The International House of Mojo

So after only several hours' delay, Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood is at last available for downloading!

What are you waiting for?! Get to it!

Update from Mr Manager ("we just say 'manager'"): Reviews are a bit slow coming this time, as the reviewer's copy was first released late last night. But hey, they're trickling in -- go read The SCUMM Bar's fanboy droolings and World of Monkey Island's musings.

Update: Our own review is now up!

Update by Kroms: There's a few Chapter Five spoilers flying around, so you best be warned about any threads containing the words "Nintendo Power". There's one thread on the Telltale Forums that I can't name (Chapter Four spoilers), but it begins with the words "What Morgan" and is posted by user TheHutt. Try to avoid it if you want to remain spoiler-free for Chapter Five.

A single off the upcoming Mixnmojo album that Mixnmojo has nothing to do with.

When Telltale made and published four episodes of popular series Wallace and Gromit earlier this year, it was Zaarin who stepped-up to review the PC versions of episodes one, two, three and, obviously, not four. Woah. In a shocking twist that could only have come from the heartless conspirators who re-cast Sam and Max, episodes two, three and four were delayed for Xbox Live Arcade as a retort to Zaarin's indiscretion. Twisted arms were twisted further when Bad Asp did not call the Feds after the recasting of Wallace.

I wish I could tell you to buy the episodes, by the way. Even if Peter Sallis's tears have dried - and Bad Asp reminds you that Nick Jameson and Bill Farmer's have not - I don't know much. If Zaarin had reviewed the fourth episode - and I would like to remind you that he has not - then I could whole-heartedly endorse the series. But I can't. It was Zaarin who played them - I myself have not.

What I'm trying to say is: Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures is out on XBLA. Next Wednesday. Did I fool you? You should make-up for that with charity. (Thanks to Custard for the corrections.)

So word on the proverbial street (err, the Telltale Games forum) is that the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine (the December issue, which is on sale now) includes a preview of Tales of Monkey Island Chapters 4 and 5, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood (omg!) and Rise of the Pirate God.

FAIR WARNING for those who seek the issue out: The preview includes some major plot spoilers dished out by Mike Stemmle, as well as some possibly spoilery (and previously unseen) concept art.

Well, that's what this Tweet says anyway; "Heyo, if you want to come playtest the fancy unannounced next TelltaleGame and will be in the SF bay area on saturday, drope me a line-o"

Must be gearing up for an announcement any day now...

If you've been on Telltale or Mojo's forums, then you'll probably know "Bad Asp!" -- he's the guy who wanted to report LucasArts to the FBI for cancelling Sam & Max 2.

Whilst others have forgiven LucasArts and moved on with their lives, Bad Asp! has continued to protest against them, as well as refusing to be appeased by Telltale's Sam & Max seasons, recorded, as they were, with new voice actors for the leading duo.

What does The International House of Mojo do with this controversial corner of the fanspace, a man who has been labelled "nutcase" by many others?

Why, we give him a blog of course!

Mojo might not agree with Bad Asp!'s views (and his blog does not reflect the opinions of the staff) but, whether you love or loathe him, you must at least admit that Bad Asp! has something original to say about LucasArts.

And nobody else is going to say it, are they?

This won't excite you in the way Monkey Island does, but Telltale's third CSI game, Deadly Intent, is available today for PC, Wii and Xbox 360 from online and brick-and-mortar retailers everywhere in North America. If you can't wait for an order to arrive or to make the trip to your local store, you can always buy the digital version straight from Ubisoft. (Edit: Or, you could, if for some reason that version weren't unavailable until the 29th.)

Telltale have (rather belatedly) announced on their blog that this coming Friday will see the release of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood. (Oh noes!)

Clicky for the news and some screenshots! (Do beware of some spoilers, though.)

