Source: Pagetable.com
Maniac Mansion got reverse engineered. Find all the technical aspects of the game here, which are, according to Maniac Mansion co-creator Ron Gilbert, about "90% right". It's worth reading, so read it!
Articles
(Thanks to SurplusGamer for this new update.)
Are you looking forward to Double Fine's Trenched? The always-lovely folks at Giant Bomb sat down with Double Fine's Brad Muir and did a Quick Look video of the game, showing off a full 45 minutes of gameplay and a dozen or so reasons to buy it.
Trenched, for those of you who don't know, is a tower defense by-way of third person shooter game about the brave soldiers of World War I, those young, forgotten souls who fought for liberty and freedom with nothing more than their wits and mecha tanks. The game comes to XBLA on June 22nd. Here's the same 45 minutes of reasons you should buy the game.
Source: GiantBomb
After a slight delay (caused by Zaarin literally falling asleep on his couch), the fourth episode of the Mixnmojo Cock Cook Chase podcast has been released! In it, we discuss the news of the week... in audio form! In your ears! And possibly other parts of your body as well. Listen, as always, by going to the podcast menu on the right. News posts discussed:
If you fancy listening to some Tales of Monkey Island tracks played on a piano, click here. YouTube user checkthesouth has covered a wide range of the game's soundtrack for your enjoyment, and I've been listening to this stuff as I study. It's worth a listen!
Source: YouTube
Whenever a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie comes out, it's customary for the community to share what they see as blatant plagiarism of the Monkey Island games on the part of the writers. While such observations almost assuredly amount to coincidence, there's no doubt that even the most casual Monkey Island fans can point to some downright uncanny "reminders" of favorite moments from Guybrush's exploits in this mega-grossing Disney franchise.
Well, last weekend's On Stranger Tides was surely no exception, and I've given everyone a head start on the ongoing compilation of Totally Not Ridiculous MI Connections in this forum thread. Come play along, and of course, spoilers ahoy!
(Thanks to Threepwood4Life from the forums for this news story. Again.)
Telltale's Sam and Max games are on sale on Steam. It's a 66% reduction off the original prices, which means Season One and Season Two go for $10.20 individually, The Devil's Playhouse for $11.20, or all three for $17.00.
A bargain. I know this is blasphemy to some, but I've come to believe The Devil's Playhouse tops even nostalgia-soaked Hit the Road. It is (in my opinion) destined to be regarded as a classic, and - unless you're one of those people who can't play a Sam and Max game that doesn't have some song in it or an overdose of returning characters - you shouldn't miss out on it, especially now.
Source: Steam
(Thanks to Threepwood4Life from the forums for pointing out this news story.)
So Hothead Games pulled a (mini) Telltale today and announced a couple of titles in one go. Douglas Adams fans, rejoice: there's a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game in the works. Ron Gilbert fans, rejoice: there's a new DeathSpank game headed your way. Hothead is baconing beckoning you with The Beckoning The Baconing, a new and 100% natural Curse of Monkey Island-esque sequel to last year's beloved DeathSpank: Thongs of Justice, now touting Hothead-powered "improved gameplay" and the industry-catchphrase "improved AI":
The developers at Hothead tell Kotaku that this new game, which was made without the involvement of the lead character's creator, Ron Gilbert, should be more satisfying to play than last year's games. While the earlier Deathspank adventures were funny, their enemy-bashing, loot-collecting gameplay got dull quickly. (It was their script and attractive cartoon graphics made them worth playing.)
I'm going to digress for a moment here. If the gameplay indeed got "dull", then why did Thongs of Justice receive higher all-around scores than the original? Because the jokes certainly remained proudly at toilet level. So I'm going to guess that either: 1. the gameplay didn't get that dull, or 2. Someone at Kotaku really, really loves poop jokes.
Anyway, the game comes to XBLA, PC and - assuming it's still alive by then - PSN. Read the Kotaku article again if that gives you any pleasure.
Source: Kotaku
Rum Rogers sent in this news: "I was playing this flash game to kill time, and accidentally discovered its background music CLEARLY includes the main Monkey Island theme."
The flash game can be played here, and it does indeed come with a sort-of House (?) remix of the Monkey Island theme. Sounds pretty great. The game itself can best be described as 'Lemmings with Zombies'.
Update: Thanks to 'bony' for point out the composer of the remix: Kupa.
If you're hankerin' for longer, more professional gaming podcasts, then perhaps you should point your ears to the PC Gamer US Podcast #273.
This week their special guest is Chuck "Not the Plant or the Country" Jordan, LucasArts and Telltale adventure-game-veteran:
This week their special guest is Chuck "Not the Plant or the Country" Jordan, LucasArts and Telltale adventure-game-veteran:
We talk with Jordan about his history with LucasArts and Telltale and ask him all of our adventure-game questions. He also helps us tackle the week’s big news stories, like ArmA III being announced and Guild Wars 2?s new profession!
The Cook Chase strikes again, giving you a summary of the week's news every Thursday evening (GMT). This week we discuss Tim Schafer's new video, and we unveil our new feature, 'eBay items'. Observe:
Hear all about it by moving to the 'podcast' bubble, in the menu to the right! Leave comments to this news post and we'll discuss them next week.This friday's update on the official The Old Republic website reveals more about the Sith Inquisitor class, which is part of the Sith empire faction.
There's a biography on the Sith character Khem Val, a new class video, and a look at the class's personal starship: Fury.
