The International House of Mojo

According to IGN, Mercenaries 2 is being developed, though for some reason there hasn?t been a peep about it out of LucasArts HQ, despite them being listed as the publisher. Check out the official site if you're interested.

Also, Will Write Wright loves Tim Schafer. The man has good taste.

Also also: Idle Thumbs have some neat e3 content up, including a Pod Cast where some people called "Marek" and "Spaff" make fun of the LucasArts e3 line-up. "Traxion!?" indeed.

Plus! There is a video from last year's e3, which is worth downloading if only for the awesome Monkey Island 2 spoof at the beginning. Yargh!

Source: Scummbuddy

You know that Darth Vader game that was rumoured but not announced? Well, it might be in development after all, slated for a 2007 release.

Computer and Video Games.com have some kind of exclusive scoop on the matter, together with news on LucasArts' latest technology. It sounds like they're co-operating with ILM a lot more, which could prove to be interesting for future games, maybe.

The LucasArts web-site has been updated with a big whizzy show-case full of all your most anticipated games. There's... an Indiana Jones game! And... a roller coater simulation! Wow! I love roller coasters.

And... Traxion? What the hell?

Oh, and LucasArts are also hiring, presumably to refill the places of all the people they sacked!

Voodoo Extreme has listed LucasArts E3 Lineup;

Indiana Jones 2007
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
Thrillville
Traxion

So, no Mercenaries sequel and no Vader game. However Thrillville is a Roller Coaster sim!

Read blurbs on each title here.

Source: Voodoo Extreme

Total Video Games today confirms that the speculation was right. LucasArts is expanding its Mercenaries franchise with Mercenaries2: World in Flames.

"While the original Mercenaries'(TM) high-octane, go anywhere, do anything and blow the crap out of everything style was a hit with gamers, the whole experience was screaming to run on next-generation game systems," explains Pandemic CEO Andrew Goldman. "And while we're building on the core mercenary experience we created for the original, we've taken full advantage of next-gen technology to offer a more richly detailed, reactive, living world than gamers have ever seen before."

More to be revealed at E3, naturally.

Source: Total Video Games

Man. This sequel looks bloody great! Even better than the first LEGO Star Wars game, which is a classic in itself.

The trailer info page on starwars.com

Direct link to downloadable QT file. (~30MB)

And what 'event' is Jim Ward tying this game release to? Why the DVD release of the Original Original Trilogy.

Han shoots first. On DVD! At last!

Source: starwars.com

As well as the first public showing of Indiana Jones? and the Power of Euphoria? at E3 on May 10-12 and the probable first showing of LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy, it seems that an expansion pack for the latest Star Wars RTS Empire at War will be announced. There was a tipoff here on the LucasArts forums a few days ago;

We've been preparing for E3 and it's been a wild crazy ride. If anyone is going to E3 in a couple of weeks, stop by the LucasArts booth and check out the line up for this year. There are some really great games in the works including more stuff in store for Star Wars: Empire at War.

Also there has been a passing mention of Vader's backstory in a recent Jim Ward interview which gaming sites everywhere have taken to mean that there is a Darth Vader game in the works. Ward has also mentioned in the past year that he would like to see Mercenaries become an ongoing franchise, so it won't be any great surprise if a Mercenaries sequel is announced.

A few snippets of LucasArts news have gone unreported... until now!

1. The words "MONKEY ISLAND" are currently on the LucasArts homepage! In a survey! In a survey for "least likely E3 game announcement".

2. A new Star Wars game was released. Empire at War is LucasArts latest stab at an RTS title. It was developed by Petroglyph who house a number of the Westwood Studios alumni. The game has garnered generally positive reviews, but appears to lack that spark that would make it into a classic of the genre.

3. Yippee! One of the most anticipated Star Wars games since the original Knights of the Old Republc, LEGO Star Wars is on its way. Lots of gaming sites are redistributing the LucasArts articles and new screenshots are appearing regularly. The forthcoming Original Trilogy LEGO Star Wars game will feature a number of improvements over its predecessor, including the ability to mix and match parts to create your own playable minifig character (including the ability to import the 50 or so characters from the first game). The vehicle levels are no longer rail shooters. And the bonus kits are flyable / drivable this time around.

4. E3's coming up. No doubt LEGO Star Wars and the next Indiana Jones game will be demoed. Expect another anouncement or two, perhaps another Mercenaries game. And another Star Wars game, possibly one based on the exploits of Darth Vader between episodes III and IV.

5. Some stuff is happening with the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. It's either being dumbed down or being made more interesting and fun, depending on which side you are listening to.

TheGreyMatter over on the adventuregamers forums has spotted an incredible piece of Day of the Tentacle fan art by Mutajon at hebrewquest.com.



Neat!

Source: Hebrew Quest

So says IGN. Pointing out that thus far next-gen games offer nothing new except for some extra bells and whistles, they for some reason seem to think that LucasArts' decision to make the upcoming Indiana Jones game employ "euphoria," a new animation technology that allows you to do incredibly innovative things like make your enemies' reactions to your attacks more realistic (WOW!), will change all that. IGN, which says that it has the "potential for a new kind of gaming experience," and LucasArts which proclaims that "It's what next-gen is about," seem to be pretty excited.

So yes. This certainly proves that developers are finally starting to learn that it's unique core gameplay, and not real-world AI improvements that make a game stand out. I don't know what we'd do without companies like LucasArts constantly pushing this industry forward. Hopefully the actual, you know, game is cool too.

Update: Here's LucasArts' Press Release on the new Indy game and the euphoria technology. LucasArts will demonstrate euphoria in action when it debuts its next-generation Indiana Jones game on May 10-12 at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, CA.

