The International House of Mojo

Ok, so it might seem like we've taken over the role of Double Fine Action News lately, what with all the Double Fine updates and all, but anyway... If you haven't checked out the Action Comics lately (and why haven't you?) you'll have missed the timely return of the captain and Thompson! Obviously the other comics have been updated too, but we're fans of the spacemen.

At least I am. And Jake. ?

Dudes and dudettes: If you haven't checked that huge Psychonauts banner at the top of our site lately (it's that banner at the top of our site, the huge one about Psychonauts), you might have missed the fact that EBGames.com has put in a rather sweet bonus for people who pre-order the excellent game Psychonauts. While supplies last, pre-orderers will get a deck of Psychonauts playing cards, apparently designed in the style of that one black velvet level which features playing cards prominently. Rawk.

In addition, you can now pre-order Psychonauts at EBGames for all platforms (that the game is being released for), rather than just that big black and green one. It's probably safe to say that a lot of Mojo readers are into this kind of promotional tchotchke, so I shouldn't have to remind you how much you want these cards. Just go pre-order the damn game, man. Here are some bonus links if you are averse to scrolling up:

Xbox | PC | PS2, too

Another Psychonauts interview has surfaced, this time from Computer Games Magazine. It's an interesting enough read, and does not include as many spoilers as the IGN preview mentioned below. For those of you who chose not to read that one, it's probably worth mentioning that the Xbox version of Psychonauts now is a done deal, and that the PC version is close to being wrapped up (possibly as we speak).

Hey, so what does that mean? Seven years to the next Tim Schafer game? We don't know, but for now, check out the interview.

Yowza! Yowza. IGN PS2 has a new preview of Psychonauts up on the world wide internet. But hey, this time it's a preview where there's some media and information that some mojo readers probably haven't seen or read already! Wooo!

In Psychonauts: The Saga of Goggalor, IGN says many more good things about Psychonauts, as well as revealing a fair bit of new gameplay where enter the world of Lungfishopolis (a city inside the mind of the camp's resident Lungfish) as a giant, and are assigned the title of GOGGALOR by the city's residents. Without spoiling too much more, I'll just point out that there are several new videos and screenshots included with this feature, so it's definitely worth gazing upon. If you want a lot of spoilers.

Source: Kolzig, Idle Forumite

Unless you're a US college student, of course.

Thanks to Razputin.net for pointing this out: The 2005 Game Live College Game Tour, a small, free, traveling game exposition, is starting to make its way through American universities. Among the 20 or so titles that will be playable at the event is everyone's favorite game, Psychonauts!

To see if your university, or one near you will be a stop on the tour (you don't have to be a student there to attend the event), check out the press release or the Game Live website.

Also Republic Commando will be on the tour, for those interested in Repubic Commando.

Does April 19th just seem to far away? Here are a couple of previews that might tide you over.

Razputin.net brings word of a "new" IGN preview (it's about a week old now, but shhh) which features some positive impressions and some nice new screenshots.

Second we have a generic, but positive write up from GameDaily. Nothing new there, but hey...

Now, if you're a real fanboy, you can call in to Majesco's First Quarter 2005 Financial Results on Wednesday, March 9 at 5pm EST. You can call in at 888-694-4676 or watch the thing from Majesco's web site.

Those who signed up to Psychonauts.com may have already noticed an email from Majesco in their inboxes this morning, called "The Bootcamp Bulletin." Penned by Majesco and possibly Coach Oleander, the Bulletin is a Psychonauts themed newsletter which will be sent out periodically.

If you missed the first issue, we've archived it here, but for future ones I'm sure Majesco would prefer that you sign up on your own and get it in your inbox.

This issue of the Bulletin contains a screensaver, many press clippings, a link to the opening cutscene of the game, confirmation that the upcoming Psychonauts demo will be available for Xbox, PS2, and PC, and scariness. So check it out.

It has been brought to my attention by Marek Bronstring, of the Adventure Gamers website, that Psychonauts.com has had its content significantly beefed up, now sporting twice as many subpages (you can now flip the site's brain over and view whatever's on the right side as well). Now on the site, in addition to the old stuff that was always there, you can view:

• A page for pre-ordering the game.
• Descriptions and photos of many of the main characters.
• A page of Psychonauts Comics! drawn by Scott Campbell.
• Links to Psychonauts fan pages across the Internet. All of which are hosted by us.
• A games page filled with those Magic Eye stereogram things that make your head ache.
• And finally, a pop-up window which Tim is using as spare brain storage for thoughts he doesn't want to bother with.
  
• Also the game is rated T, for Teen.

