The International House of Mojo

Well it's that time of week again. Yes, the day before LucasArts post a few screenshots, update a product info page and maybe re scan some old monkey island art! But what's different about today?
(apart from jake's birthday)

It's Halloween!

Every year Halloween is celebrated across the web in the all singing tradition of "logo-change-time" this also happens at Christmas, and sometimes also on that random American celebration of July 4th, when sites around the world American sites post Java-based fireworks everywhere that we all love!

OK.. so what did we do to celebrate Halloween?? We changed our logo into Jake. But other sites have put a bit more thought into the whole thing:

Samandmax.net has a lovely comic strip up featuring the word "poonk"

The Scummbar has had a little pumpkin lurking behind the logo for a few days now. I'm hoping it wil start to dance later on.

Grim Fandago Network has updated their page with a scary skeleto.... oh no wait....

Mojo Art has gained a pumpkin or two.

And, here are some other non-Mojo things (hopefully we'll be adding to this later):

For those that missed it, we posted this link to Dave Grossman's page of pumpkin sculptures he has made.. all of which completely own any attempt I have ever made.

This guy and the rest of his dorm at Cornell University had some amazing Blue Casket party for Halloween earlier this week, and here's some pictures from it. Our very own DJG might have attended this Grim party as BatDan, but you'll never see a picture of it, or hear him admit to it.

Please add your Scary findings into our comments section, and expect this news post to be updated as more folk wake up and get it together to update their websites.

Update: Whilst at work I have decided to create a pumpkinesque sculpture from available resources. These have included an apple and some lego. I will hereby encourage other mojo Staff to upload pictures of their halloween efforts and add them to this post.

Update: We now have Jake's Halloween efforts!

It's October 31st, and what does that mean? Halloween! No! Don't be stupid! It's Jake's birthday today! In honor of this holy day we've redecorated the BluesNews Mojo logo. That's right our very own Jake Rodkin has aged yet another year so wish him a happy birthday in the comments or we'll delete your account! Happy Birthday Jake!

The lucky bastards over at Xbox IGN recently got some hands-on time with a pre release version of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Here's a quote from the article:

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is looking good in some places while lacking in others. The Indy model bears a resemblance to Mr. Ford (think Buffy from her last game), but some of the environments and animations could use a little work. The camera also tends to get a little wild at times, but is still manageable. The audio side is faring a little better, with a voice that sounds like a good Harrison Ford impersonator. You'll occasionally hear a sly remark from Indy, much like the one-liners used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though maybe not quite as witty. The music is also coming along nicely with what sounds like a game-altered version of the classic John Williams score.

The feature also includes several new screenshots, so be sure to take a look.

PC Gamer has posted another of their frequent "Best 100 PC games of all time" lists, chronicling, well, the best games of all time. As usual, a number of LucasArts adventure classics have made the list. Here they are:

9. Grim Fandango
27. Monkey Island 2
44. Day of the Tentacle
47. Sam & Max Hit the Road

Obviously the second half of the list is superfluous and not worth reading.

Source: The SCUMM Bar

JBRAA's Mojo Art site, a large gallery of Lucas-related fan art and some other goodies, has put up their October gallery which featuers 12 new images. Some of the new art is Monkey Island related, while some is Star Wars. Give it a look.

Captain Mystery has returned to rouse your rabble, or whatever, in his latest editorial, "Why the Onslaught of Star Wars Games Ain't a Bad Thing." As usual, the Cap'n is telling all of you to shut up because you are all stupid, so you'd better go read the article and start posting angry comments at him!

The editorial is actually about how hating on LucasArts for making lots of Star Wars games is a fairly self-defeating thing to do. M. Mystery claims that the heaps of money generated from the heaps of Star Wars titles is what gives you the small pile of riskier, not-Star Wars titles, like Grim Fandango. Again, it's here! Click!

Yes, we all hate the ringing phone ad that's been making the rounds, too. We're working on getting it the hell out of here. Hopefully it will leave soon for good. Apologies for the torture.