Yes, yes. It has been revealed in this New York Times article (free subscription required) that LucasArts head-honcho Jim Ward is a huge fan of that Disneyland ride. Also revealed is that LucasArts won't be able to rely on Star Wars so heavily any more, and that there is a yet-unnanounced in-house Star Wars game currently being developed (possibly based on Darth Vader). And there's another Indy Jones game in the works, though that has been known for some time.

But hey, what's a Pirates of the Carribean fan to do when he's looking for non-Star Wars IP to develop at his video-game company? What indeed?

Source: New York Times

Well, practically. Of course, there is no Monkey Island 5 in production, but there are no good games in production either. This has been on the cards for some time, but today it gets just that bit closer. What does this really mean for our once-favourite company?

Well, it can't be good. Games based on movies are almost as bad as movies based on games, and in my opinion this is ILM's way of saying to movie distributors: choose us instead of WETA and we'll make you a game too!

Which of course, makes their simply dynamite marketing department's life a lot easier.

Source: IGN

Once upon a time there was a web site called The SCUMM Bar which had a bunch of Monkey Island related stuff on it. It was kind of sweet, but then Gabez decided to close it down. Apparently there weren't enough goths reading it or something, I can't quite remember.

Anyway! Just before it closed, and we're talking about a day before or something, an ex-LucasArts employee sent me this "Escape from Monkey Island pizza orgy questionnaire" he filled out. The pizza orgies are where other LucasArts employees can chime in on fairly early playable builds of upcoming games. Or so I think, please correct me if I'm wrong. It's worth a read anyway, so make sure to check it out.

After taking on all the risk on the quirky LEGO Star Wars game last year and pulling off an estimated amazing 3 million units in worldwide sales, publishers Eidos have been cut out of the action on the recently revealed LEGO Star Wars 2 (Original Trilogy) game according to this report on IGN.

A glarey magazine scan confirming details of the game (building your own vehicles, fully customisable playable characters etc.) featuring a LEGO X-Wing skimming the Death Star surface and a wonderful homage to the original iconic Hildebrandt Star Wars poster is being pulled from various gaming and LEGO sites by crack legal teams right now. You may still find it floating around various forum threads if you're lucky.

Source: IGN

Oh how we were angry when LucasArts president laid off screeds of employees, dropped all internally produced titles, cancelled bonuses and rushed games out to coordinate them with big Star Wars events such as movie and DVD releases.

But, from a financial standpoint at least, those decisions have turned out to be a godsend for the formerly struggling Lucas division. The San Francisco Business Times reports;

The San Franicisco-based video game unit of Lucasfilm produced record-breaking sales last year, generating praise for Jim Ward, who became president in May 2004 and immediately retooled the formerly flagging company.

LucasArts had long been criticized for relying on overused "Star Wars" material for its games, but 2005 turned out to be stellar time for any game based on the sci-fi franchise. "Star Wars" titles accounted for four of the five top-selling Hollywood-licensed games in North America last year, according to industry tracker NPD Group. The same four titles were the only movie-based games to push into the overall top 10.

So, with all that money rolling in, it must be a good time to finally get cracking on Monkey Island 5. Right? Right?

Source: San Francisco Business Times

Even if it's worth mentioning for no other reason than because it's been centuries since anything not Star Wars related has appeared on the LucasArts web site, it might interest you to check out this week's member poll. Why? Because it asks what your favorite "classic" LucasArts game is, with choices such as RTX, Wrath Warth Unleased, and a few of those adorable adventure games, too. Go vote so you can support some pathetic hope that the results will elicit something other than sarcastic pity from LucasArts management.

Well, yes it is a Star Wars game, but the development house "Petroglyph" is made up largely of the old Westwood RTS team who have been know to put out a decent game or two in their time.

Will the release of "Empire at War" usher in a new era of Star Wars strategy games? The ones released so far have all met with mixed reviews.

We'll get our first hands-on taster of "Empire At War" on January 18 when the demo is released. Keep your eye on the official site for more details and download locations.

The full game is due out on February 16.

Source: LucasArts

A LucasArts Christmas Postcard is seen here, which is showing the company's move to the Presidio from Marin County. When inspecting it more closely, the postcard artwork is very similar to the art and characters that is seen on Lucasfilm.com's website.

I won't say anything about the lack of LucasArts adventure characters on the card, or even that it lacks snow and xmas hats. Write in the comments what film and game characters you can spot.

Also, if you are interested in seeing more christmas postcards from the past, then visit the toysrgus.com site.

Happy Holidays!

The author of the Lucas Empire history "Droidmaker", Michael Rubin, has generously put Chapter 18 of his book up as a free pdf download on his blog.

Lucasfilm didn't launch its Games Group (later Lucasarts Entertainment) until years after the Computer Division was underway -- so it doesn't enter the story until Act III (Chapter 18). To satisfy the curiosity of games historians, I'm also adding a FREE CHAPTER 18 here, for download, to give you a taste of that late chapter. This chapter chronicles the rise and supremacy of Atari, and the deal with Lucasfilm that created the Games Group and so on.

Some things might not be perfectly clear, and some characters apparently not introduced, but hell, you're 280 pages into the book at this point, and you have to expect you've missed a few things. Still, I think it can be followed.

Go get it here... after you look at the Sam & Max goodness (see below) on Telltale's site, that is!

Source: The Droidmaker Tour

The Plunder 3D team have added weapons to their Monkey Island inspired Unreal Tournament mod, and, yes, you will be able to throw Murray at chickens to make them explode.

What?s more, top UK gaming magazine PC Zone featured Plunder 3D in their December issue, saying that it looks "fairly intriguing" and printing a couple of the lush screenshots. I?m without a scanner at the moment, but if some dedicated Mojo reader wants to scan-it-up then I?m sure it would be appreciated (I?m looking at you, Tingler!)