It's been rumoured and teased for a while, but now we have confirmation: new downloadable content for Brütal Legend is coming, and it's coming November 3rd to both Xbox Live and PSN. Xbox Live owners seem to be getting slightly screwed however, as it will cost 400 MS points, whereas on PSN it'll be free until November 19th, when it becomes £3.99.

The Brütal Legend Tears of the Hextadon map pack expands the Brütal Legend Stage Battle multiplayer experience with two new multiplayer maps. In the first map, Circle of Tears, vile waters have carved a rough-hewn circular battlefield into a forsaken land that players must circumvent to destroy their opponent. In the second map, Death's Fjord, players find themselves on an icy mountain pass with a dense cluster of fans that lie below, waiting to be harvested by those brave enough to capture them without cover from enemy attack. All players who download the new map pack will receive a free axe, the Blade of Ormagöden.

“I play Brütal Legend online every night,” said Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. “And I need more maps! Circle of Tears is named after the crying of my vanquished foes on the battlefield, and Death’s Fjord is obviously a tribute to my Nordic ancestors, and their love of fan geysers and… Well, actually I just thought the name was cool. See you online!

Anyone got any good Heavy Metal-based puns on 'November'?

Dave Grossman has added his annual entry into his Pumpkin House of Horrrors. Called "Death Panel," you can see by scrolling down to the bottom of the page. It's quite the doozy.

Grossman has apparently corrupted his coworkers as well, as the pumpkin cutting mayhem has extended to the Telltale office itself.

A double piece of good news for Wii owners, as both Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan and the eagerly awaited SNES classic Zombies Ate My Neighbours (AT LAST) are now available on the system for download, on WiiWare and Virtual Console respectively.

Hoorah!

After setting the late-night scene on fire Tim Schafer has now directed his ability to talk towards 1up's new podcast, 4 Guys 1 Up.

Tim joins the regular cast for a lengthy discussion about the gaming scene, with plenty of Brutal Legend thrown in too. Wondered how Double Fine came up with all those achievements for the game? It's been driving me crazy, and thanks to this podcast I now know. Tim also talks about his experiences of playing the Brutal multiplayer mode online, and shares his opinion on the recent remake of his first game, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, which he's been playing on his phone. (Guess which mode he prefers.)

The good news for fans of Brutal Legend is that some Heavy Metal DLC sounds possible, although of course nothing can be confirmed. For that we'll have to wait for an announcement on Twitter hyping up an announceme-- oh, wait, scratch that. Sometimes I forget he doesn't work for LucasArts anymore.

So download the podcast! I've not listened to the whole thing, so who knows what other gems are waiting to be found.

Update by Kroms: Tim Schafer interview on Fox News.

Remember that page-long post about Tales of Monkey Island remixes?

Let me tell you: not only has crazy remixer-slash-made-available-for-downloader wdrpgwd made a new one for Chapter 3, she also did one for Largo LaGrande from MI2. ("More an update than a remix.") And at work on something right now.

"Well, she's great," I said, "but who else will answer the call?" And it was Highland Productions who answered, with their amazing remix of "The Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu".

Can you top this? Can you even equal this?

There's no time like the present. Especially considering that you're kind of, sort of, really losing at the moment.

Tim Schafer, of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango fame, recently released Brütal Legend, in an attempt to appease the rock gods of old.

In my experience, "rock and roll" is something one does in a quarry, and "heavy metal" is work for the blacksmith.

But who the dickens am I? Read what our "metalhead" rock expert elTee thought in his insightful review.

The current issue of Game Informer has a new interview with Ron Gilbert on the upcoming Deathspank. If you read it, tell us what's inside.

Electric Playground have an in-depth interview with Tim Schafer on Brutal Legend's multiplayer component.

In more important news, the total number of Monkey Island spoilers in this headline has been zero.

Update: Scans from Icebox. Thank you, Icebox!

Telltale have released four new pieces of concept art for Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood (due out soon!), which we've kindly put up in our Concept Art gallery for the game.

