The International House of Mojo

My good friend emma was good enough to send me this account of a strange happening today:

Whilst watching television today an advert for EuroDisney came on and to my surprise there was Monkey Island music in it, LeChucks theme from EMI, and at the bottom of the screen it said "LucasFilm/Disney". What could this mean?...

Cool huh? Anyone else seen this?

www.starwarskids.com wish all of you a Happy New Year with their.... Starwars dance? click here for a special New Year's treat!

LucasArts.com have updated their site. This includes a new contest; the prize, the entire X-Wing game series signed by Mark Hamil. There are also a few new screenshots. Finally, when you go into the site, a holiday message pops up.

Check it out!

The Videogame Wallpaper Page, in addition to the Lucasarts Icons and such they already have, have added some Icons from everyone's favorite game, Monkey Island. They're actually pretty good too.

A report has just come in that Simon Jeffery, President of LucasArts, was featured on Sky TV's channel, ".tv." The program, named Blue Chip, interviewed Simon about Star Wars, EMI and various console issues. The Interview may possibly be featured on the channels homepage. Something odd was that they dubbed Bombad racing ''One of the reasons to buy a PS2," saying that the PS2's broadband Internet access would allow you to have big Bombad races, but in our recent interview Michael McCormick said that game had no internet play option... hmmmmm, oh well!

Wookies are up by a fairly large margin in this week's LucasArts poll, asking readers "Which of the following is your favorite Star Wars race?" This is very good news not only because Wookies rule, but also because I voted for them.

There is an interview with Jesse Spears, of Westlake Interactive; the company chosen by LucasArts to port EMI to the Mac.
The interview is on Mac Central Online and they talk to Jesse about his background and about his impressions on what challenges exist in the early stages of Escape From Monkey Island's development.

The great site Escapemi.com has reported that Larry Ahern has left LucasArts. whether this is true is yet to be confirmed but these rumours are normally true.

Larry Ahern was the co project leader for 1997's Curse of Monkey Island as well as working on a host of other projects through the years.
LucasArts has lost a great number of their higher profile workers over the last few years, and just when you thought no more would leave; another one bites the dust.

Over the past couple days Lucas Arts has updated their site with a new product page of 'Battle for Naboo' with brand spankin new concept art, a new Flash site for 'Demolition', new poll, and a new 'Classic Screenshot of the Week' from Outlaws.

LucasArts.com has now "officially" announced that EMI is shipping, and available in stores! Apparently in celebration of EMI's launch the monkeys came out in full and overtook the main page of the site (Along with their vines. You can't have monkeys without vines you know!). Anyway go take a look!

LucasArts announced the winner of their "Create a Monkey Island Skin for Windows Media Player" contest today. Who won, you ask? Why, our very own Andrew "telarium" Langley, member of Mixnmojo writing staff and webmaster of HighLand Productions. Congratulations, Andrew! You can download his skin at the LucasArts EMI page, or you can just take a look at it by clicking the image to the left of this post.

The Lucasarts site has had it's halloween decorations taken down, and they've replaced it with some nice mouseover images at the top. A new image also completes the nice top area. You can view the changes at www.lucasarts.com.

LEC has once again updated their site with new screenshots, concept art, polls, and yes, a new Ask The Team question. This one concerens EMI, and some suprising news.
Here it is:

Q: I've heard that you will be able to play as Elaine Marley in certain points of "Escape from Monkey Island". Is this true?

LEC: We've heard that, too. But no, it's not true. Elaine is her own person, and really hates other people telling her what to do.

So for now, it seems we will only be able to control Good Ol' Guybrush.
Check it out

The LucasArts Company Store updated today with the announcement of an official Monkey Island sweatshirt available for preorder! The sweatshirt, not actually available until November, is a dark greyish-green, and features the EMI rendetion of the Zombie Pirate LeChuck (from CMI) -- a little odd, but doesnt look bad or anything (it in fact looks good! Click here for a closer look).

"Back in the day" LucasArts' store catalog was packed with merchandise related to their games, including tshirts, pens, pins, keychains, mugs, etc, but most of that stopped with the dissapearance of the quarterly releases of the Adventurer magazine/catalog. This sweatshirt is, as far as I remember, the first non-promotional (not shipped with preorder, etc) item of this kind to hit the Company Store in a while. Lets hope the trend continues!

LucasArts has posted the transcript from the public chat with EMI project leads Mike Stemmle and Sean Clark, which took place yesterday evening. In the room I was in, the general opinion was that the (made up) award for most cleverly worded question went to "Various reviews say that your games have "Monty Python-style" humour. Was this the chief inspiration for the games? Or, was it something completely different?". You really should be gone reading by now! Also, for those of you who missed the chats with LucasArts president Simon Jeffery, those transcripts are (still) available here.

Also if you are Spanish, this site has translated the Log from yesterday into Spanish for your reading pleasure!

Gameslice have got an interview posted with Justin Chin (Jedi Knight Project Leader) and Che-Yuan Wang (another ex-LEC employee). It covers their plans on developing an Xbox-only title to be published by THQ.

Source: Frightener

The LucasArts-sponsored chat with Escape from Monkey Island project leaders Mike Stemmle and Sean Clark went off without problem this evening (unlike the chat with LEC president Simon Jeffery, which fell prey to countless server crashes and evnetually a rescheduling). It seemed that people thought the questions chosen by the chat moderator were hit and miss (asking questions that had been asked previously in the numerous magazine interviews with the pair, or going off topic to the point that text-based groans were being emitted from the croud), but on the whole it was quite fun, and at times informative. For those of you who missed it, LucasArts should be posting a log soon. Of course if we or another site get one up before LucasArts.com we'll post it here.

LEC has performed it's weekly site update yet again. This time it includes some new Star Wars: Starfighter screenshots, A chat with the EMI project leaders, Sean Clark & Mike Stemmle. Also there is Grim Fandango deal in their store, If you order Grim Fandango now you get a.... TASTE OF THIS FINE MOUTHWASH! Just kidding, you get a copy of the Grim Fandngo soundtrack FREE! GO! BUY! NOW!

Already think you're going to need a helping hand through EMI? Too afraid to post to the Mojo message boards? Well, you're in luck, as apparently you can already order the Strategy Guide to EMI from Prima (filed under the general category of "books." At first I thought it was a novelization of EMI... that would be interesting!). Whether LucasArts will release an official guide themselves is still to be seen.

Update: Apparently I'm behind in the times. Swordmaster was kind enough to point out that Prima is the publisher of the official LucasArts guides. So just go buy it now, as Jo Ashburn's guides are always a great read (don't forget to beat the game first if you're reading it for personal enjoyment)!

Also while browsing Amazon I noticed that they were selling Curse of Monkey Island, jewel case only (that means without a box), for $9.99. Thats a good deal, especially for people who haven't yet played CMI and need to catch up on it before EMI comes out!

A while ago lucasarts had a poll about Guybrush running for president, well UGO have taken that a bit further;

When we heard that independent presidential candidate Guybrush Threepwood had selected zombie/ghost/demon pirate LeChuck as his running mate, we were skeptical. The two have been politically and personally opposed for so long that it seemed like quite a mismatch...not to mention LeChuck?s tendency toward lunacy. After witnessing the spooky sailor?s performance in the vice presidential debates (in which he forced his opponents to walk the plank), however, we?re ecstatic. Onward to November!

They then go on to link to various reviews and related EMI articles with lots of amusing introductions involving GT & LC's presidential campaign. Look for the pictures of Gubrush on this page