The International House of Mojo

The young, hip Mojo had its say, and now old grandpa SCUMM Bar follows suit. Hint: the reviews are pretty similar, down to not having a score.

But screw reading this, go read the review!

UPDATE by Chris: Elsewhere Deep in the Internet, occasional Mojo podcaster and long-time IRC stalker MrCoulomb/SurplusGamer has a nice Q&A session with Mike Stemmle about the game.


UPDATE by SurplusGamer: Gee, thanks. Only about a million weeks late, there ;)
(You could've told us! - Chris)
(I can't believe how late the mail passed at my house day. Ridiculous. - Jason)

Our review for the first chapter in Tales of Monkey Island is now online, which means that you can soon download and play the game for yourself (if you can't already).

I decided not to give this review a score because scores are silly. Mojo has, for the moment, assumed a 5/5 score, which should hopefully be edited out providing our technology enables us to do so.

And the reason I'm telling you is that this is the last day you have to get a new Monkey Island game with Steve Purcell cover art, which is an exclusive pre-order bonus. Put your order in if you haven't already.

The Guardian interviews Dave Grossman about Tales of Monkey Island, which is launching Tuesday. Dave explains the lack of PlayStation love so far

There are a lot of logistics involved in episodic development, so in order to keep ourselves sane, we still prefer to lead on only one console for the initial run of a series (it's not uncommon for us to run it on another platform later on). They're all good channels, so we like to spread the joy around a little bit. Wii seems like a great platform for this; also we've already got two other series currently running on XBLA (Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures and Sam & Max Save the World), and our engine doesn't run on the Playstation yet, so the choice was easy.

The full interview can be read here.

Source: The Guardian

So Steve Purcell's sent some exclusive* photos of a very much work-in-progress Monkey Island cover that you should check out. He's also posted some Monkey Island related-art over at his blog, stuff from a way back.

In sadder news, what has been (for me) the face of Telltale is leaving the company: Goodbye, Emily, and good luck in your writing career.

*to Telltale

Telltale has released three new screenshots from the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island, which you can check out in the occasionally not broken Mojo gallery. Sweet.

You should probably just not watch this as the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island comes out a mere seven days from now, but those of you who want to plunder the spoilerific surprises of (I assume to be) the game's opening sequence can follow this link to Gamespot's exclusive video footage of it. Don't watch this.

Yarr!

Update: It's no longer quite so exclusive, with Telltale putting it up on their blog in handy Youtube form.

Remember that Kombo Breaker web site? Nor do I, but they've recently launched a podcast episode with our friends and companions at TTG, Mike Stemmle and Emily Mort... Morgt... Morganti.

I mean, really, stop reading this, and go listen!

On the lucas forums, user parabolee has pointed out that GameSetWatch has a nice overview article about the Monkey Island series. Tales of Monkey Island also gets a mention, as do Laserschwert's massive posters.

It’s a gorgeous looking game, though. Not just for something that’s almost 18 years old – it is genuinely stunning. I’m glad they never released it in EGA form, and really, it’s quite possible that they weren’t able to technically – the level of detail probably relies on things like, you know, more than 16 colours.

If you're looking for that second link that's identical to the first link that we at Mojo tend to post after the quote, here it is.

Source: Game Set Watch

Want to see the TMI chapter screen?

Spoil ahead then!

And don't tell me you didn't hum the chapter tune too.

Now let's all tell Jake to clean his desk. (I assume it's his desk.)

A few days back Mark Darin, the Co-Lead Designer for Tales of Monkey Island, held a Q&A session on the Facebook wall of the Monkey Island Adventures page. It's buried now, and a bit of a jumble, so head on over to the Telltale forums where member tomo_cjt has cleaned it up and edited out the dross and posted it for your reading pleasure.

Tingler Updates: To save making another similar post, Eurogamer have an interview with Dave Grossman about the game, with a few new screenshots!

Of particular note is why Tim Schafer's not involved (apparently Ron's involvement caused some legal problems) and Dave's surprised "no comment" when asked if they would be doing an Indiana Jones game...