<:MORENEWS:>Of course all the old stuff is there as well: Screenshots, a sign up page to view the trailer (which you can just get off of Razputin.net if you don't want to sign up), the facts about Psychonauts, a neglected news page, and a lot of press clippings about the game. So you should go take a look at what's new, and the stuff you missed before.

According to a post over on the Razputin.net forums, an Xbox demo for Psychonauts may be in the works, presumably headed to an XBox magazine coverdisc near you. No details are known really, aside from the thought that it "should be done soon." Stay tuned for more on that.

No word on a PC demo, but as Remi says in that thread, a demo on the coverdisc of one of those "official" Xbox magazines is apparently "as effective as getting a good review," so that might be time better spent. Maybe we'll see both though?

Update: Over in the forums it's been confirmed by "Prosky," a tester at Majesco, that the Psychonauts demo in the works is the same one seen recently on Gamespot.

So that means, based on what we saw on Gamespot, we should expect to explore a little bit of Whispering Rock summer camp, and also the game's training/tutorial level: an obstacle-ridden war-torn landscape contained within the mind of the coach.

Gamespot has posted an "impressions" article about Psychonauts. Though it offers little new in the way of information, it does have a short little video snippet that might be worth a look.

Read it all over at Gamespot.

If you've never checked out Gamespot's On the Spot you might have a reason to do so today. Apparently there will be a live preview of Psychonauts which probably is a good thing. Or maybe not, I don't know, I've never actually watched the show before.

The webcast starts at 4pm PST (that's three hours from now) and can be viewed over at GameSpot.

Update: Dude! Tim Schafer himself showed up on the program, demoed the game (showing a nice chunk of gameplay footage), and then plugged Razputin.net! You should really check this video out.

What's this, a new hosted site? Thrik of Grim Fandango Network fame has finally launched his sought after Razputin's Domain, a site covering everything related to Double Fine's Psychonauts. So really, stop reading this, and head on over to Razputin's Domain right now.

In related news, Dig @ Mixnmojo is almost ready to be relaunced as the Dig Museum. Currently there's little more than an audio drama there, but we expect that to change shortly. Check out The Dig Museum now.

The Double Fine Official Action Official Website has updated its comic-publishing technology and relaunched the Double Fine Action Comics section accordingly. Now it features all kinds of PHP3 goodness, navigation thingers, and also new comics. New Comics!!

It's always good to see some people besides us talking about the excellent game Psychonauts, especially a site that gets a lot of traffic and whatnot. Additionally, since these days, pointing out when other people talk about games we're excited for is pretty much what this website is all about, here's some more of that. C'mon, help us reaffirm our social role!

Erm. Anyway, a few days ago, IGN Xbox (pronounced ih-gehnks-bocks) put up an interesting article called "The Fight for Original Games", in which Psychonauts is discussed and praised to some extent, which occurs somewhere around the middle of the article. There's no real new info on the game, but you should probably check out what gets said, anyway.<:MORENEWS:>

The first part talks about some pretty depressing statistics regarding the number of games that were sequels or games based on established franchises from other media (like the upcoming *gaak* Godfather game) compared to the number of games that were original lisences, and (on the Xbox) the stats came out the latter representing less than thirty percent of currently announced upcoming titles in 2005.

They then examine some original titles slated to come out this year, and Psychonauts is the first game mentioned under their "Star Pupils" heading, which I understood to mean as "Games that will likely be awesome, but that they don't expect these titles to seriously compete with established franchieses". Anyway, in regards to Psychonauts, IGN gave it an originality factor score of 5 (out of 5, apparently) and said, among other things:

The game is a tapestry of surreal and psychotic images that play off every ordinary game idea and then twists them into something strange, wonderful, or weird. As originality goes, this is an obvious winner.

So, cool. Again, there's nothing really new about the game, at all, if you've been following our coverage of it for the past few weeks. But the article is pretty interesting all around and might make you irritated and stuff.

Over at BonusStage.com you can find a very current, positive, and worthwhile preview of Psychonauts written by someone who got some actual one on one hands-on time with the game.

The preview talks mostly about the gameplay (something I know people are interested in) and the art direction (something you've probably heard and seen plenty of, but it can't hurt to get a bit more), and touches briefly on the story. Here's a clip:<:MORENEWS:>

Without giving too much of the plot and gameplay goodness away (you really need to play this game to fully grasp it?s "why the heck hasn?t anyone done this before-ness?"), what?s so sweet about the game is how well everything just...flows. Raz?s platforming talents are on par with the best in the genre, yet Psychonauts uses elements from role-playing, adventure, fighting, and action games as well. It?s a thinking man?s (and woman?s) game that?ll make even the most skeptical gamer sport a wide grin within seconds.

