Another day, another Albu chat, this time with Peter McConnell which, let’s be honest, can’t be a bad thing. And at two hours, it’s not a wild investment of time either. Check it out…
… we have the choice to cry into the pillow over getting old or celebrate a stellar game. And, since we finished the former, you can now reap the benefits from the latter: Enjoy yourself with these newly unearthed 2009 SCUMM Bar reviews of Tales of Monkey Island.
OK, so not the grandest of gestures, but we probably will do more, maybe. Because the game truly deserves it. Check out the Mojo review, too.
Fifteen years, seriously…
Last month saw another welcome entry in the “Lucasfilm Games Rewind” series over in the blog section of Lucasfilm.com, this one being a tribute to Loom.
It’s indeed a nice little writeup on the 1990 classic, but the irony of its devout tone might be a bit too rich for some to digest, considering that Lucasfilm only offers the VGA version of the game - drastically re-written compared to the EGA original, the artwork for which is a high water mark of the 16 color era - through Steam and GOG. It also happens to be a version of the game loathed by creator Brian Moriarty, who is solicitously quoted throughout the piece.
But some things in life just must be accepted, and we should all humble ourselves to the reality that this issue is literally impossible to address.
Source: Lucasfilm.com
Release day has come and gone, and whether you binged your way through Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: Remastered or you’re making a point of savoring it (or you’re merely employed), the game is pretty much the only purpose your life serves at the moment. And rightly so.
While Remi’s review is really the only one you need to consider, I guess we should point out that critics everywhere are taking the necessary steps to not make fools of themselves by aggressively loving the game. Meanwhile, Skunkape has published its traditional Steam post that goes deep into exactly what they changed in their fastidious remastering efforts. Some of it May Surprise You.
Additionally, they assure that the usual sack of archival content, along with the soundtrack release you’ve all been awaiting since, oh, let’s say 2010, is forthcoming. Where the former is concerned, followers of Skunkape’s social media presence have already gotten a taste, and quite the nourishing one at that for proper connoisseurs of vintage web announcement ephemera:
Speaking of social media, I was happy to see that Chuck Jordan, whose last big contribution (his greatest to adventure games, if I might suggest?) at Telltale was The Devil's Playhouse, registered his thoughts for the occasion:
The three-years-in-the-making revamp of Telltale’s masterpiece (Footnote: Which, not to mention, marks the triumphant conclusion of a damn near five-year saga to remaster the trilogy) is what is termed in esoteric Mixnmojo parlance A Big Deal, and we can naturally be expected to keep squeezing juice out of it for weeks years an appropriate and judicious length of time to come. So get ready to relish every second of it.
Ever wondered what the Scabb Island beach would look like during daytime? Wonder no more: The (questionably named) Booty Boutique has you covered with this serene video and original music.
Yet another MojoDB preview, only for our privileged readers. This time, An overhauled screenshot database that combines images from throughout the Mojo Network.
Got your plans set for the weekend? Cancel them, as your next few days will be spent traversing Mojo’s recently resurfaced podcast archive. Forty-two nuggets of gold from 2008 through 2019.
If you follow MojoCast in your favorite podcast software, you already have the updated feed, including a dozen episodes that were, until now, lost to time. And you can, of course, find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Podcast Index, through RSS, and so on. It’s even on YouTube if that’s your jam.
As for new podcasts? You got 20-odd hours to go through as it is, stop bothering me until you’ve listened to them all. >:
You’ve read our article on the subject, sure, but as you’ve confessed to many a psychiatrist, you’ll never truly know a night’s sleep until you can hear Aric Wilmunder talk about Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix – that’s the would-be SCUMM Indy game planned after Fate of Atlantis – for four-and-a-half hours.
Well, Daniel Albu's got you covered in his latest upload. Eat well:
Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu
Our favourite Lucasarts game emulator DREAMM has reached another milestone. Earlier this week Aaron Giles released DREAMM 3 further cementing his place in the Mojo pantheon. (Footnote: other members include DJG and whoever made the cookchase midi)
This version adds support for a bunch more games, supports add on packs and adds an excellent CRT filter that adapts and changes to suit the video mode of the game you're playing. There's much more of course and full details can be found in the readme.
Grab it here.Source: Our forums
That Double Fine’s PsychOdyssey was a goddamn classic goes without saying—a raw 30+ episode journey through Psychonauts 2’s development, free of charge. And now the latter can be rectified, as LRG has launched a Blu-ray SteelBook set for a cool $75.
-v1721996255821.png)
The 2,000-copy limited run includes:
Not bad. And what’s this? A new hour-and-a-half-long episode up on the 'tube?