Do you love crazy and demented pumpkin carvings? Then dare to step into... THE PUMPKIN HOUSE OF HORRORS! *cue lightning and insane evil laughter*

Every year around Halloween, former LucasArts graphic adventure writer/programmer Dave Grossman creates some very cool pumpkin carvings and posts them on his website. This year's mad designs are entitled "Hair Dryer on Reverse" and "Well, it's sort of a long story..."

I strongly urge you to check these out! My personal favorites from years past are "Vomit Pumpkin" and "Missionary in Trouble."

Our friends over at World of Monkey Island have provided the fan community with more artistic goodness. Page 18 and 19 of Paco Vink's The secret of Monkey Island online comic book have been posted in the past week. In case you're unfamiliar with the comic, read our previous news post... because I'm too lazy to repeat myself.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to name your first born child after a LucasArts related character? No? Erm, uh, yeah, me neither. I was just checking.

Still, for a funny look into the subject, check out this online comic! Thanks to Marek for the link.

Update (Jake): Observant readers (and news updaters) could have caught this link in Thursday's Calm Before the Storm.

The wishfully controversial Church of Tim (no longer unnamed), has uploaded a wide variety of AIM Buddy Icons (or forum avatars if that's more your thing).

The icons are themed around Tim Schafer's games at LucasArts (DOTT, Full Throttle, Grim), Psychonauts, Double Fine jokes (dead and living rats, insane manatees), and some other things you might like. Fun times.

LucasArts.com updated once again, this time showing a new trailer for The Clone Wars. You can also now take part in a new Bounty Hunter contest and view this new screenshot from Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

And finally, under the 20th Anniversary page, you can view this scan of The Adventurer from the Fall of 1993. This cover features a Star Wars poster parody with Day of the Tentacle characters. Wow, I've long since forgotten about that cover.

Finally a new review! Dave Grossman, co-writer of Monkey Island 1 and 2, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle, and author of numerous childrens books and adventure games for Ron Gilbert's Humongous Entertainment, has written a book!

The book? Ode to the Stuff in the Sink: a book of guy poetry. Is it good? Well, here's a hint: one of the poems is titled ?Is That Your Shirt Or Did A Clown Throw Up On You?" You must buy this book today! No, first read the review, then buy the book.

After all the talk of Quick & Easy, ScummVM, VDMSound, and other obscurely familiar names "guaranteed" to help you play your old SCUMM games, some people are wondering if anyone can actually figure any of that stuff out!

Fortunately everyone's favorite SCUMM Bar, The SCUMM Bar, has written an article called "Get Those Old Games Working Again!" describing just how all of the recent SCUMM tools work and how they can benefit you! Confused people go read now.

Also, has anyone noticed that the SCUMM Bar guys use that image of Guybrush chained up in his underwear a little too frequently?

Because the Mac port of Jedi Outcast recently went gold, TFNGames and Aspyr Media have teamed up to offer a new contest, giving away a free copy of the game and a few other goodies. To enter, you have to create a piece of artwork based on the game and submit it by November 30th. Visit TheForce.net for more information on the contest. I'm sure all two of our Mac readers (Jake and maybe someone else) will be very excited about this.

Yes! It's Thursday again and that means it's time for Calm Before the Storm, a now regular news post in which we bask in the newsless world of LucasLimbo, preparing for tomorrow's inevitable LucasArts Friday funtime update.

This week: a bunch of heart warming links to keep you busy while you wait, most of them delivered oh so kindly by my bosses into my mailbox at work.

So what do I have up my sleeve of distraction? A video of two twats. Yes. My boss told me to "Turn up your sound and bear with it..." so do it! I've no idea where this came from so.. erm...nothing (Its 3mb).

The best Flash game in the history of flash games - Name That Beard!

And the transcript from a court case now underway, investigating why Mr. Chrysler stole over 40,000 coat hangers from hotels. Watch as he defies the barrister! Read as he insults the judge! Cry as you discover the reasons behind his theft!

Now... it's your turn. If you have any interesting Lucas related (or not) news or links, now is the time to share and enjoy!

Today I stumbled upon a truly amazing thing. Now you may remember a while back, maybe 2 years, Mixnmojo.com in all it's wise glory decided to review StarWars LEGO models. Oh! We had X-Wings and Snow Speeders, jet bikes and crappy Sith bikes....

