The International House of Mojo

Our next E3 preview is of LucasArts' upcoming 100% action, 100% Star Wars, Bounty Hunter. Here's a bit from the preview:

"The game's not about inventory management," the man at the Bounty Hunter display said. "It's not about finding the red, blue, and green card in order to get through the level. It's not about finding keys." And indeed that's what it appears to be. If you encounter a door, you simply use a laser cutter to weaken the door and then kick it down.

While it may be fun, it's probably not every Mojo reader's cup of tea. Read if you like action games, shooting things, and kicking down doors while shooting things.

The LucasArts Fan Network is proud to announce that after being open for six months, LucasForums has passed 50,000 registered members! To all the people that have registered in May, welcome to the community.

If you havn't registered yet, you should!
You can go and talk with all the crazy folks about anything under the sun... and possibly over it.

Seeing as its quite clear who our Daddy is, Full Throttle II receiving over 80% of the votes, we need a new poll.

This time we ask the following:
If in Psychonauts you run through the brains of disturbed individuals, who's brain, and therefore level in the game would be the most Horrific and/or terrifying to be inside?

Last night, Mixnmojo had the privilege of attending a private screening hosted by LucasArts. The event, which was attended by a wide variety of industry professionals and media, began with a slide show demonstrating some LucasArts trivia. Of course, we knew all the answers, despite all the trivia being Star Wars related. The large theater was virtually filled to capacity, and there were a few familiar faces scattered around the room. We saw Tom Sarris, being his usual friendly self, and Tim Schafer was at the screening, which was a pleasant surprise.<:MORENEWS:>

Simon Jeffrey, president of LucasArts, started off the show by talking about the current focus of the company. ?At a time when the industry is standardizing,? Simon began, ?we?re aiming to go back to our roots. Highly creative, original, edgy, and thought provoking games.? After discussing the critical success of last year?s E3 lineup, he reflected on the challenges ahead. ?Our positioning is somewhat in conflict with itself in that we are striving for innovation and creative achievement, while at the same time managing one of the biggest intellectual properties in gaming.?

So what about original gaming? ?We?re showcasing eight games at E3 this year,? Simon continued. ?Four Star Wars games, and four games that aren?t Star Wars. This marks our return to original gaming; part of our legacy, part of our heritage.?

The highlight of the show for Mixnmojo was hearing the crowd reaction to different games mentioned by Jeffery. While the other games were met with half-hearted clapping, once it was revealed that Ben from Full Throttle was returning in a sequel, the crowd erupted with applause. We were then treated to projected game trailers on the movie screen for each of the new titles. Some trailers ended with enthusiastic responses from the audience, while others resulted in quiet reflection.

After the 10-minute presentation, the Episode II screening began. The crowd wasn?t nearly as enthusiastic about the movie as they were the game trailers, but it?s likely that everyone at the screening has already seen the movie. Of course, it didn?t help that the sound broke near the beginning of the movie. Oops.

We?ll be at E3 all day today and tomorrow, so expect more news directly from Los Angeles soon.

The results are in. 67% of you (including myself) really enjoyed seeing Episode II. If you still haven't seen it and are deciding on it, take a look at our reviews here. Here are the full results:

Oh my God EP2 Rules!! - 67%

It had shiny effects.... - 18%

George Lucas can expect a letter from my laywer - 15%

The new poll is up! Now tell us which recently announced LEC game you are looking forward to most. Most of them have trailers up so take a look at them over at LEC.com and respond to our poll question, "Who is your daddy?"

29

Link copied!

It's time for a new poll! After the fat skeleton guy from the CMI cutscene finally pulled ahead after days of dead heat to win 55% to 45% against Largo in the "Who's cooler? Largo or the fat skeleton guy from that one cutscene?" poll, we decided it was time for a new one.

This poll has an E3 focus, asking "Who dared to doubt Simon's 50/50 policy?" For those not in the know, Simon Jeffery, the president of LucasArts, told Mojo readers we could expect about 50% original games this year (after last year's all-Star Wars E3 extravaganza). Needless to say, many were dubious.