LucasArts soundtracks: You love them, you listen to them, and Mojo has hosted an unseemly amount of them over the years. Some, like the straight rip of The Secret of Monkey Island CD-ROM, are classics in their own right, but the real gems are the ones painstakingly mixed and/or recorded by sites like Highland Productions and Soundtrack Island (RIP (for now?)). And so, we’re trying to collect both types of soundtracks and make them accessible through our new YouTube list: The LucasArts+ Soundtrack Collection.
We’ve only put up fourteen videos so far, but the number should slowly but surely rise (unless another shiny object is dangled in front of us). And we hope some small details will make these soundtracks stand out just a little bit. For example, we’re trying to gather proper credits for the compositions—who wrote what for Escape from Monkey Island? We got a scoop of the scoop. On the flip side, who created those lovely MT-32 recordings of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and Sam & Max Hit the Road? Mojo’s very own server admin: Zaarin! (Seriously, those Woodtick synth pads are true chef’s kisses.) To top it off, we’ve tried to up the nostalgia factor for at least some of the albums by adding screenshots and concept art for the various tracks.
It’s all a work in progress. But it’s a start.
Do you have any information pertinent to any of the albums? Credits? Anything? Sound off. We’re agile around these parts.
Now go browse the collection.
“The soundtrack uploads on Youtube are quality work. I really like the diverse mixes, and every thumbnail design” —Marius, giving his stamp of approval.We’re just a tick behind schedule on this—what’s a year or four amongst friends?—but MojoDB is starting to come together. Sort of. At least enough so we can give you, our privileged core readership, an exclusive preview of the MojoDB Trivia section. Enjoy a mix of ancient content from our current not-at-all-outdated trivia section as well as gems from the excellent SCUMM Bar. Hey, it’s a bit more readable than what we currently have, at least. And you can rediscover gems like this—Raz appearing in Alice: Madness Returns.
This is all to whet your appetite and expect practically everything to change as we move along. But, for now, enjoy our new Trivia section—just another bespoke service from your friends at Mojo.
Who reads anymore, right? Luckily, RETURN Magazin's latest issue is packed with glorious screenshots and custom character art from classic point-and-click adventure games. This special edition, touting no less than 154 pages, dives deep into the golden era of adventure gaming, featuring per-game-stylized articles, reviews, and retrospectives on iconic titles that shaped the genre.
You can expect lots of games covered here, including the Monkey Islands, Indiana Jones 3 and 4, Full Throttle and the others. And for the point-and-click connoisseur, feast your eyes on more exotic titles of the era such as Gabriel Knight and Phantasmagoria. To get a sneak peek, check out the review flip-through video below!
Reading in German might be a challenge for some, but nostalgia is universal and pricing is modest!
Sure, he might have pointedly kept Mojo out of the loop when it came to that furtive GDC showing back in April, and you’re right to challenge the morality of that, but the fact is, Jake (Footnote: And the rest of Skunkape Games, presumably) looks to have achieved something pretty darned special with Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: Remastered: The Omen II, so I say why let his pettiness dominate the discussion?
We’ve got ourselves a release date of August 14th , and that’ll be a simultaneous PC, Switch, Xbox and Playstation launch. You probably wouldn’t be wrong to keep your eye on the official site for more. One assumes that, as with the other seasons, Skunkape will eventually prepare an album release, and in so doing, a historical wrong would be righted. I’ll let our 2021 interview with Bay Area Sound do the explaining for me:
Mojo The-International-House-Of: When Telltale’s first two Sam & Max seasons originally came out, they received pressed soundtrack albums that were sold through the company store. However, Telltale dramatically scaled back on cool physical items by the time they made The Devil’s Playhouse, thus its soundtrack never got a CD release of its own to complete the collection. Is there room to hope that this situation can be redeemed someday?
Jared Emerson-Johnson: I assure you that nobody in the world is sadder about the shift in the merchandise policies at Telltale than yours truly. In fact, I was halfway through preparing season three soundtrack album masters when the policy shift occurred. Without making any promises, I will say that we will hopefully have something exciting to announce in a year or two.
Physical or no, the arrival of an official soundtrack of any persuasion would be redemption. The gears of justice turn slowly, my friends, but oh do they turn. (Footnote: Well, except in the case of Thrik’s unbelievably brazen LFN embezzlement scandal, but you can’t expect cosmic judgment to score a perfect bowl.) Now that the third, final, and best of Telltale’s Sam & Max seasons (and/or entire damned library) has been tarted up for the ball and will soon be in your grubby hands, the question remains: What does the future hold for Skunkape? And would they bother telling us if they knew? You’d hate for them to put themselves out.
Source: Skunkape
I mean...
Still, we always support Loom love, so we salute you, Eurogamer.
Image Credit: The Point and Click Store.Source: Eurogamer
The edutainment tentacle of George Lucas’s empire, and the ways it tied together with his Young Indiana Jones concept, is a pretty interesting if underdocumented story that has eluded a proper chronicle despite gallant attempts.