But never, in my wildest dreams, could I truly conceive that this beast - this ultimate Starwars LEGO beast - could ever have been created.

Yes that's right, whilst browsing through the LEGO catalogue that arrived this morning I stumbled upon this: A 96cm long, 44cm high and 60cm wide model of a Star Destoyer.

I would gladly sell my Huz?'s Grandmother to get ahold of this beast, and as a result, for the next few weeks I will be lobbying all of the LFN partners to purchase one of these on our company budget so I we can review it. ...and then lose it.

Sign the petition comments thread! :P

...Okay, you don't like Star Wars news do you... Well fine then just pretend this whole news piece was about this guitar tab for the Monkey Island theme tune. You'd like that wouldn't you?!

Corny headlines aside, anyone who misses the excellent art gallery/site, the Monkey Island Art Connection, will be pleased to hear that in the coming weeks it will be brought back to life! Again!

The MIAC is merging with World of Monkey Island and will hopefully stay online there and continue its old job as the community hub for all the fan artists around here. Read about it at World of MI.

LucasArts has once again updated the concept art gallery on the 20th Anniversary site, this time with yet another lovely Monkey 2 background painting. Today we're treated to Captain Dread's ship docked at Scabb Island.

LucasArts.com has been updated with a new product spotlight for Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, which briefly appeared on Friday, disappeared on Saturday, and has now returned. The new site contains wallpaper, icons, and some interesting info. For example, it seems the big bad guard from The Shawshank Redemption is providing the voice of one of the main characters.

Dare I say it, but this site is a fairly good example of how Flash can effectively be used for web design in a non-annoying way.

Even more screenshots have been released for the upcoming online RPG Star Wars Galaxies, featuring some very impressive character models engaged in combat. Go to the offical website to gaze in awe. Thanks to Marek for the heads up!

Yesterday, we mentioned that a SCUMM-like 2D graphic adventure called Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moth just went gold and will be in stores on October 31st. Today, Adventure Gamers posted an interview with the game's developers and further discussed its ties to the old LucasArts graphic adventures. Here's a quote regarding whether or not the point and click genre is dead:

That?s really up to the gamers, but I believe I?ve heard more than once people saying that Monkey Island 4 wasn?t as good as the third or even the second episode. We believe what makes an adventure game a blockbuster aren?t necessarily the fancy 3D graphics or astonishing fx, but, rather, a great plot and a good dose of humour.

The interview goes on to mention that Tony Tough drew inspiration from Escape from Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam and Max Hit the Road. You can find the game's official website here.

Our most recent poll has ended, with 44% if you believing that Webmonkey (yours truly) is the combined essence of all Mojo updaters of days past. Our new poll has already begun, asking the question, Which of the following characters do you most identify with? Have fun!

IGN.com is publishing a diary written by BioWare Designer Lukas Kristjanson, who is working on the upcoming RPG titled Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Here's a highlight from the first entry:

Set 3,956 years before the Battle of Yavin (the destruction of the first Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope), Knights of the Old Republic is right in the golden age of the Jedi and the Old Republic. 4,000 years might seem like the distant past, but the Republic has a history going back 25,000 years, beginning with the advent of hyperdrive and the initial bringing together of the galactic community. At game time, the last great battle between the Republic and the Sith Empire, the Exar Kun Sith War, is 40 years past, but the destabilizing effects of it are still being felt. There are many Jedi and Sith, but there is disorder and dissent within their respective groups. The player will find him/herself choosing a path between the two.

Deep down, I want to be a sith.

While it isn't directly related to LucasArts, you graphic adventure fans may find this interesting. Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths, a traditional point n' click 2D game that has been compared to the old LucasArts SCUMM titles, recently went gold and will be in stores just in time for Halloween. If you miss the old fasion days of 2D graphic adventures, this new title could help give you a fix. Here's the game's tagline:

What do alien abductions, a depressed clown, a pirate's secret diary, and a purple tapir have in common? Find out with the small-time detective in a grown-up adventure of stolen sweets and salty humor!

