The International House of Mojo

You ever wondered why we have adverts on this site? Well, it?s to make money of course. Every time you visit us the big companies pay us vast fortunes because they want you, our glorious readers, to buy their products. All this money (and we?re talking gold and silver here) gets put into a big fat fund which we use for important excursions like, you know, e3 and stalking Ron Gilbert. Anyway, this year all the wonderful money went to me and I took it all in a big suitcase with a dollar sign on it to Crete to have a whizzy-jolly time. It was all in the name of research, though; I was really reviewing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Found out how I got along on my holiday research trip here!

And incidentally, our thumbnail generator is broken because, as Remi puts it, of those "God damn LFN Nazis" - so you?ll just have to make do with broken images whilst I go for a fly in Ron Gilbert's old plane (bought of off him with Mojo funds, naturally)

elTee recently decided to put on his nostalgia boots, and hike up the trail of LucasArts Memorabilia. Will your Day of the Tentacle trianglular box one day be worth as much as an original King Kong poster? elTee investigates.

Back in ?99 LucasArts had a stab at getting onto the action adventure bandwagon and cashing in on the Lara Croft craze with Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Now, six years later, we review it. And if you?ve played the game then don?t forgot to drop a comment or two for good measure. Wic-chu!

Long-term readers may remember that last year I wrote an article called Evolve or Die over at the good old SCUMM Bar, about how adventure games should change to have more action and RPG elements in them. Well now I've written a follow-up to said article about how other games like shooters and strategy games could do with the puzzles and character/plot emphasis of the adventure genre - in other words, why more games should be like Psychonauts.

My argument is probably illogical and poorly thought out, but at least it wasn't written when I was drunk on tea and doesn't contain quite as many wanking references as my Star Wars reviews. Read the whole damn thing here, and don?t forget to drop a few comments with your own opinions.

What happens when you drink 17 cups of tea in one go? Most people go on a killing spree and end up getting strangled by a paedophile, but Gabez wrote six Star Wars reviews instead. Six Star Wars reviews for Six Star Wars films. In retrospect and reference to the prequels. You do the math.

Lynn Scully has advised me to release each film review on a daily basis, so check back every day this week to see what I thought of each film. Most Star Wars reviews were written ages ago, but these ones have the advantage of freshness and obscure cultural references. They may also persuade you to have a Star Wars back to back watchathon like I did yesterday. I nearly died.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Episode IV: A New Hope

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Next week: something not Star Wars related.

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We know a lot of Mojoers are sick of Star Wars games, but just saying that they're bad isn't going to do much. That's why this week's article is all about why a lot of Star Wars games suck, and what can be done about it. Don't forget to drop a comment if agree and want to cuss Star Wars games up, or even if you disagree and think we're being too harsh.

Whatever the case, leave your thoughts and maybe LucasArts will read them and bring back Sam & Max!!!!11

The Summer of Mojo continues with our review of Lego Star Wars: the video game!

No doubt most of you are pretty sick of Star Wars games right now, especially ones that look like cheap spin-offs for children. But wait, don?t throw on the sceptical specs just yet; Lego Star Wars is actually worth a second look. More than a second look, in fact - but to find out more you?ll have to read our review. Remember, you do like Star Wars games... you can go about your business... move along now...

You?ve seen the film now play the game - but read our review first!

To kickstart the Summer of Mojo we?ve taken a look at the official Star Wars Episode III game from The Collective. Sure, it looks pretty, but can it live up the hype? Find out be reading the review here, and may the force be with you.

Wow! First news drought in awhile at the Mojo. There's nothing too substantial going on that's worth reporting in this post, but we are, in fact, still alive. Hope everyone is playing the hell out of Psychonauts! That game has dominated our news for the past few months, but now that its out, things worth reporting have been harder to find.

However, the Double Fine team seem to be back from vacation, since the DFAN page has been updated, and a few new comics from Scott C have popped up. No mention of Psychonauts related news or any upcoming projects, but go there anyway!

E3 is less than a week from now (and we're going)! Surprisingly, LucasArts didn't make a special page for their upcoming wares this year. I think the big titles will be Battlefront 2 and Empire at War, both of which seem promising, but it's weird that there's no mention yet of the expo on the official site.

Always on the horizon are Bone from Telltale and A Vampyre Story from Autumn Moon, there's just nothing to report on at this moment. So, sorry for wasting your time!

Mojo is on some sort of roll - we just can't stop writing articles! Well, Remi can't, as he's just filed a review for Psychonauts. What does he have to say for himself?

I know many of you will not take the time to read this review, and I honestly can't say I blame you. We've been covering Psychonauts for so long that you probably have already made up your mind about getting the game or not. In fact, I bet most of you will just glance up at the score, snicker "I knew it" sarcastically, and go on with your lives. And I'm ok with that.

But don't let that stop you. Read it anyway!

Those who poke around the Internet a bit or read gaming magazines might have read about the "i am 8 bit" gallery showing of a bunch of videogame-inspired art, which opens tomorrow evening in LA.