Chalk it up to a team and leader with plenty of talent and a host of smashing games created for the PC way back when. Raz can level up and improve his powers by exploring each mind and uncovering figments of imagination, emotional baggage and the keys to unlock them, and what may initially seem to be random bits of information that upon closer examination reveal quite a number of surprising touches.

Wallpaper junkies should also check out BonusStage's Psychonauts art gallery, which contains many high-res concept art and screenshot gems, like this, and this. Anyway check out the full 3-page story here.

Thanks to baconian at the Idle Forms for pointing these out. Majesco has released the system specs required to enjoy Psychonauts on your PC.

In short, at the bare minimum you need a 1.0Ghz Pentium III or AMD Athlon running Win98SE or better, a 64MB GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 or better, and at least 256 MB of RAM. Full minimum and recommended system specs below:<:MORENEWS:>

PC System Minimum Requirements:

• Supported OS: Windows 98 SE/2000/ME/XP (only)
  
• Processor: 1.0 GHz Pentium(R) III and AMD Athlon(tm)
  
• RAM: 256 MB of RAM
  
• Video Card: 64 MB GeForce (tm) 3 or higher or ATI(R) Radeon 8500 or higher
  (except GeForce 4 MX)
  
• Sound Card: DirectX(R) 9.0 or higher compatible sound card
  
• DirectX(R) version: 9.0 or higher (included on game disc)
  
• Hard Drive Space: 4.0 GB minimum hard drive space
  
• CD-ROM: 16X or better
  
• Controls: Windows-compatible keyboard and mouse

PC System Recommended Requirements:

• Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP
  
• Processor: 2.0 GHz Pentium(R) IV and AMD Athlon(tm)
  
• RAM: 512 MB of RAM
  
• Video Card: 128 MB GeForce FX 5600 or higher or ATI(R) Radeon 9600 or higher
  
• Sound Card: DirectX(R) 9.0 or higher and EAX(R) 2.0 or higher compatible sound card
  
• DirectX(R) version: 9.0 or higher (included on game disc)
  
• Hard Drive Space: 6.0 GB minimum hard drive space for full installation
  
• Controls: Game Pad (optional)

Both of those specs are pretty reasonable assuming you've bought a somewhat gaming-ready PC in the last few years. That said, if you haven't updated your PC since Escape from Monkey Island, it's time to pay a visit to your favorite parts store or website.

Well, tie us down and call us Tim Schafer boys, but there seems to be a lot of news about the man himself these days. The latest nugget is a four page story about his D.I.C.E. address, which apparently had a lot of interesting information about LucasArts, Psychonauts and Full Throttle:

So, the team decided to table the issue and just draw the biker gang instead. That should be easy. They could look as cool or as weird as they wanted. They went nuts! Fat guys, skinny guys, crazy-looking guys, on and on. One of those characters somebody drew up really stuck out. He just looked interesting. 'That's the main character!' Schafer remembers realizing. The lead character came about because the art team had tricked itself into taking risks.

The Full Throttle 2 team might have taken this a bit far with all the midgets they seemed to be including. Anyway! Read it all over at GameSpy.

Speaking of GameSpy, they also named Psychonauts one of the 25 most anticipated games of 2005.

With Pscychonauts getting close to completion another new Tim Schafer interview has popped up over at IGN. No real new information about the game surfaces, but there's an interesting portion about possible spin-offs:

We've been approached to do work in other mediums for Psychonauts and we talked to them. I wouldn't want anything bad made with that name on it, you know, I don't want a bad Psychonauts movie made. I would like to write it and be really involved in it. I think it would be a mistake to just kind of sign off and let someone just do something we couldn't be involved in, so we're taking our time with that.

Also there's plenty of information about Tim's beard, which I know you're interested in. Read the whole interview over at IGN.

Get those stalking shoes on; February will be a Tim Schafer month of pandemonium!

First, and you're probably too late for this, he will be speaking at the 2005 D.I.C.E. Summit about "the importance of risk-taking in the creative development of games." D.I.C.E. is apparently the hipper version of the GDC (Game Developer Conference) and it'll end today.

Fret not however, NoMan has let us know that the Tim will also speak at Cogswell College (somewhere in Silicon Valley) on February 12th. This is a "campus event", and I have no idea if it's open to the public, though I'm guessing it won't be too hard to get in regardless. Cogswell apparently is all about "animation, digital motion picture, and videogames, providing a bachelors in art (BA) or science (BS) in these fields".

Oh, and you can still pre-order Psychonauts, as the banner up there might be a testament to.

DO IT!


(do it)

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