Stop by the official website for screenshots, a trailer (in Italian), and information on pre-orders. And hey, look at that! Three adventure game updates in a row!

Source: Adventure Gamers

The World of Monkey Island has posted page 17 of Paco Vink's The Secret of Monkey Island comic book adaption. If you haven't been keeping up with this, the comic is drawn in a Curse of Monkey Island vein with a bit of Paco's own artistic style mixed in. It's really worth reading, so go here! Now!

Did you know that there was once a book written about LucasArts' graphic adventures? It seems to be true. While looking around Amazon.com, I discovered that there was a book released by Prima Publishing (or did they mean Prima Games?) in 1993 entitled The Lucasarts Adventure Game Book: The Scumm of the Earth. Naturally, the book is out of print, but if anyone has any information on it, please feel free to share!

The World of Monkey Island, the extraordinary Monkey Island news/features/fun site, turned five years old today! That's an outstanding feat for any web site, and we're very happy for them. They've announced a week's worth of festivities to celebrate their anniversary, so be sure to check out the details!

Bgbennyboy's popular tools "LEC Quick & Easy" "ScummVM Quick & Easy" and "CMI Launcher" finally have a website of their own here at Mixnmojo (so we don't have to host his files out of our /temp/ directory anymore)!

These three tools (and probably more in the future) are designed to help you play classic SCUMM games on newer versions of Windows without annoying video and audio bugs. If you're angry at your old games for not working on your new computer, or just desire the ability to tinker a little bit, visit quick.mixnmojo.com!

bgbennyboy of LEC Quick & Easy fame has made a new tool to help ease the headaches caused by recent operating systems. The tool is a modified Curse of Monkey Island Launcher that has two new important features.

One, it allows you to change the level of directsound acceleration, which fixes the problem of video cutscenes running too fast in Windows 2000 and XP. The new launcher also has the ability to play CMI in windowed mode, which is very cool but can be a bit unstable.

Thanks to people like bgbennyboy, we can continue to play our favorite graphic adventures despite the lack of support from LucasArts... but business is business, I suppose.

Update: It seems LucasArts did support this problem somewhat.

Source: The SCUMM Bar

The time is upon us once again when you, the loving monkey community, get to vote for your favourite sites in a number of catagories from a list of nominees.

The catagories are as follows:
-Best Monkey Island Coverage
-Best International Site
-Best LucasArts Coverage
-Most Creative Design (& Features)
-SITE OF THE YEAR

In the nominee listings you will see many of our esteemed friends along with mojo itself. Go to http://www.mia2002.cjb.net and make your choices!

The notorious unnamed Tim Schafer shrine is holding a poll to choose a name for themselves... because they're unnamed (see word #3). Help our local religion along by signing up on their forums and voting in the poll, blessed readers.

The theatrical poster for the IMAX version of Star Wars: Episode II was released on wednesday, and unfortunatly proves to be appropriate to the film's name. The sick joke poster shows everybody's favourite muppet ready to kick some serious landmark arse. Or as StarWars.com describes it:

"The biggest tiny Jedi Master looms large over several North American landmarks in artwork that recalls classic event posters of years past."

To view the abomination poster, click on the picture below or visit StarWars.com.

Dave Grossman, the co-writer on The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, and co-project leader on Day of the Tentacle, has released his first book for adults. It's called Ode to the Stuff in the Sink, a collection of humorous guy poetry written and illustrated by Dave himself. You can only purchase the book though his website Phrenopolis.com, and at only $9, it's a steal! We will be publishing an article/review about the book soon, so keep an eye out for that as well. Go on, support the arts and buy the book!

In what seems to be a pattern in the past week or so, Jedi Outcast for Gamecube and Xbox has gone gold. The game should be in stores around November 18th. There's also a new trailer on the official product spotlight, but if you've already played the game, there's nothing in it you haven't seen already. Also, I'm bored.

More goodies have been released concerning the upcoming massive RPG that is Star Wars Galaxies. The first ever screenshots of ingame combat have been posted on the official website. The screenshots are at a very high resolution and look very cool. The only other thing I can say is... poor Jabba palace frogs.

Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara has posted another weekly update about SWG here.