As part of the home video release of the Young Indy television show in 2007-2008, which as you may know involved substantially re-editing the series chronologically into TV-movies, Lucasfilm produced a whopping 94 historical documentaries for classroom use that also turned up on The History Channel. Now, Lucasfilm will be releasing this enormous library of supplemental material on their YouTube channel on a weekly basis, starting with “Archaeology: Unearthing Our Past”:
Source: Lucasfilm.com
Mojo continues its laudably recessive approach to journalism by letting those desperate, needier outlets get first dibs since they’re in such a damned hurry. But now that all the carrying on has blown over, we’re ready to calmy and safely catch up on the latest bits and bobs surrounding Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, while signaling all turns and obeying the speed limit within a generous margin of error.
Since the Xbox showcase, a few new gameplay clips have emerged. We really have to give the credit on this one to reader Threepwood4life, whose unthinkable willingness to look at social media platforms made the discoveries possible:
Lost in the shuffle of the showcase was this podcast (also fully transcribed) by Xbox Wire, which featured as guests the Game Director and Production Director of Great Circle, Jerk Gustafsson and John Jennings, who both do a pretty credible job at Telling People What We Imagine They Want To Hear game:
XBOX WIRE: Obviously, this is an IP that has been around for decades at this point, so you obviously want to make sure you get it right. Can you talk a little bit about the prep and research that went into making sure that you were bringing an authentic experience?
JERK GUSTAFSSON: In this case, of course, we had a lot of materials to go through, and we spent countless of hours just rewatching the films, especially the two movies, I think, that are closest to the game, which is Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. And looking at the movies both from a broad stroke perspective to get into the mood and why, but also to some extent, scrutinizing them for details and the small hooks that are key to the identity of everything that is Indiana Jones.
And in addition, then, we have one of the best resources through our partnership with Lucasfilm games, and working together with them on this project has been invaluable, just this cave of knowledge about the character, which has been fantastic. And Lucasfilm has been excited about the project from day one and have been incredibly supportive and helpful in bringing the story and the character in Indiana Jones to life through not just our story, but also through gameplay.
JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. It's been great having access to writers, directors from Lucasfilm, and people who've worked with the Indiana Jones property for decades, having their input. I mean, some of these people know everything that has ever been written about Indy, and having them to bounce ideas off and get some of their own input has been hugely, hugely invaluable. I mean, our writers are huge Indy fans as well and just been scouring all of the countless wikis that are out there written about everything, all of the comics, additional books, and so forth, just to build up their knowledge.
Other things as well. I mean, we managed to get access into some of the Lucasfilm archives as well, which has been-- for Indy fans, has been an absolute dream come true to get access to some of these things that perhaps not so many people have seen, but our artists have been wanting to make sure everything is authentic as possible. We bought replicas of Indy's famous fedora made by the original hat makers who made the original prop from the first film, proper recreations of his iconic jacket, and so forth, just to make sure everything is absolutely spot on.
Lastly, we took the opportunity to update our gallery with the latest screenshots that came out of all the recent hubbub.
The tortoise and the hare, my friends. The tortoise and the hare.
It’s been politely noticed by our dear readers that we’ve arguably fallen a bit delinquent in highlighting Daniel Albu’s latest interviews, always trackable in that dedicated forum thread, despite their objective status as The Most Mojo Things Ever. I guess it never occurred to our constituents that we might still be watching them.
But the point is made, and it’s high time we catch up on the LucasArts developer interviews that have come along after Annie Fox got her due February. Since then, Daniel invited Aaron Giles over for a third session, to discuss the features introduced in DREAMM 3.0…
…before pulling Noah Falstein back into the virtual studio for some further Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis commentary…
…which was in turn followed by a conversation with voice director extraordinaire Khris Brown…
…and then, in keeping with the theme, by a chat with that other legendary voice director, Darragh O'Farrell…
…which might have felt pretty darn lonely if it hadn’t been chased down with a session with Mike Levine:
This latest one has been generating quite a bit of buzz, as Levine used the opportunity to debut rare footage: some fairly unbelievable tests for Indiana Jones FMV sequences using live action, filmed at ILM. Though things didn’t pan out for Indy, the techniques would be leveraged to published success in Rebel Assault 2. It’s unclear if this bit of R&D was part of the cancelled Iron Phoenix adventure game (which is said to have undergone experiments along those lines when a contractor failed to deliver on more traditional animation) or some other project altogether, but regardless of the exact origin you get a decent George Lucas anecdote, so why complain?
Mojo will soon return to cover the upcoming release of Afterlife.
Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu
It’s quiet days, so we might as well toss an old-school trivia nugget your way. This time, a perennial elTee favorite.
Mark Ferrari, what a pro.