What you may not have noticed is that Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell has a piece in the show, themed around the classic game Sinistar (if you're unfamiliar with Sinistar you can play the game here on Shockwave.com). Steve Purcell was nice enough to send us a picture of the painting for those of us who can't make it to the show.

For those who will be in southern California in the next month, the show definitely looks worthwhile. i am 8 bit runs April 19th through May 20th, at Gallery Ninteen Eighty Eight, 7020 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA.

In a predictable announcement, the staff of LucasArts news site The International House of Mojo have revealed that, once again, they have no wily april fools joke up their sleeve with which to entertain their readers.

"Sorry about that, we blow," said the entire staff. "But wasn't it awesome that one time like four years ago when we actually tried?"

The staff is of course referring to that one good April Fools joke from 2002 they can't stop talking about, when they fooled like one guy (Murray Mint) and possibly confused a Dutchman. "Those were good times," the staff reminisced, "Everybody loved that joke so much that we think it's probably worth wheeling out every single year."

"I think Jake is maybe under the impression that the Monkey 5 thing is a tad funnier than it really is," conceeded Metallus, webmaster of Tim Fandango, or was it Razputin.net, or was it Idle Thumbs? "Because let's be honest here, nothing can top 'The International House of Xbox.' LOL."

"You guys need to shut up because I hate you," said Gabez, maybe. "Also games need to evolve or die," he added for no reason.

Our very own David Eggers (by night known as Metallus) has put Telltale Texas Hold'em through its paces, and documented the experience in a pulitzer-worthy review (which he claims to have written in a complete stupor at 2 in the morning). What does he have to say about this pokery pre-Bone offering from Telltale Games? Find out!

And, as a bonus, if you hate what Dave has to say about the game, our own Remi Olsen, "the other staffer," has written a competing review! Who is best? Only you can decide.

If you live in the US odds are you either have today off, or are bitter that you don't, because today is Presidents' Day, a day in which we're supposed to honor presidents of the past, and possibly present, but maybe not so much the latter.

In celebration of this glorious national holiday, Gamespot has put together a quick video montage of presidential appearances in video games. As you might imagine, Day of the Tentacle makes an appearance. Hope everyone in the US is enjoying what's left of the holiday.

Okay, maybe the late 20th century. Remi of Scumm Bar fame has whipped up a proper RSS feed for the Mojo, so you can up with the blinding pace that's lately overtaken the usually-stagnant news page!

And as a bonus, Firefox users (and others, but who needs others?) can click the little orange button in the bottom right corner and subscribe to Mojo news as a live bookmark. Totally hot!

Bonus note from Remi: "You might mention that I've only tried it in Firefox's Sage extension and Thunderbird." So, watch out for that. But it probably works. That's what the "RS" stands for.

Update: Mojo reader spinooti (also known as former Mojo news updater Tabias) has set up a Mojo News LiveJournal feed, for those of you who are hopelessly addicted to that sort of thing and want to wake up each morning with Mojo in your friends list.

A new article. It's been so long, we feared we'd forgotten how. And we had.

We eventually remembered, though, how to work our own website, and after a year and a month (almost to the day) without a new article, we're proud to present Mixnmojo's review of LucasArts' latest offering: Mercenaries, penned by the Scumm Bar's own Remi Olsen.

Does Remi love the game like the rest of the gaming press, or does he hate it like the bitter adventure-loving fanboy that he is? Or neither!? You must read on, dear, and find out for yourself.

Some might have seen Trunks' comment about this in an earlier news post, and we can now confirm it: one of the news tickers in a Mercenaries cut-scene reads "Omaha, NE: Cancellation of 'Sam & Max' causes prison riot; National Guard called in to quell uprising."

Mercenaries was of course announced just after the cancellation of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, much to the wrath of Mojo and its readers. Still, seems like kind of a strange thing to put in a cut-scene, seeing that LucasArts has quietly removed the press release regarding the cancellation.

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Top three most popular dog names? Number one... Sam! Number two... Max! Number three... Jake. Spaff, Guybrush, Indiana nowhere to be found. That is all.

Over the last few months we've been gradually improving the Mojo games database. I'd just like to show our readers some of what we've done.

First, there's a recent update regarding Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, a canceled graphic adventure from the early 1990's which was supposed to be a sequel for Fate of Atlantis. The general plot overview is that Indy goes hunting for the Philosophers' Stone in 1947 Germany, in order to stop a madman who wants to create legions of undead Nazi warriors.

Anyways, I've added a detailed description of Iron Phoenix's storyline, taken from its four-issue Dark Horse Comics adaptation. Go have a read, and marvel at what could have been.

Next, we've uploaded some screenshots and concept art from the late Sam & Max: Freelance Police and Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels, as well as a few unused background images from the PC CD version of Loom.

Finally, all the images from early versions of The Dig that I posted several months ago on the Mojo forums are now located in the game's Concept Art gallery. There's also a lot of info about the early designs' plot and puzzles in the Dig database entry, so if you haven't seen it already, take a look.

That's it for now. We'll keep you posted if anything else interesting pops up.
(Also, my first news post! Yay for me.)