Those of you who feel hard done by about not getting in to beta 1 (grumble) will be pleased to know that he discusses the details of the second beta due out announced next week.

So if you haven't yet sent off your application, hurray up!

Source: Official SWG site

There seem to be a lot of slow days, but none are more slow than Thursdays. The day before LucasArts graces us with new screenshots from Gladius and the like, we usually just sit around. Recently, downtime notwithstanding, we've been trying to make threads like "we're bored, what's going on with you?" asking about community news we may have missed, or just something entertaining to reduce my boredom at work.

Well, it's Thursday again. Anyone with anything interesting, fun, stupid, what have you, please leave a comment so everyone else can have something to do. Would be nice if it was LucasArts related, but it doesn't really matter.

For instance, me, I'm very sleepy. Now its your turn.

I was going to update with some "exciting" news but it turned out to be really widely know and boring... but I've done it now so... have it. The stores are now taking pre orders for the greatest Jedi film of the last 3 or so years!

Episode II attack of the [funny pun] both VHS and DVD are available to pay for and then get delivered to you a few weeks later... By which point you don't even remember any more and its really exciting, 'cause you get a call from work, and they are all like:

"There is a package for you here,"

And you go, "I don't remember ordering a pack.. wait.. is it from Toys R Us?"

"Well yeah... it is actually."

"... w00000000t"

....and so on so forth. So that's Star Wars Episode II, UK release date Nov 11th 2002, available for pre order now, and in the US, Nov 12th (my birthday) also available now and you can get it in other places besides Amazon funnily enough.

GameSpot.com has conducted a new interview with long time LucasArts employee Jon Knoles, who is currently serving as the director on Bount Hunter. Here's what Jon had to say about the upcoming Episode II game:

Star Wars Bounty Hunter is a story-driven, third-person action game. The game's plot, which centers around Jango Fett's hunt for a deranged dark Jedi, spans six chapters and 18 levels. A rendered cinematic sequence precedes and follows each chapter to draw players deeper into the game's original story, which takes place a decade before the events of Episode II and explains how Jango Fett was chosen to be the genetic template for a clone army. Throughout the entire game, there are 56 in-engine cinematics that drive the action forward and keep the story moving quickly.

Wow! That's cinema-tastic! You can read the entire four page interview here.

Double Fine Action News has been updated in a seemingly desperate attempt to fill a programmer position at the company. So, if you got the skillz and would like to move to San Francisco and work for the Tim Schafer, check this out. Plus, as a job perk, you would get to play with the rats at night.

LucasArts.com updated its site last Friday like always, but since we were passed out all weekend, we're only getting around to mentioning it now. First of all, you can view a new game trailer for Bounty Hunter in some kind of weird .exe file. The trailer is quite impressive and shows off some very cool ingame action. On the educational side, you can look at the history behind Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Following that, there is a new screenshot from Gladius. And finally, check out this Full Throttle concept art under the 20th Anniversary site. Fun, no?

XboxGamers.com has published a new interview with with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of Bioware, the company making the upcoming RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The interview mainly focuses on why the developers chose the Xbox console instead of a Gamecube or PS2 system. I can't think of anything else to say about this one, so here it is.

Well that certainly sucked, didn't it?

We're all back together now, though, and don't expect to drop off the face of the earth again any time soon. What started as a routine hard drive upgrade (our old one was 98% full!) was shot to all heck as they'd say in EMI, when our web host's router decided to die, causing many a nerd to run around honking like mad, trampling glasses and pocket protectors left and right. Obviously, nobody knew what was going on, but everybody was glad when it was over.

We're sorry for the massive downtime, folks. In the future hopefully we'll have better warning about such things. Eep.

Note: Some sites are still coming across on the transfer. Each site is being checked but you never know. If you are a webmaster of a site and it hasn't transferred in the next few hours, leave a comment in this thread, see Jake on IRC (#monkey-island on dalnet), or ICQ me at 51539848.

Have you checked LucasArts.com today? No? What kind of fan are you? Well if you did, you'd notice that the Gladius product spotlight has been updated with additions to the FAQ as well as information on weapons, helmets, and shields used in the game.