Be warned: there are some slight spoilers.

Edit by ATMachine: Description of the concept art removed to avoid spoilers. If you DO want to be spoiled, click away!

So apparently there's this cartoon on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim called Metalocalypse, about the fictional metal band Dethklok. Well, turns out that in last night's episode a commercial aired last night, Eddie Riggs showed up in a cameo as the band's roadie, and demonstrated his awesome skills of asskickery in the process.

I mean, come on. If you were in a metal band, wouldn't you hire him?

(Thanks to PirateKing for the tip!)

(Special thanks to ATMachine for providing the last image.)

Sam and Max: Season Two (or Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space, depending on what title you prefer) is available for a mere $19.95, for a limited time only (through October 21st).

Update: It's going for the same price on Xbox Live Arcade. If you have not played this, then do.

Penny Arcade are less than impressed with the gameplay mechanics of Brütal Legend, and take Tim Schafer to task after he released a strategy guide for playing the game.

I love rhythm games, but I don't want to play a rhythm game while I'm playing an RTS while I'm playing a third person action game. In the middle of RTS battles, some basic commands require wyldde soloz to be rocked via a timing mechanism, which serves Brutal Legend's theme but not its gameplay, and that's the problem here in general. Brutal Legend is like a spoiled child, afforded every luxury, but grown wild in in the absence of discipline.

Read the whole rant here, and the Kotaku article that spawned it here.

Hey, Europeans: Brutal Legend is out today. Go pick it up, and remember to ignore the reviews that bemoan the RTS elements, because, quite as my grandad used to say: Brutal Legend is not an RTS, dammit. (And what of it is an RTS rocks like Sabbath.)

You might be somewhat relieved to know that the game seems to be doing OK, sales-wise (not that it excuses you from buying it). It's second place on the preorders-disregarded sales chart for Xbox 360. Let's see if we can kick it up to first place, yeah?

Great job all around to EA's world class marketing department.

Last, here's Jimmy Kimmel's interview with Eddie Riggs, as well as four new Brutal Thoughts With Jack Black. They're a tad spoilerish, though, so be warned.

Previously existing only as a splash page, the official web site for Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island now has actual links that lead to destinations. After selecting the flag on the top right of the page to get to the English version, you can poke around yourself, but know that the site features eight screenshots (half of which are new), the general overviews, and a link to the game's forum.

The site suggests that the German version of the game is due out in November (can it really be that soon?) while a date for the English release is still being determined. I suppose anything's possible considering that Bill was tweeting about the game entering the bug fixing phase back in August. Stay tuned!

Check out this interview Playboy did with "Schafes", I guess as a push from "Hef", about the Making of Brutal Legend. I can't tell you if it's spoilerish or not, because I didn't read the whole thing in fear of spoilers. Yes, I haven't played yet. The shame is killing me. (On the other hand, I did buy it! Twice!).

There's also a very spoilerish section on how Ophelia came to life.

Last, but not least: You can play against Tim Schafer himself in Brutal Legend. Add him as a friend on PSN or XBLA, but make sure you have the game first (he won't accept your friend request without you having a copy). He's TimOfLegend.

Update: Here's Tim's (for the extreme among you, sort of spoilerish) response for those bemoaning that Brutal Legend is an RTS: It isn't.

Another Double Fine game has been released, and that can only mean one thing (besides the fact that we've all aged considerably): good times. It's been a long wait, from the first rumors of the game being multiplayer, to the shockingly ironic announcement of the game being published by Sierra, to the even more shocking and ironic development that the game had fallen into the same six month, publisher-less limbo Psychonauts endured following the Activision merger. But after four and half years of waiting, Brütal Legend has arrived on the Xbox 360 and PS3 for all [who own those consoles] to enjoy.

The Europeans, who have only to hang in there three more days, are probably worth a mention too.

