The International House of Mojo

Are you one of those wonderful people who ordered the Sam & Max Season One Box Set along with the Bonus Disc and the Case File because you want a load of useless junk to accompany it? And are now getting worried after Jason posted that the game was shipping but you've had no word from Telltale whatsoever?

Well, maybe you shouldn't have ordered that extra DVD case-sized load of junk, because the Case File (as Jason sorta mentioned) is what's causing the delay.

Good news though, 'cause a quick email from Telltale informs me that the Case File should be in sometime next week, whereupon the DVD should suddenly spring into action, leaping majestically in the direction of your mailbox. You can breathe now, guys.

UPDATE: Yeah, what they said.

On their blog Telltale has put up a short animation clip of Stinky, the possible proprietor/waitress of Stinky's Diner, whom we were introduced to in last week's render. This video was first shown to Comic-Con attendees, but now you're invited to see as well.

In other Telltale news, that quirky caveman inventor Dank has received an update to his web comic, bringing Graham Annable's cartoon masterpiece to a healthy 24 issues.

As you've been told countless times, the North American release of Sam & Max: Season 1 by Dreamcatcher is slated for August 28th. According to Adventure Gamers, however, Dreamcatcher/TAC/JoWood has begun shipping the game to retailers today. This may or may not bump up the originally reported release date, which is now listed everywhere as August 7th. The European releases will follow in September, with confirmed targets Germany, UK, France, Italy, and Spain.

Remember, this version of Sam & Max is a different beast from what Telltale is offering to season customers. The extras indigenous to the retail counterpart include a foldout poster (I believe featuring this art) a new behind-the-scenes video, and some character bios. Start checking stores next week for this baby.

In their latest blog Telltale continues its journal of their wacky Comic-Con escapades complete with more, realistic-looking photos from the event to accompany the sensational written account.

Furthermore, after making a premiere appearance at the Comic-Con, two new merchandise offerings have been added to Telltale's online store. First up is an 11"x17" poster print of the artwork Steve Purcell did for the Season 1 DVD cover, with the option to have it signed. Additionally, Telltale is stocking a brand new sketchbook by Purcell entitled "The Effigy Mound," a compilation of various Sam & Max sketches, concept art, etc. that will certainly appease you. These products need a home - your home.

But the fact that these children were Comic-Con attendees makes it OK, since that's pretty much the kind of thing you'd expect. Telltale wrote all about their world-shaking excursion to this year's convention, including lots of amusing anecdotes and photos, and even a new render and some concept art for Sam & Max: Season 2. Steve Purcell won a much deserved Eisner Award for the Sam & Max web comic, and yes, a human being was convinced to don the giant Sam & Max costume, which ranks only behind this in ill-conceived geek dedication.

In the midst of it all, Telltale somehow managed to honor its scheduled engagement to appear in the Episodic Gaming panel with fellow episodic developer Hot Head Games (Penny Arcade Adventures), which was moderated by Shacknews editor-in-chief and friend of Mojo Chris Remo. You should show off your intelligence by reading this recap of the panel by the folks at TenTonHammer.

Telltale has posted this week's update, it being the fourth and final part of their wicked cool History of Sam & Max feature: "After Darkness Comes the Light."

Be warned that this chapter of the freelance police backstory is the one with all the scary stuff in it, and so may be unsuitable for any who can't face a cancellation laden past. Included are rare details and concept art from the largely mysterious Infinite Machine game, including insight by Chuck Jordan, former team member of that game and currently on the team of Sam & Max: Season 2. And of course, for the real masochist, there's a bit of insider divulging on the more widely mourned Freelance Police.

But those who brave through it will reach a very uplifting conclusion...the duo's unending success in the here and now! When summer was first invented, there's no way anyone could have known that it would lead to this.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and read this little exchange of questions and answers between 1up and Dave Grossman about Season 2. Don't miss it, or else you will!

Nothing shocking here, but Sam & Max Season Two was just officially announced by Telltale for release this fall. Not much information yet, other than GameTap will again be utilized and more information will be given at Comic-Con tomorrow. Also, the episodes will be available from Telltale a day after GameTap now too. Which is sweet. More here.

Oh, and here's an early pre-render! Looks like the diner will be a location.

Oh man, it's all coming out now! Telltale and Ubisoft have totally re-announced CSI: Hard Evidence for a simultaneous release on PC, Xbox 360, and Wii this Fall! What's more, it's confirmed that Telltale themselves are the ones handling the ports, meaning those Wii and 360 programmers that they hired not long ago have been put to good use! Telltale's got a few screenshots to tide you over 'til tommorow, when they'll dazzle us with "another CSI goodie."

