The International House of Mojo

LucasArts.com has announced that Gladius is now out
for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. So go buy it, or something! GameCubers will have to wait until November 3rd (like, a week, man) to enter the arena. Since it wasn't mentioned previously, the nice-looking and entirely GC-exclusive (for the moment) Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike has also been recently released. Hooray!

The iMuse Island has interviewed veteran LucasArts musician Peter McConnell. The interview goes through McConnell's career at LucasArts and continues on to his current work on Tim Schafer's Psychonauts.

The old IGN XBox is reporting that not only is a Knights of the Old Republic sequel in production due for early 2005, but they're claiming it's not being done by BioWare (the developers of the first game). Instead, IGN's reporting that startup developer Obsidian Entertainment will be handling the new game. IGN claims they have no confirmation on this, and with good reason. It seems odd of LucasArts to not go with BioWare after their immense success with KOTOR 1. But IGN could be right, as Obsidian's page mentions both a development partnership with BioWare [press release] and open artist positions for an upcoming next-generation RPG title, and after all, IGN did have the guts to print the story in the first place, so they must have been decently sure of themselves.

Also in the increasingly saucy IGN article is mention of a secret project codenamed "Rebel X," which consists of XBox ports of the excellent Rogue Squadron, Rogue Leader, and Rebel Strike. According to IGN, Rebel X is slated to appear in late 2004 to co-incide with the DVD releases of the original Star Wars trilogy.

According to the LA Times, Simon Jeffery "abruptly resigned" as president of LucasArts after three years of leading the company. No other details are given, and LucasArts has not made any comment so far.

So what does this mean? Well, if you feel like it, stop by our forums to discuss and speculate until you just can't stand it any longer.

Update (Jake): GameSpot reports that Mr. Jeffery "has decided to leave the company and return to his native England with his family." They also say that Mike Nelson, LucasArts' vice president, will be acting general manager until they find a new Simon.

Let's remember the good times.

TheForce.net is reporting that the November issue of the Official Xbox Magazine will contain a brief mention about Knights of the Old Republic 2. According to the rumor, KOTOR2 will take place many years after the Star Wars movies and may be out in 2004 or 2005. Of course, it's just a rumor, but maybe we will know more soon... if you're good.

LucasArts has announced that everyone's favorite Gladius, Gladius, has gone gold! The multi-console bound RPG will be in stores October 29th, just two days before my birthday. I expect multiple copies from all of you. Find out more about The Gladius at the official site.

In other news, the Largest Ball of Twine in the World has turned 50. It might actually be the second largest ball... or third. But it's turned 50.

Apparently now that they don't include Max in every game, LucasArts has decided to start including him with games. According to EBGames.com's Armed & Dangerous page, anyone who pre-orders the PC version will get a CD containing Armed & Dangerous concept art, music clips, and the opening cutscene. If that isn't enough, the pre-order bonus disc also includes the full version of Sam & Max Hit the Road!

This pre-order bonus is of course a followup to the Rebel Strike Gamecube bonus disc, which includes a Gamecube compatible version of the old old vector Star Wars arcade game by Atari. Good stuff, I tell you. The Rebel Strike pre-order bonus disc promo is going on at almost every retail chain and online store (in the US at least), so it's probably safe to assume that the Armed & Dangerous one isn't limited only to EBGames. (Update: The GameStop.com pre-order page has a couple more details about the disk and pre-order deal)

Source: Adventure Gamers

LucasArts has some goodies you might enjoy. Then again you might not. I enjoyed them. The first thing is that there's now a full official site for Secret Weapons Over Normandy, featuring all sorts of litle pictures and statistics and some of the game's promising sounding musical score. Worth checking out.

Also worth checking out is the new box art to Armed & Dangerous. I like it quite a bit. For those who don't know, Armed & Dangerous is a new comedy/action game by Planet Moon studios, the creators of MDK and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. LucasArts is publishing it.

Everyone's favorite island, iMuse Island, has interviewed Jeff Kliment, manager of the LucasArts sound department. The interview covers the creation and editing of sound, voice, and music content in their games, official soundtrack CD's, and more. Check it out.