The Ubisoft product page for the digital download of CSI: Deadly Intent has changed the projected release date to October 27th, which now makes Ubisoft's estimation reflect that of every online retailer. I'd say that makes the 27th the game's probable release.

Update: And now it is confirmed.

As observed on the newly revamped Double Fine web site, Brutal Legend has received its first review from IGN, which awards the game a 9/10.

Brutal Legend is a tour de force that wraps up humor, music, and clever gameplay into one highly polished package. You haven't played a game quite like this before and won't want to miss it. Tim Schafer is one of the funniest guys in games and Jack Black is one of the funniest guys in movies -- together they'll keep you ROFLing (although the laughs do taper off as you work your way through the game). Brutal Legend isn't quite perfect and there is room for improvement (it's a little short, side quests are repetitive...), but when the credits roll you'll find yourself hoping for a sophomore release.

As the game is out tomorrow and all, expect the reviews to come pouring in at an absurd rate. We'll do our best to keep track of all them for you. (In other words, we'll try and fail, and then you can just depend on Thrik.)

The Tingler Updates: There's another good one at Eurogamer, which is accompanied by a nice interview with Tim Schafer.

After a long delay, Telltale will finally be releasing Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space (aka Sam and Max Season Two) on Xbox Live this Wednesday, the 14th of October. The price is 1600 Microsoft Points.

Telltale are also promising that further episodes of Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures will arrive on Xbox Live starting in November.

So we've all wondered what it's like inside of Double Fine Productions, and now, thanks to 1Up.com, we know. Click here to see the video of Tim Schafer taking a tour of the offices.

Aside from the obviously cool stuff these kind of companies tend to have (free sodas, nice work environment) there's also some nice glimpses of some of Tim's LucasArts memorabilia. Particularly sweet is his 'Grim Fandango coffin' stocked full of copies of the game (Brian Moriarty has a similar 'Loom coffin' in his house, but that's another story...) and the very rare real version of the Secret of Monkey Island poster. I should warn some of the collectors amongst you, though, that you will see a crushed Day of the Tentacle triangle box in this video - not for the squeamish.

So watch! And be jealous. Stay in school, kids.

Steve Purcell is now showing off on his blog his three initial concept sketches for the Tales of Monkey Island cover painting.

(Yes, we know this post is a week late. But here at Mojo we like to say that slow and steady wins the Cheese Squigglies.)

Interestingly, Purcell writes that he was never satisfied with his drawing of Elaine on the Secret of Monkey Island cover. In fact, his pencil layout drawing for the MI1 cover shows that he redrew Elaine, taping a cutout of her revised figure on top of the paper.

(And if you've never visited Purcell's blog, don't forget to check out all the posts under the Pirates label, which includes some character concept art he did for The Curse of Monkey Island, as well as storyboards for an "unidentified" pirate film.)

As AlfredJ pointed-out on the forums: why not call Deathspank? It's the Hero Hotline number on the website and is, in fact, pretty amusing. Call him!

1-866-631-1574.

The game is out, and the reviews are starting to appear.

Perhaps you've already given Lucidity a play -- but if you're still wondering if its worth your time, be sure to read our review by Surplus Gamer.

Here's the deal: if you're going to get Brutal Legend, it's sort of important you pre-order.

If a game gets a lot of pre-orders, everybody gets excited. “Omg, we have a hit on our hands,” they say. And so the sales forecasts go up. When the sales forecasts go up, the marketing budget goes up. That gives you more TV commercials, online and print ads, etc. That leads to more pre-orders, and the cycle continues up and up until you have a runaway monster hit on your hands.

Canadians: It's best to call Best Buy or Gamestop to check if they offer the pre-order deal over there; I'm trying to call them myself to ask. If you have any details, let us know.

