The International House of Mojo

Pandemic and LucasArts have two games in development together! In addition to the already announced Star Wars Battlefront, Pandemic is working on a second non-Star Wars title for LEC, called Mercenaries, for XBox.

A different sounding title for LucasArts, Mercenaries is set in a near-future war-torn North Korea. Four groups, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the United Nations, and Russian crime syndicates are all vying for superiority in the battle, and you must chose who to fight for. However, in an interesting twist, since you're a mercenary (hence the title), you can apparently switch sides over the course of the war whenever you please.

More information coming soon, when LucasArts actually officially announces the game. Thanks to reader Trunks for pointing this out. For more info check out this page at 1up.com.

Update: As amishler pointed out in the comments, and LEC's Ronda Scott just confirmed, Mercenaries is the mystery game formerly known as "Free Agent."

Another from the forums: Attention collectors! JBRAA has pointed out that LucasArts, apparenty rolling in the stuff, has started selling a box of goodies called the "Premium Pack," consisting entirely of little LucasArts collectibles formerly only available as pre-order bonus gifts.

The P.P. (tee hee) contains a pewter Wrath dragon guy, a lightsaber letter opener, a "Graduate of Jedi Academy" license plate holder, Secret Weapons Over Normandy luggage tag holder, "Jedi Council" window decal, a "sassy" Armed & Dangerous corkscrew, and yes, even a Mongrel Man action figure from The Gladius. Come on, admit it. You kinda love it.

The Globe and Mail has posted an interview with LucasArts senior technical art director Scot Brew, regarding the recently released console RPG Gladius.

It's a unique game in a lot of ways. It's branching off a little bit from the traditional role-playing game, throwing a little more tactics, throwing in a little more interaction. But it also allows people to build up their [gladiator] school and really customize their characters, and play through a great story line that has some amazing pictures and a lot of amazing art that went into it.

Also look for a heads up that the current (secret) game he's working on is "very neat." Read the whole interview at The Globe and Mail.

Thanks to Adventure Gamers for providing a heads-up to a new interview with David Fox at Aventura y C?A, an early LucasFilm Games employee who worked on Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, etc.

I really wanted to do a game that dealt with a lot of "New Age" ideas. I actually spent time with David Spangler, a well-known author who dealt with spiritual awareness. We decided we wanted to put every concept we could think of into the game - every spiritual or psychic mystery currently being explored. But it wasn?t until a month or so later that we figured out how to tie it all together by making Zak a reporter for a sleazy tabloid. That added an edge to the game, and unified the comedy, setting the style for the entire game.

Also, I set out to make the game feel much broader than MM - after all, I had spent months stuck in that mansion programming the game. I wanted to see the world, and take the audience along with me :-)

Well, that's my first ever news post at Mixnmojo (that wasn't cut-and-pasted from a forum thread by someone else :-P ), so I hope I didn't screw up the markup & spelling and have to live forever in shame. So anyways, a big Mixnmojo welcome to me! Nice to start my career here with a story about Lucas Classic Adventures.

Up on Gamasutra is a tell-all postmortem/wrap-up article about the development process behind Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, written by the games lead programmer. The article chronicles the ups and downs of the development, and really gives you a taste of what it might be like to work on a project that sounds well organized at the start but sort of descends into horrible madness.

Conversations became tense, there were some arguments, and after a while we began to subconsciously avoid one another. Unfortunately, this adversarial situation combined with the intense workload to cause a complete communication breakdown between the upper tiers of management. Although the project leads conversed on a daily basis, we rarely spoke to, or heard from, the owners.

Yikes. Take a look for a scary, educational behind the sceens peek.

The ever-friendly Marek pointed me to this short article on gamedevleague about how Secret Weapons Over Normandy confused some people with it's "am I a flight sim or an action game?" nature.

In other words, by taking the Secret Weapons line of hardcore flight sim and trying to extend it into an arcadey console market, LucasArts will sell a few more copies at first but pay for it later because nobody will know what Secret Weapons means anymore.

I thought that was kind of interesting.

Today marks the day that Wrath: Unleashed arrives in stores for the Xbox and PlayStation2. You can now also read various reviews for the game over at Game Rankings, where the Xbox port currently has an average ratio of 69.0%...

... unleashed!

It's that time of year again. Time for LucasArts to release its applications for the company's summer internship program. So if you think you got what it takes (sadly, I didn't), download the application here.

That's right! YOU could be getting coffee for Mike Stemmle or cleaning up the messes left by Dan Pettit. Just imagine...

IGN Action Vault has a lengthy wrap-up interview with Planet Moon's Aaron Loeb and the venerable Dan Pettit taking a look back at the production of Armed & Dangerous, the interaction between LucasArts and Planet Moon, and other stuff.

The game came into being because we were interested in bringing the kind of fun and humor we brought to MDK and Giants to a new gameworld, and because LucasArts was interested in creating a new game that captured the great sense of fun found in their classics like Full Throttle, Sam and Max, and Maniac Mansion. So, the idea of making an action game with the same spirit as those fun, original titles appealed to all involved.

Read the whole story at IGN Action Vault.

Ye official trailer (and a nifty FAQ) for Star Wars: Battlefront was added to the site sometime yesterday when we were all asleep. See the trailer in High or Low resolution. Fun!

Boy, we sure have had some fun looking up trademarks for LucasArts in the past. After all, that's how we first heard about Gladius.

