The International House of Mojo

As Jake points out, a trailer for The Great Cow Race, Telltale's latest cash cow, is up on filefront in a variety of sizes (large and small), so take your pick and give it a look, and then give it a second look, and then watch it over and over again, preferably until the cows come home. Holy cow is it great. It also does, in fact, feature cows so you might as well stop torturing yourself and download it before you have a cow.

?

Steve Purcell's newest addition to the increasingly brilliant Sam & Max web comic has been posted! See it, won't you?

Telltale has also added two character animations to the Great Cow Race page, one of Thorn and the other of Barrelhaven Tavern regular Dirk.

So much news!

It seems that Telltale will be offering the soundtrack for The Great Cow Race online as they did with Out from Boneville, and this time they'll be making it available before the game's release over the course of a few weeks. They've put up three of the tracks already! So give it a listen and get a taste of what Mr. Emerson-Johnson has in store for us this round.

Gamespot has got five videos, the first look at The Great Cow Race in action, online right now. I'm off to check them out myself!

Update: They followed up with a nice preview and a handful of new screenshots.

What's that? You loved Bone: Out from Boneville, and just can't wait to get your hands on the sequel, Bone: The Great Cow Race? And you wouldn't mind spending an entire day focus testing it to iron out any remaining bugs and flow issues before its April release date?

Well, you're in luck: Telltale Games is currently looking for volunteers in the San Rafael area ? just north of the Golden Gate Bridge ? to play the hell out of the upcoming title on March 25th between 11am and 5pm.

Yes, that's right: this upcoming Saturday, you can sit amongst the denizens of Telltale Towers and experience the game before anybody else; the only catch is that you'll have to give the development team some juicy feedback!

If you're interested, get yourself over to this thread on Adventure Gamers started by Telltale's new community coordinator, who you may or may not have heard of before; send him a private message with your age, gender (??), location and history of adventure gaming to be considered.

Today is the ship date for CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, so it should be seen in stores within the week. Hilariously, the official site has never been posted and I've yet to see any real online promotion for the game on the part of the publisher. You've really got to hand it to the Ubisoft marketing department: They sure know how to generate hype!

Also today is the launch of the official web site of Bone: The Great Cow Race, officially due for release in April. The site features an overview of the game, several brand-spankin' new screenshots (does the game look excellent or what?), concept art, and general information (including some preview excerpts, one from a 1up preview we didn't catch) to whet your appetite. The Telltale forum for Cow Race has opened as well. Discuss!

Update: Gamespot has some higher-res versions of the screenshots.

Not to be outdone by Gamespot, Adventure Gamers has posted its own hands-on look at 3 Dimensions of Murder, and previewed the hell out of the game. Give the article a look so you can get all excited about its release this week.

Ever heard of Video Game Radio? Me neither, but episode 37, which you can download here, features an interview with Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games. Once downloaded, skip ahead to 54:30 (or perhaps straight to 59:00 for the Dan Connors part) to get to the stuff you care about. Dan the Man has some good stuff to say, including that Bone 2 will be out in April or late March, which is I believe the most specific date said yet besides simply "Spring." The whole interview part is definitely worth the listen. The rest of the show, well...the interview is great.

In what's the first real, substantive preview of the game (and no less than four days to release!), Gamespot has posted a positive hands-on look at 3 Dimensions of Murder. The article provides some details about how the interface works and the effects the new 3D engine has on the gameplay. They've also got 7 new screenshots to show off. It sure makes me want to go out and murder someone! Check it all out.

Today working-title has published a new interview with Telltale Games about its products past, present, and future. Though there's little in the way of new information, there's the hint that we may get some more "casual" games (a la Telltale Texas Hold'em) between larger releases.

All the screenshots released from 3 Dimensions of Murder have thus far been confirmed to be either packaging images or works-in-progress, however a few more have popped up at online retailers that seem to be in-game and are probably closer to real screenshots. The game's release is in only a few weeks and the official web site has got to be posted soon, so we won't have long to wait to validate them.

The plot thickens. Take a look. Also Graham Annable's Dank the Caveman got himself an update as well after a lengthy hiatus.

Adventure Gamers, one of the highest rated places to steal content from, has totally got some new screenshots from Bone: The Great Cow Race, and it's looking really great. How about the faithful rendering of the Barrelhaven Tavern regulars, eh? Or the great expanded environment from Thorn's dream? How can I have ever previously lived in a world where these screenshots didn't exist?

Update: Adventure Gamers has just published a great, highly-informative hands-on preview for the game! Everyone loves Adventure Gamers!

Source: AG

Hey, remember the Wondercon last Friday that was posted about? The one where Telltale showed up and hosted a panel? Wasn't that great? Oh, you didn't attend? I guess you just had something unbelievably more important to do that day.

If it were up to me I'd leave you curious about what happened so that you might learn your lesson. But the kindly souls at Telltale decided to make this week's blog a semi-accurate transcript of the occurrences at the panel. The high points are two new screenshots from the upcoming The Great Cow Race, one of Phoney scheming outside the woodshed and the other of Lucius in the tavern. Man that image of Lucius is a relief.

While waiting for the official web site for 3 Dimensions of Murder (which I'm told will be at the URL csitdm.ubi.com) to launch, you can tide yourself over by checking out its product page which was quietly added to the Ubisoft online store. Particularly of interest is that it includes the first two screenshots from the game. I have to say I like the graphics quite a bit, but be sure to tell me your obviously better opinion below.

The page also contains Ubisoft's descriptions and features of the game, and you can of course use it to pre-order your PC copy right now. The release date is March 21st, so we'll be crackin' cases with Grissom and co. soon. I recommend buying the game as soon as possible, because you'll want to get all that propriety out of your investigation techniques by the time Sam and Max roll around.

Telltale reports that key members of its team as well as Steve Purcell himself will be appearing at the San Francisco Wondercon on Friday to present a panel discussing the process of adapting stories to an interactive medium. Read the whole entry here. Those in the area are commanded to attend so that they might share what went on, especially since Great Cow Race stuff is supposed to be shown.

Telltale has just made a physical version of Out from Boneville available from their web site. It costs $24.99, and here's the description:

Add the Out from Boneville CD-ROM to your home game library in an attractively designed DVD slipcase. Includes complete Bone game, along with the game's music tracks in MP3 format, liner notes from the score's composer, digital collector cards and promotional videos.

And you can start playing right away! Includes the downloadable version for free!

There are also bundles with the comics available. And lower international shipping. So that's pretty cool, despite all the extra material being available online (I'm assuming "promotional videos" means the trailer and the "Bringing Bone to Life" video). So buy it!

As far as I know this will only be available from Telltale's site, however a cardboard boxed version of Telltale Texas Hold'em exists and has been found at places like Best Buy so you never know.

EDIT: Woah, check it out! Apparently if you bought the game online already you can get the packaged version for a mere $4.99. To take advantage of this offer, which expires on February 28th, just type your order number from when you bought the game into the promo code box. (Note: This only works if you've bought the game on or before January 26th.)

Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? Clearly you're not hip. Enlighten yourself by gazing at the lovely fourth installment of the Sam & Max web comic.

Didn't want to see the third page of the online Sam & Max comic, eh? Well that's just too damn bad. Enjoy its brilliance and keep your eyes peeled for any further additions at the Telltale site.

Note: News post artificially expanded to at least three sentences at the commandment of Scummbuddy, who is apparently pretty strict when it comes to this sort of thing. ;)

Yes indeed.