The International House of Mojo

Larry Ahern, game designer from LucasArts has found himself a new job after leaving LEC some time ago. His new position? Head of art development for Microsoft's action game group!

Larry will start at his new position on May 1st and move up to Seattle, WA, which seems to be attracting former LucasArts employees: artists Bill Tiller (The Dig, The Curse of Monkey Island), Bill Stoneham (Jedi Knight) and Peter Chan (Monkey Island 2, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango) and the famed game designer Ron Gilbert (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island) also currently live in the Washington state.

Good luck in your new job, Larry, and thanks to Swordmaster for the news.

Source: LucasFans

LucasMacs has a reader report from the LucasArts company store about some Mac titles going out of print, and slowly dissapearing from the Company Store order page. The Dig is apparently already out of stock. Get more at LucasMacs.

LucasArts have updated their site with a new Ask The Team question. The new question and answer is:

Will George Lucas allow LucasArts to continue the Star Wars saga after the completion of the movie series?

Original Star Wars games continued for many years in the time between the completion of Return of the Jedi and the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. With the tremendous level of interest in new and original Star Wars experiences, we expect the Star Wars universe of original games to continue to thrive for many years after the completion of Star Wars: Episode III.

Also new at the site is the news that Battle For Naboo (PC version) will be available in [US, probably] stores on March 13th.

Also updated on the LucasArts site is the Ask the Team section. This time the question was

Your customers are now seeing an almost total removal of PC games. Is LucasArts ceasing to support the PC and going with Platform games only now?

While development on next generation console systems has become of greater importance to LucasArts over the past few years, the company remains committed to development on the PC. The projects we have in development with Verant, BioWare and Ensemble are the best reflection of that. LucasArts' core legacy is deeply rooted in PC development and will always remain so. Strategically we believe we can strike an appropriate balance between platforms and continue to deliver compelling game play experiences on a variety of systems well into the future.

Lucasfans reports from the Starfighter Launch party with much new good news, the most interesting;

He also provides us with some interesting tidbits about future LucasArts titles. Nine new games will be announced at the E3 this year, and "there's a good chance that one of the upcoming PS2 games will be EMI". However, you don't have to wait until E3 to hear new announcements, since there will be an announcement on the 27th about a new PC game!

The source also reveals that "At least one of the new games will be a sequel to a non-Star Wars themed LucasArts game" LEC doesn't have many of these apart from Adventures (I will sooo hurt something if its Outlaws 2, or god forbid Afterlife 2!) so here's hoping. so stay tuned on the 27th. Go Adventures!

Source: Lucasfans

Looks like Spaff isn't the only one with something holding them down. Half of Lucasarts has fallen sick, according to this article. It seems that despite getting flu shots, many Lucasarts employees have fallen sick to a quote "Raging Flu Bug". What does this mean to you? More delays. Woo.

Character actor Lewis Arquette, father of Rosanna, Patricia, David and Alexis, died in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure at the age of 65, relatives said Tuesday.

Arquette's roles included a recurring role from 1978 to 1981 as J.D. Pickett in the television series 'The Waltons.' He also appeared in 'Johnny Got His Gun,' 'The China Syndrome' and 'Best of Show.' He also directed, worked as a puppeteer and was a master of improvisational acting, He is survived by five children, a brother, a sister and two grandchildren."

Lewis Arquette played Freddy the walkingstick maker in Escape from Monkey Island.

Thanks to the LEC Actors Archive for that news, who have also launched a Starfighter page.

Source: LEC Actors Archive

Once again, the Video Game Wallpaper Page has added Lucasarts related icons, this time in the form of Maniac Mansion. A very nice set, indeed. Get them here.

Trond Tjenford sent us this:

"Liam Harper has been writing an MI story for the Monkey Center which is based on a Monkey Island 5 Story. He has now come to Part 4 of this great story and there is also a poll on the main page, where you can choose between 4 different endings for the last part! So if you're in for a good story, this is the one!"

Check it out at the Monkey Center.

