The International House of Mojo

On the official Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic forums, producer Mike Gallo has posted a message with a new release date for the upcoming Xbox and PC RPG. Prepare yourself for his quote:

[Reviewing the schedules and task lists] has been a pretty lengthy process, but we're confident in our new release schedule of Spring '03 for the Xbox, and Summer '03 for the PC. This is a huge game with an epic story, and we want to be able to bring that entire experience to all of the fans that have been waiting so patiently for it. In the end, taking the extra time to deliver on that promise is what's most important, and both LucasArts and BioWare are committed to that promise.

Nice to see that fan speculations of a rushed schedule imposed by Microsoft and a compromise of quality may be untrue. Be sure to read the full message and the reply written by project director/producer Casey Hudson.

TheForce.net points out that the Macintosh port of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has reached the beta stage. However, unlike the Galactic Battlegrounds port, it seems that this version will support multiplayer between PC's and Macs in its final release. Look for this OS X-friendly game sometime in early October.

Source: Yahoo News

Are you as desperate for news as we are? Then check out LucasArts.com for some new concept art from the upcoming PS2 and Gamecube title, Bounty Hunter. Granted this isn't the least bit exciting, but the concept art does look pretty good.

Update: Tomas points out that the 20th Anniversary Site has also been updated with some Day of the Tentacle character sketches! Very cool.

Haden "Shug_Ninx" Blackman, producer on the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies, has written a message on the official forums discussing the game's progress and the tentative release dates. Here's part of what he said:

The past few weeks, we've been evaluating the current design against the current schedule and we're pretty confident that we can launch in a December-February timeframe. The window is a result of the unpredictability of the beta process. The beta process will help us determine both the stability and quality of the game, which will give us a better idea about our actual, concrete ship date. If beta runs smoothly and we encounter minor bumps, then we can ship much earlier. But until we evaluate the data collected during beta, it's impossible for us to guarantee a specific launch date.

Be sure to read the full message.

CaptainDread has informed us that LucasRadio is back, hopefully for good. LucasRadio is a SHOUTcast streaming audio broadcast that plays various kinds of LucasArts related music and remixes. However, there are also the occassional weird Star Wars parody songs as well. In theory, the broadcast should run 24/7, but you never know about these things. Give a listen!

Forget Scientology?, there's a new hip religion on the block that will have celebrities lining up around the corner to get in. I'm speaking, of course, of Jediism. You will read. You WILL read.

Jediism is not the same as that which is portrayed within the Star Wars Saga by George Lucas and Lucasfilm LTD. George Lucas' Jedi? are fictional characters that exist within a literary and cinematic universe. The Jedi? discussed within this website refer to factual people within this world that live or lived their lives according to Jediism, of which we recognize and work together as a community to both cultivate and celebrate. Jedi? Apprentices, Knights, Commanders, Scholars, Masters, Scribes and High Councilors embrace Jediism as a real living, breathing religion, and sincerely strive to seek out and emulate real life examples of Jediism in the long rich history of mankind. Jediism bases less of its focus on myth and fiction, and more upon those real life examples of Jediism.

Sounds like a hoot! If you're as sold on Jediism as I obviously am, click here to join up.

Source: Volt3kker
(links to #jedikn

In other news, the Star Wars Galaxies site has been updated with some panoramic shots of the planets you can play and live on in the game. I want to be a wookiiee hairdresser turned mob boss. Ahh yeah.

Source: Shacknews

LucasArts.com has posted the final box art for the massive multiplayer game, Star Wars Galaxies. You can view the box art under the Galaxies product spotlight or directly here. The box art design is pretty simple, yet effective. And let's face it, it's more likely that people are going to pick this game up in a shop because of the massive press and word of mouth rather than the pretty box.

In the usual LucasArts.com Friday updates, long time fans of the company can sure find a lot to get excited about. It seems that LucasArts is finally getting around to celebrating its 20th anniversary properly. First, in the LucasArts Theatre, you can view QuickTime clips of cutscenes from the original Full Throttle. Not bad, although they do seem to suffer from some interlace problems.

Next, in the History Section, you can read about the early years of the company between 1982 and 1989. The feature is not unlike our own Wilmunder Memoirs, and will continue to be updated to cover the 1990-1994 years.

Don't miss the 20th Anniversary Art Gallery, where you can find some never-before-seen treasures. First, there is this amazing high-res scan of the Monkey Island 2 map, a piece of concept art from Grim Fandango, and another Peter Chan concept scan from Full Throttle!

After that, you can read an interview with Jon Knoles, who served as game designer for many Star Wars games and is currently directing Bounty Hunter. The interviews continue next month with a profile of Fate of Atlantis and RTX Red Rock designer Hal Barwood.

And finally *phew*, check out the Flashback section with a few favorite memories of some LucasArts employees. The stories include finding bugs in such classics as Grim Fandango and Fate of Atlantis. These are really interesting and remind us of the many late nights these guys have to put up with.

So there you have it. It's great to see LucasArts opening up again and taking a look at its previous products and their employees. It reminds me of the old days of The Adventurer, and I hope they keep this up.

