The International House of Mojo

The first gameplay footage from the next-next-gen Indiana Jones game is posted on IGN.com, though you'll get a bit more info and screencaptures by heading over to The Indy Experience first.

The video also included a cool walkthrough of some of the levels in the new Indy game, including locations such as Istanbul and China. While the video quality is not the best, you can certainly tell that this is going to be an impressive Indy game to say the least.

Source: The Indy Experience

More details on the Indy Game have been revealed at 1Up.com.

"Although it won't be a prologue per se, you can expect story seeds that tie to the new film. Those will include cinematics from the new film to help flesh out the plotlines... In the movies, Indy doesn't use the whip thousands of times. It's a signature tool he uses to pull himself out of particularly tough situations in spectacular fashion. Plan on seeing it used the same way in the game. You won't be whipping through environments like some sort of Castlevania game.

So, an internally developed title regarding the franchise LEC President Jim Ward mentions at every opportunity. More realistic use of the whip. Let's hope it's Insanely Great.

Source: 1Up.com

Hot on the heels of the mercenaries2.com discovery, theforce.net forum's Indy3 uncovers that Microsoft has just registered STARWARSJEDIMINDTRICKS.COM.

It's quite odd that LucasFilm hasn't registered it.

Speculation that it's going to be an xbox360 title is probably good. Speculation that you will need to stick electrodes on your forehead to play it is probably bad.

Not shockingly, LucasArts has announced that a brand-spanking new Indy game will be available for the "next-gen consoles."

Powered by the next generation in console technology, Indy?s back and better than ever! Created internally by LucasArts, the yet-to-be-named Indiana Jones video game sends the iconic archaeologist on his most epic adventure yet. In 2007, the strength of the upcoming systems presents players with incredibly realistic, detailed environments that will span the globe. They?ll experience an interactive story unlike any that?s ever unfolded before them, as well as a noticeable evolution in physics and artificial intelligence.

Well, ok, that doesn't really say a whole lot, but Indy games tend to be fun, so keep an eye out for this one.

In other news, there will be a PSP version of Star Wars: Battlefront II, and Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience and Star Wars: Empire at War are still due to be released. I don't know if that's news as such, but anyway. Check out the press release for more info.<:MORENEWS:>

LUCASARTS ANNOUNCES NEXT-GENERATION INDIANA JONES GAME AND ITS PLANS TO ENTER THE HANDHELD MARKET WITH A PSP VERSION OF THE EAGERLY ANTICIPATED STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II

OTHER UPCOMING HITS INCLUDE STAR WARS GALAXIES: THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE AND STAR WARS EMPIRE AT WAR

Electronic Entertainment Expo ? Los Angeles, CA ? May 18, 2005 ? LucasArts revealed today that Indiana Jones? will once again don his famous fedora with a new video game set for release on next-generation consoles in 2007. The company also announced its intention to enter the handheld gaming market, with a Sony PSP? version of Star Wars Battlefront? II set to join the previously unveiled PlayStation?2 computer entertainment system, Xbox? video game system from Microsoft and PC versions this Fall. Also coming to the PC platform are immersive online adventures in Star Wars Galaxies?: The Total Experience (May 24, 2005) and the power to command galactic forces in Star Wars Empire at War? (Spring 2006).

?As gaming consoles head into the next generation, so too do our development teams,? said Jim Ward, President of LucasArts. ?Our teams are truly embracing the incredible power of these systems, not only with amazing graphics but also, more importantly, with unforgettable story-driven adventures starring fascinating characters like Indiana Jones. At the same time, titles for the revolutionary new handheld systems are something we know gamers want, and we?re excited to enter this field.?

LEGACY OF HITS
A recent series of hit releases has blasted LucasArts to its most successful era in nearly 25 years as a company. Just two weeks ago, it released the Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith video game on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, which has become the fastest-selling title in LucasArts history. Prior to that, the well-reviewed squad-based shooter Star Wars Republic Commando ranked as the No. 1 Xbox release for March 20051, and the playground of destruction found in Mercenaries blew the living crap out of the system-wide charts en route to becoming the best-selling game of 2005?s first quarter1 (also proving that not every LucasArts game needs Star Wars in the title to be a hit). In September 2004, Star Wars Battlefront became the best-selling Star Wars game of all time after being released in concert with the Classic Trilogy DVD set and receiving rave reviews. Finally, the award-winning Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic series has given players a whole new way to experience the temptation of the dark side of the Force, as the 2003 original netted more than 40 Game of the Year awards2 and the 2004 sequel (subtitled The Sith Lords) received further acclaim.