Well, TheForce.net broke a story yesterday that LucasArts filed for a trademark on January 14th for a game called Free Agent. Nothing else is known, although it's interesting that the word "adventure game" is mentioned in the goods and services description... of course that may not mean anything. Read about it.

The Wrath Unleashed website has just been updated with a whole slew of multimedia goodies, including desktop wallpaper and screensavers. Also included are two mp3 files of the intro and main theme of the game. Definitely worth a look, if I do say so myself.

Not at LucasArts, of course, but if you download the sample issue of ZiffDavis's new "Gaming Industry News" magazine, and point your PDF viewer to page 3, you can hear Simon talk about LucasArts, and the games industry, one last time. It's pretty short, but if you miss Simon, or want to hear his post-LucasArts attitudes on the games industry, its worth taking a look.

The official LucasArts website has been graced with a brand new, flash-rich information site for Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. While the official game site remains hosted by Sony Online Entertainment, The new page has some good information and gives a feel for the look and sound of Galaxies. So check it out, already, And be sure to have the latest version of Flash.

Or so GameSpy would have you believe. In a recent Top 10 article, GameSpy counted down the top 10 greatest videogame sidekicks. No fewer than three LucasArts characters made it into the top five spots in this countdown, and one even took the top spot. First up is Max (of Sam and Max, guy) at number 4, followed by Murray, the talking skull of CMI (and to a lesser extent, EMI) fame in third place. But the top spot went to none other than HK-47, the murderous yet lovable protocol/meatbag-killing droid from Knights of the Old Republic.

I don't know whether Mojo readers would agree to the ordering of the list, but I happen to like HK (maybe not more than Max, however). Check out the article to read about the other sidekicks who made the list, and also a few who totally didn't.

LucasArts has officially announced Star Wars Battlefront for the PS2, Xbox and PC. Described as an "intense open-ended multiplayer action game," the game will take place in both the classic and prequel era of the Star Wars universe. Twelve highly impressive screenshots can be viewed here.
<:MORENEWS:>

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - January 13, 2004 - LucasArts officially announced today the exciting details regarding Star Wars Battlefront, an intense open-ended multiplayer action game set in the Star Wars? universe due out this fall for the PlayStation?2 computer entertainment system, Xbox? video game system from Microsoft and the PC. Star Wars Battlefront will put fans and gamers in the heat of the action as they re-live all of the epic battles from the classic and prequel eras of the Star Wars universe.

Both console and PC players will be able to participate in the most memorable Star Wars battles set in over 15 environments across 10 diverse planets including Hoth, Geonosis, Yavin, Tatooine and Naboo. Players will be able to select one of over 20 different soldier types from four factions: Rebel Alliance, Imperial Army, Clone Army and Droid Army. Each soldier will have specialized abilities and the freedom to use ground-based turrets found on the battlefront as well as over 15 diverse ground and air vehicles including the AT-ST, X-wing and speeder bike.

Star Wars Battlefront will be optimized for PS2 online, Xbox Live and PC online. Console gamers will be able to battle against 16 players over the Internet or 32 players connected via LAN. PC gamers will be able to battle against 32 players over the Internet or 64 via a LAN. The game will also support voice chat through compatible headsets for the PS2 and Xbox console systems as well as PC.

In addition to the single-player and various multiplayer modes offered in Star Wars Battlefront, a unique "Conquest" mode adds an innovative and strategic gameplay element to the action. After each battle is completed and the planet is conquered, the winning team will be rewarded with a special "bonus" ability that can be deployed in future battles in an attempt to take over the Star Wars galaxy planet-by-planet.

Star Wars Battlefront is published by LucasArts and developed by Pandemic Studios. For more information, please visit the official product website at www.starwarsbattlefront.com

LucasArts has released the first bonus level for Armed and Dangerous for the XBOX. No word yet on when or if the level will be available for PC gamers.

"The very first Armed and Dangerous bonus mission has been officially released and is now available for download on Xbox Live. In the all-new mission titled "Summer Home", the King's troops are looking for payback and are determined to destroy Lily's lovely Summer Home sitting high upon a hill. It is your mission to prevent the ogres from destroying her idyllic house. If they succeed, Lily would have nowhere to summer and would wind up living on the streets. Keep her relaxing abode safe from harm! Log into Xbox Live and download today!"

We just got word from LucasArts that Wrath Unleashed has gone gold for XBOX and PlayStation 2. The game won't actually come out until February 10, but now it's officially okay to wait expectantly. For more info on the game, check out the official site. It's Flash-tastic.

For all of you who have been waiting to see some actual screenshots from Star Wars: Republic Commando you now have the chance thanks to Computer and Video Games. Allegedly the game is a "dramatic military-style action experience featuring brutally realistic Star Wars combat". Word. Read and view it all here.

Computer And Video Games has conducted a short interview with Mike Stemmle, director of the latest Sam & Max game. Among the new information are some tidbits about the plot:

The story of Sam & Max: Freelance Police is really six stories, loosely held together by a thrilling ?ber-plot. The individual stories are wide-ranging cases of the Freelance Police, featuring exotic locales (such as a low-rent space station, and a lame-ass neopagan desert bacchanal) and freakish bad guys (like an exceptionally honked-off Miss Congeniality, and a rogue artificial intelligence made out of tortilla chips).

Interesting, no? Read it all here.

Source: Adventure Gamers