Here's a quick run-down of recent news you might have missed, by the way: There are ten Brutal Legend tracks that will available for Rock Band (so much for that Guitar Hero sequel, right Bobby?); "Jack Black" and Tim Schafer recently held a press conference, including some gameplay videos; check out some footage from the recent Brutal Legend special from G4 (who also did the "Final Hours of Psychonauts" thing); an interview with Peter McConnell; and, finally, a list of the stores having a Brutal Legend midnight launch.

Update: Double Fine offices tour, get your tickets here; Jack Black totally hates Uncharted 2 (super minor spoilers towards the end of that video).

GameStop has announced a midnight launch party for the upcoming Brutal Legend, which is to be released in five days in the US - Rocktober 13th. More details here.

(The game hits on Rocktober 16th in Europe.)

I wanted to warn you guys: there's a lot of spoilers flying around, especially with TV ads and so on, so you'll be better off going on a media black-out from now on. If you do come across spoilers, make sure you put a nice, big spoiler tag before sharing; there are others who would rather not know.

It might be a little too early to start a review round-up for games released in the past 24 hours, but what the hell. Eurogamer has put up its review of Lucidity, giving it an 8/10, whereas IGN's take is far more reserved with a 6.3. A pool of two reviews doesn't give us much in the way of a useful consensus, but the game looks like it could do well with the critics. Of course, it'll only cost you $9.99 to find out for yourself.

Republic Heroes fared far worse, with some pretty bad GameRankings averages across the various versions. Oops! Of course, when you're dealing with Star Wars, being a bad game doesn't necessarily make you a flop, but those holding out the reasonable hope for the game to be the next Grim Fandango may have to contend with a slightly different reality.

Another TMI episode is out which means another podcast follows. Udvarnoky, The Tingler, and SurplusGamer recorded a podcast last Sunday discussing Lair of the Leviathan and other related things.

Oh, and we're also on that iTunes thing over here.

Clicky!

The people at LucasArts who brought you the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition have released Lucidity today! It's available through Xbox Live Arcade, Direct2Drive, and Steam. Lucidity sells for 800 Microsoft Points or $9.99, depending on your choice of platform.

Well, aren't you excited? You can get it from LucasArts or anywhere else for just about every platform. LEC is also listing some sort of "Sith Edition" of The Force Unleashed for November 3rd, complete with extra levels, if that sort of thing tickles your fancy.

Over at Ubisoft's digital store is a product page for CSI: Deadly Intent, which, uh, will apparently be available for digital download. The page includes the following statement:

CSI: Deadly Intent is expected to release October 20th, 2009. Release dates are subject to change without notice.

Which makes the date tentative, but it is nonetheless from Ubisoft itself. It would certainly follow in the tradition of Ubisoft giving its CSI games little to no marketing momentum online prior to their abrupt launches, but that doesn't seem to have hurt the sales in the past.

Whenever it comes out, CSI: Deadly Intent will be released by Ubisoft simultaneously for PC, Wii, and Xbox 360. A non-Telltale version for the DS that we don't care about will also be joining them.

The LucasArts Workshop want you to ask them about the upcoming Lucidity, their first original game in ages. I should remind you that the game hits in two days - October 7th - and is available for Xbox Live Arcade and PC (downloadable).

If you're in the need for some insane tunes 50 Cent-style done right, why not listen to fan remixes of the game's soundtrack? And read some good, informative, behind-the-scenes posts while you're at it? (The blog's full of these, but I linked you to some selected ones and am going to hope you don't notice they're all consecutive and recent.)

Update: Questions answered.

Telltale Games are now shipping out the artist-signed poster prints of Steve Purcell's lovely Tales of Monkey Island cover art. If you haven't ordered one yet, now would be as good a time as any.

There's little to say - we've already reported it, and now the date is confirmed: TONIGHT.

What a weird graduation for us all. If one of you doesn't record this, we're closing the site btw.

Update: Site remains open.

Does the world need another LEGO Indiana Jones game? Who knows, but this new trailer looks damn hilarious.

According to theforce.net the game is reported to be out on November 17.