BREAK OUT THE HAT AND WHIP
Powered by the next generation in console technology, Indy?s back and better than ever! Created internally by LucasArts, the yet-to-be-named Indiana Jones video game sends the iconic archaeologist on his most epic adventure yet. In 2007, the strength of the upcoming systems presents players with incredibly realistic, detailed environments that will span the globe. They?ll experience an interactive story unlike any that?s ever unfolded before them, as well as a noticeable evolution in physics and artificial intelligence.

SIZE MATTERS NOT
LucasArts will finally unleash its first handheld game this fall. While other companies have released handheld Star Wars games in the past, Star Wars Battlefront II for PSP is the first to actually be published by LucasArts.

Developed by Savage Entertainment, Star Wars Battlefront II for PSP is similar to its recently announced console counterpart (see below) with space combat, playable Jedi, and Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith content, yet it still boasts several distinct features meant to embrace the ?on-the-go? nature of a handheld system. The game includes several unique mini-campaigns as opposed to the much longer campaign seen on consoles. Players can join the Rebellion as a smuggler, work for themselves as a mercenary for hire, or use their Imperial sniping skills to rid the galaxy of pesky species like Jawas, Ewoks and Gungans. Wi-Fi compatibility permits up to four players to join in at once, either cooperatively or competitively, and they can also partake in classic Instant Action mode to fight their favorite Star Wars battles any way they want to.

THIS IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS
?Even as the industry prepares for the next generation of consoles, it?s important to recognize that current systems are still very relevant and that the PC platform remains as strong as ever,? said Vice President of Product Development Peter Hirschmann. ?Upcoming releases like Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience and Star Wars Empire at War demonstrate LucasArts? commitment to satisfying the huge install base of both markets, which we?ll continue to do for the foreseeable future.?

Set for a Fall 2005 release on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC platforms, Star Wars Battlefront II takes the best-selling Star Wars video game of all time one Imperial-walker step forward with all-new space combat, playable Jedi, and never-before-seen environments straight out of the Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith film. Fans of the original Star Wars Battlefront will also enjoy an all-new single-player experience that takes players through an epic, story-based saga where every action the player takes impacts the battlefront and, ultimately, the fate of the Star Wars galaxy. Critically acclaimed Pandemic Studios is once again developing the game for LucasArts.

Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience collects Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed and Star Wars Galaxies: Episode III Rage of the Wookiees into one affordable package. The immersive online experience brings the worlds of Star Wars to life through the eyes of their most heroic character?you! Team up with fellow adventurers playing online?thousands play at any given time?as you explore 11 space zones and planets like Tatooine, Naboo and the Episode III Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk. Develop your own character from 10 highly customizable species, and choose from over 30 professions. Also, command your own starship and recruit a crew comprised of the friends you've made playing the game. The collection is developed by Sony Online Entertainment and ships on May 24, 2005.

Star Wars Empire at War puts the power to command an entire war for the Star Wars galaxy in the hands of players, giving them the freedom to determine how they play the game within the completely scalable and accessible gameplay. Set a few years before the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, LucasArts? new PC game lets players wage war on ground and in space, as well as experience the creation of the Rebel Alliance, the strengthening of the Empire and the beginnings of the Galactic Civil War. Players choose to join either the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire, building and setting up tactical forces to unleash upon the enemy in real-time 3D. Memorable Star Wars hero characters can be brought into the action to help turn the tide of the battle as players build, manage and upgrade their space and ground-based units, vehicles, troops and base structures. Las Vegas-based strategy veterans at Petroglyph developed the game, which is scheduled for release in Spring 2006.

For more information, keep your eyes on www.lucasarts.com.

About LucasArts
LucasArts, a Lucasfilm Ltd. company, is a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide for video game console systems, computers and the Internet. Based in Marin County, Calif., as well as on the Internet at www.lucasarts.com, LucasArts was created in 1982 by George Lucas to provide an interactive element to his vision of a state-of-the-art, multifaceted entertainment company.