And with that, Mixnmojo is saved from another day of no updates. Thank you, Gladius!

LucasArts.com released an announcement today, stating that the upcoming Clone Wars game has gone gold for the Gamecube and will be in stores around October 29. No word on the PS2 version, but you can probably expect it soon after. Also, since there is an unwritten rule that all Mixnmojo news posts must have at least three sentences, this has been written as filler material. Enjoy.

The guys over at IGN have published this article with their hands-on impressions of the Xbox Jedi Outcast port. Judging from this and our own impressions, it seems the controls have made a surprisingly effective transition from a PC keyboard/mouse combo into a console controller. Here's a quote:

[The game] came off so well on the PC, that all the developers at Vicarious Visions had to do was put together a control scheme that made sense. That and keep the spirit of the PC original alive, thereby removing all anxiety Xbox owners might have because of the bad taste that Obi-Wan left in everybody's mouth.

Aww, why does everyone pick on poor Obi-Wan? Oh yeah, I remember now.

Though it has nothing to do with us at all besides being about Lucas fandom and artwork, and sharing the name "Mojo," we've finally buckled and given JBRAA's always-improving Mojo Art - the unofficial lucasgallery hosting here at Mixnmojo. Check out their collection of fan art, Lucas company-inspired work, and some art from LucasArts/Film creations themselves. Again, that's Mojo Art.

Fridays mean more updates at LucasArts.com. You can check out the usual things like new screenshots for XBox Jedi Outcast, a character profile for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and a new screenshot from Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb that just screams, "Hello! I am looking at a giant JPEG in the distance."

But in more interesting news, check out this background art scan from The Dig, which continues the LucasArts 20th Anniversary celebration. It brings back fond memories of sawing off the arm of a German scientist.

James Earl Jones revealed today that his voice will be featured in the last five minutes of Episode III. James of course provided the fantastic voice of the ever asthma suffering and dark lurky sorce of evil: Darth Vader. Hopefully Episode III wont stink as much a George's latest 'masterpiece'.

Mr Earl Jones' other works include Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy. Read more lovely Darth vader news on Ananova.

Just saw this over on World of MI: Anyone who remembers back a few months must surely remember our excellent April Fools joke, totally fake "leaked" Monkey Island 5 sound clips. Well, some guy somewhere didn't get it, mistook our ultra high quality flawless forgery for the real thing, and now you can download it from FilePlanet. Get in line!

Though we're amazed and pretty amused that the public can now enjoy the all-too-real "short clip from Monkey Island 5 featuring the return of one of Threepwood's greatest foes" it makes me wonder. Maybe this is why LucasArts doesn't like people going and making fangames with their game names and game characters? Eh? Eh?

Amusing Side Note: Our "authentic" cutscene audio has received a four star rating, beating out the EMI Demo by one star!

Source: World of MI

It's that time of time again: new poll! After the last poll, "How involved in the LucasArts community are you?" (which ended with 53% just reading, and 34% of you running your own sites! eep!), we've decided to throw the poll's importance-lever to the extreme. To which extreme you think we threw it is really up to you.

The current poll asks: Who am I? That's right, me, Mr. Webmonkey. Who am I? The winner will receive nothing at all. To select your answer, click on it!

As you can see, we're dragging along today with little to no news, and we hate it. If you know of anything interesting happening out and about online, please leave a comment about it. I don't think we care all that much if it's a LucasArts related thing at all - just entertaining - though a little Lucas wouldn't hurt.

Do you like Galactic Battlegrounds? I mean REALLY like it? Then check out our friends over at Galactic Battles.com for an exclusive Q&A with LucasArts director Garry Gaber. Here's how it works: Stop by LucasForums, sign in, and ask your question. The moderator will then select various questions and present them to Garry in an interview. Note that you have to be a LucasForums member, but hell, you should be one already anyway! You wouldn't want to miss out on all the community fun, would you? Check it out.

Searching through Mojo's extensive photo archives has revealed a gem that we believe has never before been shared with our reading public. Feast your eyes on our very own founder and friend, James Spafford. (He's the one in the skull shirt, cowering in shame. Compare to this confident looking fellow, who must be an imposter.)