As you may know, CSI: Hard Evidence marks Telltale's second title in the series, the first being CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, which was released last year to much acclaim. So what exactly are the selling points of the sequel?

• More Crime-Solving Action
  Break down the evidence and bring suspects to justice in five all-new, bizarre crimes. Unravel longer cases, search bigger crime scenes and uncover hidden evidence in unique locations like never before.
  
  
• Go Deeper into the Evidence
  Master new forensic tools and find more evidence than ever. Use the new Garage Lab to examine large pieces of evidence like cars and trucks. Recreate gunfights with ballistic lasers, uncover shocking secrets with video analysis, and much more.
  
  
• The Ultimate CSI Experience
  Experience your very own CSI episodes as you piece together clues with the real CSI actors. Take part in dramatic interrogations, create grisly crime reenactments and explore atmospheric crime scenes inspired by the show.

No one who's read the full press release while jumping into an active volcano has lived to tell the tale.

Almost as if the world is starting to recognize that the game may actually exist, a trailer for CSI: Hard Evidence is now up over at WorthPlaying for your ocular gratification.

The 45 second video features some intriguing glimpses of one of the cases amongst the extreme close-ups of turpentine cans. Also, apparently Bridget the Fire Goddess has got a real pyro jones. Give it a look.

After months of frustrating silence from the publisher, Dutch site Xbox 360 Only has apparently gotten Ubisoft to "confess" to a few details regarding CSI: Hard Evidence, now confirmed to be coming to the PC, Wii and Xbox 360 this September and probably going to be re-announced very soon.

Enjoy this Babelfish version of the site's writeup which has a Ubisoft-issued list of some of the game's new features, as well as five new, great looking screenshots (unethically archived in Mojo's gallery for your convenience) that show off the game's new streamlined interface. Not sure which version of the game is on display here, but visually things are looking good.

Stay tuned for the actual press release from Ubisoft, which will hopefully be appearing in the near future.

Update: You may also want to check out this new, unrelated description of the game from Ubisoft's web site, listing some of the game's improvements from 3 Dimensions of Murder. "Mid-case quizzes" sure sounds interesting.

Well, mine did. If you ordered Telltale's disc, check your inbox, because yours ought to be as well. Telltale also predicts that the soundtrack should be available for shipping in a few days, and that mysterious Case File at the beginning of August.

In other Sam & Max-on-a-disc news, Telltale has put up a list of what stores you can expect to find the retail release in on their blog. You might notice that EB Games/Gamestop aren't listed here, and you also might have noticed that the Sam & Max product pages simply disappeared from their respective web sites awhile back, so I'm not exactly sure what became of that crazy strategy guide offer. In any case, you should have no trouble finding the game once it's out on store shelves in just a few weeks! (And really, when's the last time you could say that about Sam & Max?)

With this week comes commentary tracks for the cutscenes of Abe Lincoln Must Die! by our own Jake! Well, him and some awkward sounding hacks who purport to have designed or otherwise worked on the game, but whatever. Also included in this week's update are loads of concept art for the episode, as well as some other good stuff that has been previously available, but which time can't diminish the awesomeness of.

Summer: It's now for more than just breaking your neck on a slip 'n slide soaked in dishwashing fluid.

In a recent article MediaRights explores the marketing aspect of all types of digital distribution, and the importance of companies to maintain an active relationship with the communities built around online delivered products. Naturally, Telltale Games was a focus of the article, and Emily Morganti describes for them some of the ways the company keeps fans close:

Telltale Games creates an identity around the video game character Max from their popular serial game Sam & Max. The character, originating in comic books created by Steve Purcell, is an amusingly sarcastic and opinionated rabbit. Telltale has created an entire website around this character called Max for President, which follows from the plot of the game as the character Max becomes president in the first season. Morganti made it very clear that to keep the character authentic, they worked very closely with Purcell to see to it that his vision for the character remained in tact. In fact, she says the content on the Max for President website is "a lot funnier and more genuine than it would have been if it were just written by the marketing team."

Find out exactly how you were manipulated by reading the rest of the article.

