The International House of Mojo

Adventure Classic Gaming has published an in-depth interview with Mike Levine, the founder of Crackpot Entertainment and the co-project leader of its only game, Insecticide.

Much about Insecticide's production, including things that didn't make it into the game, are revealed, as are some anecdotes about the old days at LucasArts. Release dates for the Episode 2 are not given, but the project is certainly talked about as though its eventual release is certain. Interestingly, Levine also makes repeated reference to his desire for an Insecticide sequel, the reality of such a scenario not being discussed. An excerpt:

I personally think there are millions of people out there who love video games, but for the most part stopped playing them. They may try out a GTA or Half-Life when it comes out – playing the biggest the medium has to offer, but for the most part, they have less time in their lives, and most games bore them and are repetitive. Humans crave new things. We love new music, new idea in films, art, anything. But games have gotten SO stagnant. We wanted to mix this up. We learned a lot. And yes, we have many ideas how to keep doing this as we move forward. We just need the budgets and time to be able to achieve these things.

Anyway, the interview is nice and lengthy and contains a lot of great stuff, so read it, and pray that the game's PC version gets its remainder out the door sooner rather than later.

You already know about the special edition of A Vampyre Story (still only confirmed for Germany) and were given a guesstimate of its contents, but a news post by Crimson Cow on the official site for the game gives the official list, while confirming the game's release on the 17th for Germany. Check out the complete list at The Pumpkin Post, but the main addition is the inclusion of a soundtrack disc, which is awesome. For Germany.

Well that's what I think now, and I hope you will too after this post.

Speaking with investors, Activision Blizzard head Bobby "I hate games" Kotick explained why so many of Sierra's games (such as Brutal Legend) got dropped by the company.

Eurogamer has done a good job of summing this speech up, but we only really need the truth straight from the talking horse's mouth:

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming USD 100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us."

Still doesn't explain why you're now holding up Brutal Legend from getting picked up by other publishers, though.

And now back to the more cheery GF celebrations.

Source: Eurogamer

For those of you who don't know (and you were supposed to know, but I was held back because of ugly school deadlines): two days ago, on November 2nd (update: apparently it's October 29th), 2008, was the tenth anniversary of the brilliant landmark game, Grim Fandango. Ten years! Tim Schafer's thoughts here.

I wasn't old enough to play Fandango in 1998, and I only played it last year. It was beautiful. I'll never, ever forget a moment at the end of the game - and spoiler coming-up here - where Manny runs once again into Chepito, the traveller following the "moon" underwater - as he "[evens] out my life in this world before I go on to the next," and then walks into the next world, singing that song. As Manny, I tried to follow him. And Manny stopped.

He stopped, looked at the tunnel to the next world and said that he wouldn't, not without all the people he'd promised to save.

And in a surge of emotion I realised that my life's just that much better because of it.

Chris Remo of Idle Thumbs Shacknews Gamasutra sat down with Mike Stemmle of LucasArts Perpetual Telltale to discuss Stemmle's past present and future, with a strong prejudice toward the topic of Sam & Max. You'll want to be reading it now.

At least, that's what The Pumpkin Post says. And if you can't trust The Pumpkin Post, who the hell can you trust?