The LucasArts Voice actors archive has made a massive update to their site. This update includes 33 new performer pages, 32 performer pictures and 13 new game pages. Excellent stuff, if you need to know about who does the voice to who, then head on over to this kickass site.

on the LucasArts site, a new feature has been launched: Hint of the week. The hints they are talking about are game help, tips and cheats, and it kicks off with a cheat for Star Wars: Episode I Jedi Power Battles for Sega Dreamcast.

Not entirely related... well almost... 3D Realms have announced the winners to their "fake Duke Nukem Forever Screenshot contest" some of the entries are quite amusing but hey check this one out, its related to lec .. no really it is... And if you want to you can check out the rest of them!

News was brought to me from one Kevin Hodapp. He pointed me in the direction of this Article on IGN. In this "unnoficial" secret report, IGN claims that Lucasarts will be announcing several new games for various formats over the next few weeks;

LucasArts is going to announce several new games for several platforms, and one of those games will appear on PS2, and it's going to be somewhat of a surprise. We promised not to say anything yet, but think of it this way, when was the last time you saw a graphic adventure on PS2? You soon will. Another hint: "Hoo-hoo-hoo-he-he-he-he haw haw haw-haaaaw!!!!!"

If we assume that last hint is an evil laugh we can only go on to assume that EMI is to be ported to a console. What else is held in store for us over the coming weeks?

As Jake said, more news from the news letter is being posted. In the letter LucasArts get ready to announce a new product:

There's something big on the horizon. LucasArts Entertainment Company is about to make an incredibly exciting game announcement! We wish we could tell you more, but that would ruin all the fun. Keep an eye on LucasArts.com over the next few weeks for this and several other exciting announcements

What could this be? Another graphic adventure perhaps? or just another Starwars game? - personally I think its too early before the release of Episode2 to annouce a game for it.. What could it be?
You can discuss this topic on this post on our message forum

Other news from the Insider involves an upcoming section called "Ask LucasArts" where by you can send them questions about.. well anything i assume.. and they will answer you.

More about 'Securing your handle' for the upcoming massivly online multiplayer Starwars RPG - Starwars Galaxies.

They put a big fat link in to a lovely purple page that looks exactly like this one and is called mixn.. no wait it is this one :P
If you want to sign up to receive the Insider newsletter (monthly) then click here to sign your life away!

Sadly, Bill Tiller, one of the best artists at LucasArts has announced he will be leaving.

Bill was the lead background artist on the classic Curse of Monkey Island.
He will be taking up a new position with Arena.Net in Washington State. We wish Bill all the best with his new home and job!

I'd just like to add that we all wish Blll the best of luck at Arena.net, i'd also like to kiss some ass and say thanks for all the great art :P - Spaff

There is an article on Gamespot entitled
'Readers' Choice: The Best Voice Acting in Games' in which Full Throttle comes in at 5th place, EMI & CMI come in 3rd place, and GrimFandango in 2nd :

"The voices fit the appearance of the characters perfectly. They were also so well acted that even though I played and beat the game a few years ago, I still remember them as soon as they're quoted!"
- Full Throttle

It is a nice article, with other games featured like Metal Gear Solid and System Shock2, go see who number 1 is...

Evidently Lucasarts is now accepting resumes for quite a few positions:

3D Modeler (Character)
Character Technical Director
Level Designer
Special Effects Artist
Technical Artist
Webmaster
Producer - Internal
Producer - External
Director
Lead Programmer
Manager of Software Development
Maya Programmer
Senior Programmer - Console
Senior Programmer - Networking

Get out there you aspiring game designers! snatch up those jobs!

Yes, news from Rum Rogerz! Indy Project is still alive! They are residing at a temporary url,(guys if you need hosting space you are more than welcome) and are still going strong! Excellent news, even though the pending question of LucasArts and their legal departments wrath still hangs over the project. Fingers crossed for those FOA2 guys!

For continual Indy news head on over to the Ultimate Indiana Jones site.

As a result of Amazons New Year sale, LucasArts games are going Cheap! You can get both Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango for $9.99 each! Excellent news for those of you who dont yet own these two!