Lucasfilm Ltd. is one of the world's leading film and entertainment companies. Founded by George Lucas in 1971, it is a privately held, fully integrated entertainment company. In addition to its motion-picture and television production operations, the company's global activities include Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, serving the digital needs of the entertainment industry for visual-effects and audio post-production; and Lucas Licensing, which manages the global merchandising activities for Lucasfilm's entertainment properties. Additionally, Lucas Online creates Internet-based content for Lucasfilm's entertainment properties and businesses. Lucasfilm's motion-picture productions include five of the 20 biggest box-office hits of all time and have received 19 Oscars and 53 Academy Award nominations. Lucasfilm's television projects have won 12 Emmy Awards. Lucasfilm Ltd. is headquartered in Marin County, Calif.

1: Per The NPD Group
2: For complete list of awards please visit lucasarts.com

Recently spotted by Indy3 on theforce.net forums, LucasArts registered the domain mercenaries2.com late last year.


So because LucasArts.com isn't teasing us with an E3 section this year, I guess this is as good as it gets regarding hints for forthcoming game announcement speculation. Umm... Woot!

If you're looking for some cool Star Wars action before Revenge of the Sith makes a bundle from the box-office next week, you can apparently do a lot worse than the video game version of the movie. Scoring 4/5 on GameSpy, the game has an "excellent combat system" and is filled with "lots of cool little extras."

GameSpot is a bit more reserved, giving it a 6.3 while saying that "[this] is just a short and shallow game that brings neat ideas to the table and ultimately never capitalizes on." (I'm thinking there might be a "them" missing there.)

Look out for a Mojo review if anybody actually plays the game.

It looks like Episode III might not be the end of the Star Wars franchise after all. According to this SyFy article LucasFilm has more or less confirmed that the rumored television show will happen. How will this impact LucasArts?

"Certainly with LucasArts, we are looking into interactive games; not only the kinds of things that are there now, but as technology progresses we're looking at what direction that can go," Sansweet added. "We're also continuing to see how we can expand Lucas Online in various ways."

Food for thought. In almost unrelated news, you might want to check out this LEGO Star Wars interview too.

GameSpot Rumor Control is filled to the brim with crazy LucasArts rumors today.

The first one claims that parts of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords's story was cut out from the game, something which apparently was proven by a bunch of unused dialogue being found on the discs and was also confirmed by Obsidian Entertainment. The Force.net has gone as far as to call it a "controversy", which is a bit silly seeing that this happens to just about every story-based game ever. (Check out the Curse of Monkey Island CDs for similar discoveries.)

Secondly the Star Wars Imperial Commando rumor is apparently just that - a rumor. I'm sure it might happen at some point anyway though.

Go read it all - and more! - over at GameSpot.

If you for some reason should be stopping by E3 this year, you might want to check out some of their conferences and workshops, as there are some interesting stuff going on.

Example; Tim Schafer will be on the "Developing Better Characters, Better Stories: How a Game Character's Emotion, Passion, and Intelligence Makes the Game Experience Real" panel. Other noteworthy panelists include people from Bungie (Halo) and Valve (Half-Life).

Representatives from LucasArts's marketing department will also be on hand, talking about "Identify and Understand the New Consumer of Digital Entertainment: Adapt to the Latest Rules of Fun or Get Left Behind" and "Smart Marketing: How an Intelligent Approach to Research can Boost your Bottom Line".

If you can handle a 227MB download, and want to see a rather different take on the Star Wars Universe, you could do worse than grabbing a copy of the PC Demo (featuring the whole first level) of the forthcoming Star Wars LEGO platformer.

It's up at Yahoo already and probably at the other usual places in the very near future.

The full game's released on PC, Xbox, PS2 and GBA next month.

Source: Yahoo

Using what has to be the worst title since The Phantom Menace, LucasArts has announced a new expansion pack for Star Wars Galaxies called Rage of the Wookiees. The game will apparently contain scenes from Revenge of the Sith and the wookies' home planet of Kashyyyk will be one of the central locations.

The download will be available on May 5th.

A little bit of gossip courtesy of IGN regarding LucasArts' most recent non-Star Wars release Mercenaries

The game you know and love called Mercenaries was not always a LucasArts game. It was once something quite different... First, Mercenaries was at one time an EA game. And second, it was, at one time, going to be the next iteration in the publisher's long-running, but recently absent, Strike series.

For the rest of the inside info on the Pandemic publisher flip-flop check the IGN: Off the Record page.