Source: Facebook

Remember the days when we updated features at Mojo about once every two years? Those days are apparently long gone, what with another review, this time of the Xbox 360 version of Sam & Max: Season One: Save the World.

Oh just read it.

Yesterday was the long-awaited release of Sam & Max: Season 1 (now dubbed Sam & Max Save the World to make it a bit less creepy to general gamers). The whole thing can be purchased for 1600 Microsoft Points, and perks of this version include hi-def visuals, widescreen support (also added to the Wii release but still not for PC) and achievements. I'm not sure what kind of control system it uses, whether it's been converted to something similar to Wallace & Gromit or if they've just left it point 'n click on a controller, like CSI: Hard Evidence or the Nintendo port of Maniac Mansion.

Sam & Max: Season 2 (now under the moniker Sam & Max Through Time and Space) will also make it to Xbox Live at some undisclosed time, and its retail releases for PC and Wii are still expected to be out by the year's end at the hands of Atari (taking over from Dreamcatcher/JoWood with Season 1).

It's stating the bleeding obvious, but it's always nice to read in print on screen. Telltale's Dan Connors reveals to Videogamer.com that they have their eyes on other LucasArts franchises for future new episodic adventures.

When asked if Day of the Tentacle was feasible, Connors replied: “I would say feasible is a good word.”

“To me I always think of the big three as, and maybe it’s just because of when I was playing and when I was first starting at LucasArts, I always think of Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island as the big three franchises," Connors told us. "Having access to Steve and access to Dave Grossman and everything else… I really love Day of the Tentacle.

“Although I wanted to do, and my ideas always get shot down, but I wanted to see, like a 32-year-old Hoagie, or Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne all grown up with jobs and what not. But we’ll see if that gets any traction.”

Neat!

Source: Videogamer.com

The latest episode of Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures, "Muzzled!" is out today, and if you're a season subscriber you've already got an e-mail informing you to grab the episode, but, if not, then it's a good thing I was here.

Had you already pre-ordered Tales of Monkey Island you'd have access to the Pirates Private Club and you'd already know this. But seeing that you don't, you might just want to check out Bay Area Sound's Facebook page and have a look at some pictures of the voice recordings of episode 2 of TMI.

For the first time, Sam & Max are coming to Xbox Live. Possibly using the Wallace & Gromit control style, Sam & Max Season One (now known as Sam & Max Save The World) will be available June 17th.

It's seems as if all six episodes are going to be released together, like they were on Wii. There will be added Achievements, HD support, and foreign language subtitles. And the world saw that it was good.

We knew about this yesterday, but for some reason we didn't get round to posting about it. So thanks to Glokidd for reminding us!

So we know what Ronzo thinks about the new and re-imagined Monkey Island games, and Dave Grossman is obviously the man behind TMI. But what does the third of the original Monkey Island design team think? You know... Tim Schafer... God.

Well, in a nice long interview with Joystiq, he says...

I'm excited that you can play the original one again. Dave is doing the new episodes, Dave Grossman. Other than Ron, there's probably no one else that should really be doing that. I'm really happy about that.

So there you go, you are allowed to like the games now. Read the whole interview as it's pretty entertaining.

Telltale has announced that Muzzled, the third episode of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, will be released next week on June 16th.

Monty Muzzle, a newcomer in town, is holding a grand fundraiser to rebuild the local dog shelter. Gromit soon realizes that Muzzle's intentions aren't exactly charitable and he must foil the huckster's plot to save the town's investment and rescue his canine friends.

Develop Mag have a huge interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors, in which he expresses an interest in the Dr Who license (among others - Young Ones or Spinal Tap anyone!?)

"We do get emails from people asking us to make a Doctor Who series," Connors says. "Maybe if we can get a channel into the UK with Wallace & Gromit we could talk business with the BBC, that would be really good for us."

You can read the whole lovely article (at the start of the BETA section) online here.

Source: Develop Mag