far.

Your first burning question is most likely, “Is Ron involved?” Frankly, I think you guys are insulting Disney by even raising that as a concern. We’re talking about the creator of Monkey Island here. We can take it for granted that they’d show the basic courtesy of at least consulting him about the project.

Uh, whoops. Well listen, I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent. They probably just didn’t know how to get a hold of him. Moving on, you’ve got this interview with Creative Director Mike Chapman which pretty much summarizes everything known so far. The product will consist of a three-part expansion to Sea of Thieves, released on a monthly basis. As you heard from the trailer, the key voice talent has been retained. And as for the story-line, well, they seem rather committed to having one:

Personally, I don’t understand the need for this “alternate history” exercise when Return to Monkey Island burnt so many calories to make the further adventures of Guybrush and Elaine as open-ended as possible. I mean, do they not even remember ending #8-Q?

Anyway, it’s not a real Monkey Island game until The SCUMM Bar anoints it an official acronym, but as we await that formality, it's cool to get the sense that the team at Rare is so enthusiastic to play in this sandbox. Stay tuned throughout the week as Mojo does its best to orient itself to the implausible reality that Monkey Island games are now a yearly event.

Source: Xbox Wire

It looks like Rare wanted in on the shtick, because what you see below is a real thing that is in fact happening:

Fans have had to deal with what they thought was a lot of change over the course of this series, but at the end of the day Monkey Island after all consisted of six traditional graphic adventure games. Never before has its fans had to process an outright genre change or dalliance with another franchise. But after the right licensing fee was negotiated with Craig Derrick (who presumably made the deal contingent on that Special Edition logo), the era of the Monkey Island crossover left the realm of the hypothetical. A lot to grapple with here.

We were fashionably late to this big news, so the chatter on the forums is already well underway, awaiting your participation. And congrats to milegend.com on what we assume was a handsome compensation package for the right to that title that makes the AltaVista guy’s cash-out look like tip money.

More to come, undoubtedly.

Source: The Forums :D

I was joking. This isn't what I meant. I suppose the monkey's paw has its due.

When you got yourself an Indy game that was announced two-and-a-half years ago with roughly no updates since, you’ve got a right to get pessimistic. When the game’s publisher next fails to even acknowledge its existence at their big honking annual showcase weeks before the final Indy movie arrives in theaters – and word is that’s just what happened – you have the right to some Staff of Kings flashbacks.

As usual, Indy gets seated at the reject table of the commissary. At this point, I’m putting this one in the Beyond Good & Evil 2 and In the Valley of Gods category. In retrospect, they probably should have just taken Noah Falstein up on his original offer to make a graphic adventure adaptation out of Dial of Destiny. A retro game would have at least shipped.

You may or may not recall how we introduced a virtual LeChuck’s Revenge code wheel replacement a few months back. While not particularly relevant to most—DREAMM and the Special Edition bypass the code screen fully—those with exquisite taste may still prefer to play the game on an Amiga emulator. (Or, if you’re Benny, the actual Amiga!)

Which all is to say, we now have a new Secret of Monkey Island code grid for your hacking pleasure. Mojo’s beta testing has, of course, been axed by the CEO , meaning... This should work, but who knows?! No money-back guarantee.

Your late-nineties self sure will appreciate this!

If you’re anything like me, you may have wondered what the logic behind LeChuck’s appearances in the underground tunnels is. (That is in LeChuck’s Revenge, natch.) Now, Ron has kicked Grumpy Gamer back into action and shed some light on it all:

A quick look at the code gives proof that you aren’t going crazy and there are reasons for LeChuck’s lengthy absences.

I’m one of those crazy people who like to take my time with a game, but I’ll still give budding speed runners a piece of advice: Use keyboard shortcuts—“P” for “pick up,” “U” for “use,” etc.—and you’ll save valuable seconds. The odds of beating LeChuck’s voodoo doll increase significantly.