It would appear that JoWood is pulling out all the stops for the German localization of Sam & Max: Season 1. It was previously reported that the German dub would reprise celebrity voice actor Sandra Schwittau as Max, and now it's confirmed that the voice of Sam from the German version of Hit the Road, Hans-Gerd Kilbinger, will also be lending his talents to the voice overs. In addition, the supporting characters will be voiced by a cast of well-known German voice talent (a list of which can be found here), in what is apparently the most expensive localization project in the publisher's history. (No surprise there for anyone who knows how popular adventure games are in Germany.)

Read the positive things that GameStar.de has to say on the matter here (that's in German, click here for the Google translated version) which includes some details on JoWood's translation process, an interview the German Sam, and an interview with Dave Grossman in which the veteran designer is told he answers interview questions like a dairy farmer.

The European release of Sam & Max: Season 1 is due out August 31, and will feature English, German, and French voice overs in addition to subtitles in those languages as well as Italian and...I'm not exactly sure what else beyond that. It will include the same extras as Dreamcatcher/TAC's North American release.

Thanks to Harald B who pointed this out over at Telltale's forums.

Source: Telltale forums

Let's play a game: Pretend like it's June 27th. Then I won't have to explain why I never noticed this excellent interview that IGN had with Jared Emerson-Johnson about the amazing Sam & Max soundtrack. Jared lets us in on the secrets of his inspirations for scoring the episodes and also plugs the awesome two-disc soundtrack that Telltale's putting out soon. (You did order it, right?)

And if you haven't seen it yet on Telltale's site, the article has the track listing for the album - an outrageously extensive 73 compositions altogether. Jared also offers some thoughts on one of his favorite tracks from each episode (in which Jake is credited as the man behind the provocative lyrics of "Midtown Cowboys"), and reveals that he's already hard at work on Season 2's tuneage. Grab your flugelhorn and get to reading.

Not sure how much you guys will care about this, but Amazon has an updated, and probably final, version of the cover art for Dreamcatcher's boxed release of Season 1 next month. It's mostly the same as the placeholder but with some interesting tweaks including a slightly revised package design, a badge added to Max's left hand, and the fly swatter in his right hand replaced by a bat. There's also a little black silver emblem now commemorating the characters' 20th year of existence.

Anyway, it's obviously not as good as the Steve Purcell drawing that graces the cover of Telltale's version, but it's definitely really nice. And since you're getting both versions, that's a good thing to know.

It never had a chance, really, not with this interview Wii60 had with Dave Grossman a few days ago. Grossman discusses Sam & Max, episodic gaming, the adventure genre, and all that other good stuff in a Q&A for the ages.

But Telltale's not stopping with interviews. In two weeks they'll be heading to the San Diego Comic-Con, and their presence there, which includes a panel with the Hothead Games guys (of the Penny Arcade episodes), a booth with new Steve Purcell merchandise, and a signing session with Purcell, Grossman, and Mike Stemmle is all detailed on their blog.

And finally, just when you thought Vivendi was plain donating their money to Double Fine, the third set of Double Fine Action Buttons has been released! Based on the world renowned web comic by Nathan Stapley, this collection of four buttons is entitled, "My Buttons About Me" and the product page comes complete with an interview with the man himself.

And this week brings us the next nail-biting chapter in the Freelance Police biography, "Sam & Max Hit it Big." This third segment of the duo's history predominantly deals with the short-lived television series, which to remind you is supposedly due out on DVD next year.

If you took everything that preceding summers didn't have, and subtracted the volume of Sam & Max content that it would take to end world hunger, you'd be left with nothing.

It seems like there's always a Sam & Max contest going on somewhere, and the latest is being held by The Adventure Company which, as you should recall, will be publishing the boxed, retail release of the game this August. Anyway, answer a couple of easy questions for your umpteenth chance to win a free copy of Season 1!

And when you're done with that, please remember to enter our own, totally awesome contest as well. And even if you did already, go ahead and send something else in. You still have ten days left, after all. You have any idea how long ten days is? You could make up so many recipes in that time. We should also point out that bribes are accepted.

Freshly stolen from Telltale's news panel are two new links relevant to the company which deserve your attention. The first offering is from the guys at GameSetWatch who have put up a video of Telltale's lecture from this year's Independent Games Summit. To refresh your memory, the talk was by Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner and Senior Designer Dave Grossman. They speak about episodic gaming, with lots of fine nuggets of info on how the production of Sam & Max episodes moves forward with a minimal of madness.

Telltale was also recently assaulted by Marin County newspaper Pacific Sun, which ran an article about local game developers. Be sure to read it for the prevalent quotes from noteworthy Telltalers. The article also mentions that Telltale "has a new CSI game coming out this October," which you can choose to believe or not.