Source: swtor.com
I'll cut the suspense: despite what the headline may or may not have indicated, Tim Schafer - Grim Fandango creator and Mojo BFF - has not joined Telltale Games. This news story is about Tim Schafer wanting to tell you a tale, one presented by a floating mouse cursor (see the video) and narrated by Timothy himself. It centers on a strappin' feller with a strange haircut making his way through the cesspool collectively known as "the games industry". You ought to check it out.
I should probably mention that the original name for the first Monkey Island game gets revealed. Ya know. Just in case you needed another reason to click.
Source: Gamespot
It's that time of week again: another Cook Chase podcast has been released! (See it on the menu to the right).
There wasn't a lot of news this week (apart from a really amazing story about Ron Gilbert, which you can hear about in the podcast), so we decided to pull out a "hot topic" feature based on the discussion about Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.
Was your comment discussed and crudely mocked? Listen to find out! It's like hearing two uninformed, boozy old men talk about you behind your back, in the pub, on a Thursday night... in super-amazing Stereo!
Thanks as always to Zaarin our producer.
Trenched project lead Brad Muir discusses with an abundance of visual aid how men's magazines for the 40s and 50s influenced the game's art style in a piece on Bitmob. It's thoroughly rad.
And don't give me any lip about how that article is dated May 2nd. What with the height of the Mississippi due to break record levels down here, the Army Corps of Engineers needed me to open the Bonnet Carre spillway by hand. Lord, these unbelievable muscles can be a curse sometimes.
Trenched!
And don't give me any lip about how that article is dated May 2nd. What with the height of the Mississippi due to break record levels down here, the Army Corps of Engineers needed me to open the Bonnet Carre spillway by hand. Lord, these unbelievable muscles can be a curse sometimes.
Trenched!
Source: Bitmob
Hold on to your hats boys and girls, because they just might be blown off. As any regular long-term readers of Mojo will know, one of my favourite LucasArts games is Indiana Jones and Infernal Machine. I've spent many happy hours playing that game, and I'd thought I'd uncovered all its secrets. Apparently not!
One of the things that always bugged me was the identity of this little boy wearing an Indy hat in the minecart switching hut. Well, out of the blue today I received an email from Paul LeFevre, who worked at LucasArts from 1992-2000 (the wonder years) and was Lead Programmer on Infernal Machine. This is what he said:
On this page I noticed the "Indy loves the kids" entry -- but you didn't know who the kid was. That's my son, who I snuck into the game, when he was 3 years old (he's now 14!). Just thought I'd fill in one of your blank spots :)
Hooray, mystery solved at long last! But wait, there's more:
Incidentally, my wife is also in the game. She's Filipino, and doing the Palawan level (in the Philippines) was my idea. Inside one of the caves, there's an image on a wall of her as a "Filipina Princess" hidden away, but nobody seems to have found that easter egg (or at least commented on it). Oh, well :)
There's a secret in that game that I didn't know about?! Apparently so. At least one person seems to have found it inadvertantly. In the Palawan Volcano level, behind the huge gong in the lava/statue/Russians room there's a block you can push. Push it to the end and you'll find some treasure... but if you push the bare bit of wall opposite you can find the "Filipino Princess"!
Incidentally, in the N64 version of the game (which was found first) there's a stone carving of an N64 instead. Much less fun.
Impressed? I was!
Does all this text bore you? Do you prefer getting news in audio form? Look no further than to the right and below the latest forum posts to find our latest Cook Chase which will try to summarize last week's events!
Remember how LucasArts teased us with Sam & Max: Freelance Police and rapidly made us go from ":-D" to ":-(" and then to ">:-("? Of course you do, and a crazy time it was.
With three seasons of Sam & Max now available from Telltale, it might be time to take a look at what could have been. Our ancient preview is once again available, as is our angry manifesto. The latter has been padded with some crazy hate-art from the gone but never (never!) forgotten Wibble-Wobble Hatstand.
One that might be a bit more obscure is our Freelance Police retrospective, now imaginatively (re-)titled " The Kinda, Sorta, But Not Really Secret History of Sam & Max: Freelance Police." In it we take a look at the history of the game, and show some of the test-animations from the game. Remember the Max butt-shave? If not, you should probably revisit it.
So yes, roll back in time, and think what could have been.
The site itself is full of crashes, but Mojo has the info for you!
Update: The site is now back up and if you help Lucasfilm to spam your friends on misc. social networks with the news, you get to see more of a video showing stuff from the release.
The deal is apparently this: You can buy the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy in separate boxes, each containing three discs. Do you want to watch the new deleted scenes and other extra material, but want only one of the trilogies? Sucks to be you! In an effort to never let us forget they're a bunch of bastards, Lucasfilm will make the three extra discs available only in The Complete Saga box, containing all six films.
The sets will be available September 12th internationally and September 16th in North America. What follows is the special features breakdown from the press release:
I sort of figured the U.S. would find Bin Laden before A Bat's Tale found funding. On Facebook, Bill Tiller volunteered status updates on A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat's Tale and A Vampyre Story: Year One, respectively. The prospects of the latter are way better than the former:
Currently A Vampyre Story 2 production is controlled by Crimson Cow and they don't plan to fund it anytime soon due to lack of investment in their company. The game is 40% done and just needs investment to be completed. I will make announcement when or if that happens.
A Vampyre Story: Year One we hope to have done this year, and I'll post here any new information on that here when we have some new news about it.
Source: AVS Facebook page
Posting only one review in a day is so 2009, therefore we decided to post a "Double Visions" review. Are there more puzzles to see than in the previous Back to the Future game? Are bugs still a problem? You could play the game yourself, but why bother when we do it for you?
Tingler's fought hordes of Lego bricks to bring you Mojo's review of Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.