"Just how many were dubious," you ask? Well we intend to discover just that. To find the answer, all you need to do is cast your vote down to the right over there!

I'm very happy to report that the one formerly known as Captain Dread (and currently known as MetaFox) has returned to take over the best on-line Grim Fandango fan club ever, the Lost Souls Alliance.

Some of you "old school" Grim Fandango fans will remember that Dread took charge of this site back in 1999, and ran it for about a year before he left the LucasArts community. He's back now, and has also brought back his LucasArts fan site MegaMonkey, which covers many LEC titles. It's great to have him back.

The main page poll is back, finally. We don't know if anyone missed him, but he has returned under the name "El Poll Diablo." Yes, we're so hilarious it hurts my brain.

The first poll (and likely all subsequent polls) is just for fun and has no bearing on anything whatsoever. The question is: "Who's cooler? Largo or the fat skeleton guy from that one cutscene?"

The poll is located directly below the hosted site headlines to the right of this news update. You need to have a Mixnmojo account to vote.

There's a new site at Mixnmojo and that site is SCUMMBag. What is SCUMMBag? It's the pet project of Jimmi Th?gersen (Serge), author of the venerable SCUMM Revisited.

That of course means two things: 1) When a SCUMMBag program does come out it will let you do crazy things you always wanted to do, and 2) there is never a guarantee that a full SCUMMBag program will ever come out at all (so be nice when you harass Serge time and again to finish).

The SCUMMBag site only has a teaser image at the moment, but that should be rectified soon.

Everyone wish DJG, Mojo coder and evil mastermind, a big fat happy birthday! His age is not to be disclosed at his request, but you'd all better wish him a happy birthday or he'll delete your Mojo account. Party!

For those of you who have yet to check out the Mixnmojo forums, or have been out of the loop in the last week or three, there have been several updates to them in the past week.

First of all, they've been thoroughly rearranged to, hopefully, better suit the Mojo community. In addition to this, we've added some new hosted community forums, including dig.mixnmojo.com and SCUMM hacking discussion forums. There are more community forums getting hosted soon, so now is the time to stop by!

As always, we want to hear your feedback about how to serve our readers better, so be sure to post your questions and comments!

Stay tuned for more Mojo community love!

The staff of the MI Art Connection have added a new dimension to their ever-expanding site: Music. They've already gotten a couple of talented people to put up their creations, and they could use some more! One of these musicians is Animutation's Trapezoid, who has been entertaining the Monkey Island community with his LEC-themed songs and remixes for a while now. If you haven't checked out MIAC yet, you really should.

After LEC released some mysterious art in yesterday's Insider, there have been some attempts in the Mojo Forums at guessing what the game might be.

The best so far is mumpizz's Monkey Island/Star Wars Crossover. I'd like to see more of these if anyone can take a stab at it.

You know the site, you know the art, but do you know the URL? Well, now it's miac.mixnmojo.com! Yes, the Monkey Island Art Connection, one of the net's larger dedicated LucasArts fan-created art sites, has come to the Mojo.

We're not actually hosting their site directly, since its backend would eat our server for lunch, but we'll be trying to work together more as time progresses.

If you've never visited the MIAC, do so now, you won't be dissapointed. Also, don't forget to also visit The Brim Stone Beach Club and Mojo Art, two other great MI art sites, as well.

Yes it's been very slack from my end recently, but its time to get that sorted. I need all the hosted / network sites out there to email me so I can make sure I have the correct contact address for you.

In the email please make sure you list anything you need such as the banner code. When I think I have everyone listed I will send out a letter with all the relevant information on living at mixnmojo.

The unfinished sections of Mojo will also be completed in this period of what we like to call 'Mojo Smackdown' (that is unless something insane happens to me... again)

Our own Andrew "telarium" Langley has posted his review of Jedi Starfighter, the PlayStation 2 sequel to the original Starfighter and soon to appear on the XBox. This game combines the original action flight gameplay with new force powers... but is it really worth playing? Find out in the review, and then you can download the Jedi Starfighter gag reel outtakes and music sample.

