The International House of Mojo

LucasArts is running a series of videos about Staff of Kings on the game's Facebook page, and the first is up, and worth watching for some new gameplay footage.

I also recommend checking out this Italian preview. Even you're like me and don't speak Italian, there's new screenshots and gameplay videos to check out, so check them out you should.

After previews that have, as far as I know, been based on LEC demonstrations, IGN actually got to have some hands-on time with Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and their impressions are positive:

It's easy to scoff at a game that embraces motion controls with such first-generation gusto but LucasArts seems to have done a grand job marrying physical movement to onscreen action in a way that successfully heightens immersion rather than detracts through pointless gimmickry.

Interestingly, the preview claims that the Nazis will not ever be referred to as Nazis in order to keep things "family friendly." Seriously? I did notice the iron cross looking emblems on the Germans in the screenshots in lieu of swastikas, and I know putting Nazis on LEGOs is a touchy subject, but since when can't a non-toy based Indiana Jones game call the Nazis...Nazis? Anyway, check out the whole preview.

Easily beating the Brutal Legend trailer for sheer brilliance (no, sorry, poor lie), GameSpot have a new Video Preview and, um, Written Preview for Indiana Jones and the Staff of East London. There's some shots of Fate of Atlantis in action too, along with a very nice segue from the game's MIDI Indiana Jones theme into the full orchestra version. Game's looking good too, surprisingly.




More gameplay videos can be found on their page here, as well as a load of new screens.

Source: GameSpot

It hasn't been officially announced, but there's a heck of a lot of details emerging for the first 360/PS3-based Star Wars: The Clone Wars game. Apparently it's going to be called Republic Heroes (one word off the last good internally developed LucasArts title) and is in development at Krome Studios, makers of the Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels game (which was so awful even I didn't buy it).

From the description it sounds a lot like the Dreamcast Jedi Power Battles game, but let's hope not.

I don't know if anyone here is actually interested in this news, but it's worth noting just to work out what the few remaining staff members at LucasArts are doing all day. With no in-house development, all the Old Republic stuff mostly being dealt with by Bioware and the Indy Staff of Kings marketing being almost entirely carried out by one admin on the game's forum, and we know they never keep their site updated, so what are they passing the time doing? Playing Sam & Max and crying?

UPDATE: And in other Star Wars news, I made Haden Blackman sad.

Source: Destructoid (via Eurogamer)

Through some clever molding and a lot of time, sculpture artist Iain Reekie has created what we all desire: Grim Fandango action figures. The Manny figure comes complete with skeleton bird and sausages Robert Frost, while Glottis looks straight out of a Tim Burton animation.

Not available in stores unfortunately, as that would prove God existed and so therefore he wouldn't. QED.

Source: Iain Reekie's website

Ho, ho! Anyway yeah, Cheat Code Central has put a preview up of Staff of Kings. The impressions are positive if not particularly exciting, with the game being seen as little more than a Tomb Raider game with a different protagonist (admittedly a criticism of all the 3D Indy games). Read it all here.

So, I've already made you aware of the two genuinely metal keychains you get for pre-ordering Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings from the LEC company store. But retailers tend to have their own unique pre-order bonuses, so you'll be wanting to know what your other options are.

Well, it turns out that if you pre-order the Wii version with Gamestop, you get a mini version of Prima's hint guide which includes a "GameStop exclusive unlockable code for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis." What that means is that while normally you'd have to go through an arduous process of unlocking FOA via in-game achievements (as confirmed here), Gamestop's pre-order code will allow you to unlock the game immediately.

Shop at Gamestop, and you too can have the privilege of unlocking bonus features you paid $50 for more conveniently! (Or, you know, just wait until someone on the internet cracks it.)

A Maniac Mansion fanatic by the name of Rick put together a map of the mansion from the Nintendo version of the game that you may want to check out. It might be a useful schematic to give to the architect of your new home.

In a new preview of the Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings on Gamespot, you can read a Q&A about the game as well as see a clip from the Fate of Atlantis easter egg that comes with the Wii version.

The Q&A is actually pretty interesting despite the disinterested tone of the LEC reps, with details such as platform exclusives and who the music composers revealed. Check it out.