Source: IGN

Enough of those angsty 'LucasArts sucks' updates, let's look at what the company is really about - Star Wars controllers. Eh? Turns out LucasArts has collaborated with Intec on eight new Xbox and PS2 controllers specially designed for their Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith title.

As an extension of the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith game, players will encounter instances during the game's lightsaber battles where the sabers will become "locked" with their opponents blade. When this happens, those with an Intec controller can hit the dedicated lightsaber button and quickly gain the upper hand! Quite an edge against your buddy with the regular controller... Players can even program combination moves into one button.

I don't know, sounds like cheating to me. Anyway, read more about it over at TheForce.Net.

Source: TheForce.net

Waiting for that Monkey Island sequel? How about another Maniac Mansion game? Well forget about it, at least if LucasArts president Jim Ward has anything to do with it. According to this forum post they "need to move beyond the IP that we have." <:MORENEWS:>

The news comes from the March issue of Game Informer Magazine:

Q: LucasArts used to be known for making really unique original properties like Day of the Tentacle, then fell back primarily on Star Wars products exclusively. Are original games going to be a focus for the company?

A: We have three main goals. One is to restimulate the Star Wars IP with high quality games. Secondly, we're going to reinvigorate the Indiana Jones IP, which has basically been stagnant for years. There's no reason that Indiana Jones can't be a James Bond and have a year-in, year-out great representation of that brand. And take advantage of the fact that, in the next couple of years, there will be a new Indiana Jones movie. The third leg of this is definetely new IP. There's a heritage built into the DNA of LucasArts, and that's creativity and innovation. We need to move beyond the IP that we have. We certainly lost that. We lost that as the console console marketplace came into being; it was very strong on the PC platform. Once the company missed the adaptation of the console platforms, we've been in catch-up mode ever since. But that's going to change.

So to sum up: more Star Wars, take Indiana Jones in the direction that ruined Star Wars in the first place, and - and note that this is third priority - more (generic) games like Mercenaries.

Make of this what you want. Thanks of pwrof3 for the news.

Do you remember seeing Tom Byron's name fly past in the credits of some of the classic LucasArts games? Well, it most likely won't happen again as the old LucasArts Director of Product Marketing has joined the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine as Editor-in-Chief.

Byron was last credited in Star Wars: Galaxies from 2003, and probably hasn't done anything at LucasArts for a while. Makes one wonder if there's actually anybody left there though.

Gamespot has released the first official trailer for the forthcoming LEGO Star Wars Videogame. The game takes in key events from the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy and has over 30 unlockable characters and a 'drop-in / drop-out anytime' co-op mode.

An official site has also popped up recently, though it's still promising a lot more content to be added.

Source: Gamespot

Bad Brain Entertainment has updated their A Vampyre Story page, listing some of the developers who (I assume) will work on the game. Actually, it might have been updated for a while, I just recently noticed. Anywhoo:

The team (USA):
Idea & characters: Bill Tiller
Director: Bill Tiller
Technical Director: Gary Brubaker
Lead Designer: Reed Knight
Lead Animator: TBA
Character Designer: Paul Mica
Story Boards: Anson Jew
Sound and Music: Brooks White
Concept and Background Artist: Bill Eaken
3D Artists: Dan Colon, Livia Knight

Do these names sound familiar? Most of the dudes come from the Curse of Monkey Island team, and some have worked on games like The Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit The Road, The Dig, and The Secret of Monkey Island. These are, in other words, quite some credentials.

According to this brief interview at Computer and Video Games, LucasArts may be looking to make some games for Sony's PSP handheld platform, both in the immediate future with a PSP edition of Mercenaries, and (though this is speculation on the part of C&VG) possibly some Star Wars titles in the future.

This isn't really surprising ("What? Star Wars video games on new gaming platforms? How outrageous!"), but it's interesting to hear LucasArts talking about developing their own games for handhelds, given most Star Wars games for GameBoy have been developed and published not by LEC, but by other companies like THQ, and most recently Ubisoft.

For rumored handheld Mercenaries and Star Wars action, head to here.

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.

In typical LucasArts style, their new Star Wars RTS "Empire at War" gets an official press release and mini-site a good few months after the information has been made public via 3rd party sources.

The photo gallery on the mini site shows some rather impressive screen-shots too.

With developers Petroglyph boasting a 23-person team including 19 ex-Westwood employees hopes are high that this game won't have the shortcomings of the previous Star Wars strategy games from LucasArts.

Source: LucasArts