Out of the 150,000 applicants for the first found of Star Wars Galaxies beta testing, 100 lucky gamers should get an e-mail telling them that they've already been chosen. Kevin O'Hara informed the community in this message post that the testers were selected, and that more should be on the way. Here's a quote:

I know the first question will likely be, ?well, when are the Beta 2 emails going to be sent?? We?re not ready to nail down the start date for Beta 2 yet. Let us get fully into Beta 1 first. Each beta is scheduled to be more than a month in length, but that is very tentative. We will periodically do sanity checks during the betas and if we need one to last a little longer, so be it.

If you're feeling depressed because you weren't picked during this round, cheer up. You can check out the new screenshots to help ease the pain.

Orson Scott Card, probably best known to you guys as the dialogue writer for the LucasArts graphic adventure The Dig, has gone on record to say that he hated Attack of the Clones. Mr. Card writes a weekly review column for The Rhinoceros Times, and in his July edition, he discusses the difference between Men in Black II and Episode II. Here's a quote:

... Attack of the Clones is a wretched waste of time and money - the filmmakers' and ours - while MIIB pays off exactly as well as it should. And it doesn't try to give us a bogus religion in the process.

Why the difference? MIIB has a good script and a director who knows how to get the best out of his actors."

Hear that? That's the sound of Orson Scott Card being blacklisted from all future Lucas projects! Just kidding... ?

Source: TheForce.net

According to Mixnmojo reader zebulon, our previous post about a new LucasArts classic game compliation pack wasn't entirely accurate. Here's a quote from zebulon:

After reading your news entitled "New European LEC Classic Collections", I wrote a mail to UbiSoft (which distributes LucasArts games in France) and their Consumers Department says there is nothing planned. There is a compilation called "LucasArts Edition Collector" actually, but it was released in December 2001, and the price was the one you mention, i.e. 60 ?.

Indeed, you can view the compilation details here at the UbiSoft website and see what games it includes.

Kenn Hoekstra, project admin for Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, has announced that LucasArts will release the v1.04 patch tomorrow. Here's an excerpt from Kenn's .plan:

LucasArts will be releasing the 1.04 update for Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast tomorrow (Thursday) evening on their website at [URL]. Feel free to download and mirror it once it is available.

The update includes all of the fixes from 1.03, so if you don?t have that update yet, this is the only one you?ll need. A list of the changes in 1.03 can be found here: [URL]

The primary focus of 1.04 is multiplayer balance.

Thanks to JediKnightII.net, as usual, for the news.

Update: You can grab the 1.04 patch here, courtsey of Shacknews.

EBGames.com seems to have obtained the box art for the upcoming Gamecube title, The Clone Wars, which you can view here. Very nice looking box art, I must say. The site also says that the game will ship on September 18th, although that could certainly change.

Source: TheForce.net

Can't get enough of those Game Boy Advanced Star Wars games? Well I don't care for them either, but I'm sure someone out there likes them. Anyway, THQ issued a press release announcing a new Episode II game entitled Star Wars: Episode II The New Droid Army. The game features a new story in which Anakin must stop Count Dooku from creating a new, more destructive droid army. Look for that title in November of 2002. Thanks to our friend Marek over at Adventure Gamers for this news!

It's not every day you see a review of Jedi Outcast take a swing at Escape From Monkey Island. In ECSMag's assessment of Jedi Outcast, they stated the following:

Of late, [LucasArts] has stumbled with its experiments in adapting properties (like the Star Wars universe) to various genres. Even the most recent Monkey Island game made less of a splash, in part hampered by the replacement of insult swordfighting with Monkey Kombat.

By the way, they gave Jedi Outcast 8 out of 10 keys, whatever that means.

TheForce.net claims that there are no plans at LucasArts to create an Episode II Insider's Guide CD-ROM. How do they know? Why, they just asked LucasArts, of course. The Phantom Menace Insider's Guide was a big hit among Star Wars fans, so this news comes as a bit of a let down. Hopefully this just means that LucasArts is concentrating the majority of their resources on original titles, eh? Thanks to SonGoku for the lead.

There's a new poll up at the official LucasArts website related to the the LEC 20th Anniversary theme. This time around, LucasArts.com asks: When did you first play a LucasArts game?

I remember my first LucasArts gaming experience fondly. The year was 1992, and I stumbled upon the work of genius that is none other than Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for Super NES. From then on, I was hooked.

LucasArts.com continues in their tradition of Friday updates. This time, they have released five new screenshots for the upcoming PS2 and Gamecube title, Star Wars Bounty Hunter. I must say that these new screenshots are quite impressive. Check 'em out.

Wired News has published an article entitled, "Making Those Games Sound Right." The article discusses the combination of the LucasArts sound department and Skywalker sound to create, you guessed it, sounds for the upcoming Bounty Hunter game. The site features some interesting tidbits and even some pictures from the recording sessions. Here's a quote:

Jeff Kliment leans against the wall of the tiny control room of the audio effects lab, listening to the sound of gravel crunching under the feet of Montross, the villain in LucasArts' upcoming video game, Bounty Hunter.

"Uh, tell him we can hear his pants," Kliment says to Larry Oppenheim, the man recording the footsteps.

Make sure you read the full article!