Thanks to a tipoff by the devoted (despite repeated misspelling of his name) reader "lagomorph," I can point you in the direction of a bunch of new Indiana Jones screenshots hosted by IGN, whose Brutal Legend preview you're hopefully already familiar with. While I maintain the game looks better than its initial glimpses, the screenshots still depict a game low on detail, high on glow, and obsessed with a muted color palette - none of which I'm prepared to blame on the Wii's processing capabilities. All and all I still say the six year old Emperor's Tomb is more visually satisfying.

Still, graphics aren't everything, as they say, so let's hope the actual gameplay gives us a reason to buy the new Indy game (which should be an exciting prospect to most people) and doesn't force the Fate of Atlantis easter egg to bear the entirety of that responsibility.

In his blog "a hardy developer's workshop," renowned Mojo disciple Igor Hardy has posted an article that lists the "7 Best Martial Arts Fight Scenes in Adventure Games."

Coming it at #5 is the epic Monkey Kombat showdown between a giant monkey robot and an animated statue of LeChuck at the climax of Escape from Monkey Island, and topping the list is Bernard's painful encounter with the sinister Oozo the Clown from Day of the Tentacle. This is why the internet exists.

If you pre-order the most anticipated upcoming video game with the name Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings from the LucasArts company store, you get two free keychains as a bonus item. Sweet!

And to think I would have suggested a copy of the Last Crusade graphic adventure. Keychains, guys. It's where it's at.

Hey, guess what? Yahoo! Games is hosting an exclusive gameplay trailer (the first) as well as some new screenshots for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. While not mindblowing, you'll be relieved that it looks a whole lot better than all previous glimpses, noticeably lacking that terrible blurry look we've seen in all the earlier Wii screenshots, which apparently (and thankfully) were not actually representative of how the game actually looks. (Given the vast difference in sharpness, I suspect some tomfoolery with the capture method of the first screenshots.)

While we still don't have much indication - either positively or negative - of how well the game will actually play, or even if it's any good at all, we can at least take comfort knowing that those earlier screens were vastly inaccurate. Vastly.

The stars are aligning, and LucasArts seems to be getting their release dates straight. Thanks to Spong and Indiana Jones Shop, unless there's another slip it seems those dates for Indiana Jones and the Sock of Kings are:

June 9th (US)
June 12th (UK & Europe)

The rest of the world should be around this time too.

John Walker of Eurogamer has posted the second part of his Knights of the Old Republic retrospective. You can read the first part here.

Source: Eurogamer

LucasArts is holding a web-forum Q&A session to discuss the gameplay of Staff of Kings.

If you have any questions, click here and ask away.

Source: LucasArts

What happens when you mix Star Wars, Doom and Full Throttle? Dark Forces, of course, now in a retrospective by John Walker of Eurogamer.

Source: Eurogamer

The CV of an animator at Traveller's Tales revealed some unannounced Lego projects at the studio - which is the way most gaming secrets seem be be revealed these days. She then confirmed it, but then stupidly said that both games are unconfirmed (huh?).

They are, fairly predictable, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Indy II. However, the biggest surprise is that the latter is going to be called Lego Indiana Jones II: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, suggesting that the whole game is going to be based around Indy IV.

The individual product pages for the various releases of Staff of Kings on Amazon each feature a handful of screenshots for their respective versions. The Wii page only has screens already seen, but the DS page has some new ones, and the PS2 and PSP pages have nothing but new ones. Check them out, won't you?

A somewhat weird stash of screenshots can be found over at Unseen 64, belonging to the PSP version of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, which as you may know is being developed by the studio Amaze. (As is well-known, A2M is behind the now main Wii/PS2 versions, and I'm still not entirely sure who's doing the DS version.)

The authors of the site seem to be going by outdated information, under the mistaken impression that the PSP version is in danger of cancellation, but the screenshots, which they claim come from 2006/2007 from when the game was still called Staff of Moses, are definitely interesting to look at, and the visuals look better for PSP than what we've seen of the Wii version looks for its platform. Like the DS version, the PSP version is said to be a pretty different game (though obviously within the same general story and universe), though it's unclear exactly in what way.