Just a follow-up to the snippet Darrell Rodriguez mentioned in that GameTrailers TV interview about how the Jedi Knight series was coming to Steam and Direct2Drive next week.

There was some confusion about what that would include, but the LucasArts Twitter confirms it will be the entire series. That is: Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy. I'm particularly glad that the excellent Jedi Knight mission pack is on there too.

So, will you be getting any?

JP Update: They're here!

Dark Forces $4.99
Jedi Knight $4.99
Mysteries of the Sith $2.99
Jedi Outcast $9.99
Jedi Academy $9.99

or

Jedi Knight Collection... $19.99!

JP Update II: Some crazy Germans enterprising modder has fixed the 3D Acceleration problem some are experiencing with the Steam release of Jedi Knight (myself included). Simply extract this ddraw.dll file into your game directory (probably c:Program FilesSteamsteamappscommonstar wars jedi knight) and you can ramp up your resolution and turn 3D Acceleration on.

Those of you who've completed the third chapter of Tales of Monkey Island, "Lair of the Leviathan," will be familiar with a puzzle in which Coronado De Cava expects Guybrush to collect 100,000 grubs as part of a plan to escape the manatee's interior. The actual puzzle involves Guybrush coming up with a substitute, but you are nonetheless capable of delivering to De Cava one grub at a time, not unlike the ability to continuously collect a piece o' eight every time you polish the peg leg of one of the Men of Lower Moral Fiber in LeChuck's Revenge.

Well, some fans couldn't help but wonder if Telltale actually allowed for the possibility of coming up with 100,000 grubs (an arduous task estimated by forumers to take a month's time), and, using some sneaky techniques, managed to find out that it is indeed an alternate solution, with Guybrush and De Cava having a short smattering of dialog before the game cuts to the appropriate point later in the game. The proof lies within.

Talk about attention to detail.

Over at Game Trailers, Ubisoft has put up a three and a half minute "Developer Diary" video for CSI: Deadly Intent, wherein the Telltale guys talk about the new features that the game has over the previous installments. Deduce this.

Wooo! Party to save the world! Hey, guys! Awesome party today, so cool it puts the "hip" in "hippie".

"But what are we celebrating?" you say. Why, the release of the Brutal Legend demo! Get out your consoles* and then steal your neighbour's, because - oh man. Listen. We're partying it up for Brutal Legend and all, but also because, well - there's this fire beast that says it'll hit us with the swine flu if we don't download the demo 666 million times. Much like the hippies not saving the world at that Woodstock place mum and dad are always talking about, we're going to try to do this and probably fail too. I mean, Tim Schafer tried arguing with it, explaining that there aren't 666 million consoles in the world (and if we fail there won't be that many humans), but it did put quite a lot of capitals in there, which on the internet means the ARGUMENT IS OVER.

Lots of stuff to do at the party, though. Twitter interviews, live axe lessons, a message from Tim Schafer in his bunker bed. It all goes down in this many hours.

Oh, and hey: Brutal Legend set a new record. After last summer's "Most number of people air guitaring", some fans somehow more insane than I am did this, which they're going to need to escape the city after we're all hit with the swine flu and it all turns into a George Romero movie with a metal soundtrack.

*(Except you, Wii; do you like your non-HD support now? Huh? Huh? Do you even know what MP3 is?)

In commemoration of his 20th year in the games industry, Tim has put up a lengthy post about how he landed his job at Lucasfilm Games in 1989. Although his story - which includes inadvertently revealing that he played a pirated copy of Ballblazer during his telephone interview - is well known to the sort of creeps who read this site, even the most educated scholars of Tim will want to read this, for included are scans of the Lucasfilm Games assistant designer/programmer position posting, Tim's job offer letter signed by Steve Arnold, and even the infamous cartoon resume Tim sent in which he adapted his imagined experiences as a Lucasfilm employee in text-adventure comic form.

I love the 80s!