The International House of Mojo

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hot on the heels of the last batch of shots, we've got seven new pictures from the upcoming Psychonauts. As usual, for those of you who don't know, Psychonauts is the new game from Tim Schafer (creator of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango) and gang at their new game studio, Double Fine Productions. Read our preview of Psychonauts here.

These shots are primarily from an excellent story about Psychonauts and life at Double Fine that ran in a recent issue of XBox Nation magazine, now reprinted here digitally. If you get the chance you should definitely pick up the current XBN, as their article reads like a good version of our Double Fine story.

Anyway, click and enjoy. (Unless you're trying to stay spoiler-free, of course. If so, don't click, and start squinting now so you can't see the thumbnails.) These are some nice ones.

Another Friday has come and gone, meaning there has been another LucasArts.com update. The Clone Wars product spotlight has several new goodies, although none of them are terribly interesting. In Bounty Hunter news, you can now view the ILM-animated intro cutscene over at StarWars.com. There is also a new Bounty Hunter screenshot here, demonstrating how you can pick up some optional bounties in the game to earn extra cash (or credits or whatever.) And last but not least, you can look at some pretty cool new concept art at the RTX Red Rock product spotlight. Weeee!

Even though voice actor Doug Lee has portrayed Indy in Fate of Atlantis and Infernal Machine, it was not publically known if he would return to play the same character in The Emperor's Tomb. We even asked several LucasArts employees about this at the summer press event, and none of them were able to provide an answer. However, Lee's credit page on The Internet Movie Database indicates that Lee will return to voice Dr. Jones in the new game. Of course, who knows just how reliable IMDb actually is, since it also claims that Hal Barwood is directing the title.

In addition to our previous report that the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb may be facing a delay, new evidence has emerged. boeffl points out that the official Emperor's Tomb website now lists the release date as spring 2003. This would contradict the original release date of fall 2002. We'll just have to wait and see what the official word from LucasArts will be.

TheForce.net has obtained a scan of this article from Animation Magazine. The article discusses voice acting in video games and focuses on some of the upcoming LucasArts titles (mostly Bounty Hunter). Here's a quote from Darragh O'Farrell, voice department manager at LEC:

"Every project throws us some kind of curveball. We're always looking for Star Wars movie soundalikes, or in the case of Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb we needed to find actors who could speak Cantonese and Mandarin. So we're kept pretty busy."

They also have to find someone who can replicate the performance of the late Roy Conrad in Full Throttle. Be sure to read the full article for a bit of a glimpse into the game voice acting process.

Microsoft and gang were kind enough to hand over three nearly-new screenshots from Psychonauts. These screens apparently originally appeared in this months EGM magazine with an accompanying article which you might want to pick up and read.

In the interests of spoilers, potential retardation, and saving face I won't attempt to guess at what the screenshots contain. We have, however, made some desktop wallpaper out of the middle shot. Grab it here as 640 for the lil'uns, 800 and 1024 for us normal folks, or 1600 for those with The Big Screen. ...Arr!