Want to know what your beloved Mixnmojo staff thinks about Jedi Outcast before you decide to purchase? Then read our review which is located here. Be sure to post your comments on this game as well!

So, no, Monkey Island 5 isn't real. Yet. It was all a poorly orchestrated farce from some bored webmasters and a lovable voice actor. People have asked for the history of our overly-elaborate joke (not to mention the music and any unused lines), so here it is:<:MORENEWS:>

First off there was the leaked "I'm Guybrush" line. Following that was a clip from what appeared to be cutscene audio re-introducing Largo. And, finally today, April 1st, some dialogue between Guybrush and the 2 puppets from EMI surfaced. Of course, it's all lies.

Considering the Monkey Island series' roots in "Pirates of the Carribean," it's only fitting that this years April Fools gag was thought up during a Mojo trip to Disneyland at last year's E3. Originally we were going to turn Mojo into a porn site for the day. Use of the winking Elaine gif was debated and, thankfully, dropped after two seconds of discussion.

Once we realized that idea was idiotic (and disgusting) we settled on forging the existance of Monkey Island 5.

After checking with the appropriate people that the plan was okay to do, we secured the help of Dominic Armato, who was eager to help (yes, it's really him). Following approval from the powers that be and Mr. Armato, we set about writing everything down. Almost all of the dialogue was written by Mojo staff writer Andrew "telarium" Langley sometime in early March.

Dom dissapeared for a month and panic ensued. Finally, on Friday March 29th, recording was completed. For the next two nights Andrew and Jimmi "Serge" Th?gersen from HighLand Productions worked on fixing up music, and editing together the cutscene and puppet bits.

The joke started getting out of hand when World Of MI posted a fake Monkey 5 box by notable fan artist Paco Vink. "Return to Monkey Island" it is! Though not everyone was fooled it was still pretty fun, and we hope you all enjoyed it!

As a bonus, here are some recorded lines we didn't use, as well as the 2 music tracks separated from the dialogue:

• "Return of Largo" cutscene music
  By Andrew Langley and Jimmi Th?gersen
  
  
• "Puppets Reunited" music
  By Andrew Langley
  
  
• "I'm Guybrush" outtake reel (unused lines)
  Written by Andrew Langley, Guybrush voice by Dominic Armato

And, in case you missed them the first time around, here are the three "authentic" "leaked" sound clips from Monkey Island 5:

• "I'm Guybrush Threepwood..." line
  Written by Andrew Langley, Guybrush voice by Dominic Armato
  
  
• "Return of Largo" cutscene
  Writing by Andrew Langley, music by Andrew Langley and Jimmi Th?gersen, Guybrush and Largo voices by Dominic Armato
  
  
• "Puppets Reunited/April Fools" audio
  Writing and music by Andrew Langley, Guybrush voice by Dominic Armato

There's always the failed April Fools ideas. For instance, Jedi Outlaws: Six-Shooter Lightsaber was scheduled to make a guest appearance today but due to the excessive laziness of Mojo staff it didn't happen. However, we do happen to have the theme song for your not so listening pleasure.

Tremendous thanks to all who helped out and weren't credited (and thanks to those who knew about it and kept their mouthes shut!). And, biggest thanks of all to Tom Sarris!

In totally unrelated news: the (British) Queen mother is dead... crazy... to celebrate commemorate the occasion I made a picture of what she will look like on monday as she is ressurected like Jesus was this time approx 2000 years ago. I thought I'd share it with you. Isn't Easter a happy time?

(I, of course, loved the Queen Mother and would never wish to offend her maysherestinpeace so don't anyone get angry ok? :)

I fixed up a couple things on Mixnmojo today that you might want to know about:

First off, in addition to our other news categories, we've added a new category for the sole purpose of covering fan community news. You can get to the community news filter by clicking on a community news post's icon, or from the navigation bar at the top of the site.

And, second, the news@mixnmojo.com email address is working again for news submissions. It's also been added to the list of links at the very bottom of this page. Of course, MojoMessenger also works. That's it!