So what happens when you combine the sensationalism of investigative journalism, Monkey Island and bored Argentinian trolls? You get the stunning revelation that Grog is a real drink, and won’t somebody think of the children?!?

In a report that has kept gamers chuckling all day, an Argentinan program recently ran an expose on the latest and most awful trend to sweep through the children of today: drinking Grog. The reporter came upon this shocking news after a lot of quality research (read: trawling Facebook), and hit upon a group where suggestions for drinks were being shared amongst teenagers. One of those suggestions, presumably for a bored laugh, was the SCUMM Bar’s classic recipie for Grog.

Missing the point entirely, this then went to air as a shocking report of what those no good kids are up to these days, much to the mirth of everyone with even a single strain of gamer DNA. To quote a YouTube comment: “mas GRANDE trolleo”. And it shouldn’t take much to guess what that means in Spanish.

Has anyone checked in to see if Jeff Goldblum is still alive, by the way? He tends to get in mortal danger around these kind of situations.

Just take a look at the video, it is beyond classic. You can only weep joyously and applaud at the combination of half-arsed trolling and half-arsed journalism that birthed this lol-cano. It’s bought joy to thousands of gamer lunch breaks.

Oh, and this just in!

In related news, a disturbing report that around the globe children are taking to using Genki Dama (or “Spirit Bombs”) to resolve their differences in the playground. The highly destructive fighting move is characterised by standing still, holding both your arms straight up in the air and screaming at the top of your lungs for hours on end.

The practice has earned the condemnation of environmental and parental groups world-wide, who claim that draining chi from lifeforms surrounding you is a dangerous and anti-social act. If you or anyone you know uses Spirit Bombs, even simply for recreation, please consult a councellor.

See to me, I think even this is too flashy

Here’s one I missed from around a week back. Apparently in a recent podcast interview with Total PC Gaming, Telltale Games’ director of design Dave Grossman mused pointedly at the idea of resurrecting LucasArts’ adventure classic LOOM.

Many people were overjoyed with the idea of seeing one of their childhood classics back on the scene. Others, like me, are a little more skeptical about the idea. Here’s a transcripted section of the interview:

The one I always think about these days is Loom actually, and how ahead of it’s time it was. I think the problem with it at the time was that it was only two and a half hours long and now I find myself deliberately trying to design games that are only two and a half hours long. So I think … well, why not do that?

-Dave Grossman, raider of the Lucas Arts

Now I loved LOOM. It’s unique design and gameplay made it one of the greatest adventure games ever to come out of the then LucasFilm stable. But something about creating it’s sequels doesn’t seem right, at least in my mind.

To me, the charm of LOOM was in it’s simple design and basic yet rich VGA graphics. I’m probably in a small minority of people who thought that the CD-ROM version of the game actually spoiled the mood.

At the time of it’s original creation, LOOM‘s creator Brian Moriarty did pen two sequels, even though actually producing them was “just talk”. Now it seems they might see the light of day, and only about twenty years after they were written. The sequels, called “Forge” and “The Fold“, revolved around the characters that Bobbin leaves behind after tearing the Pattern at the end of of the first game. Bobbin then acts in an advisory capacity, helping his stranded friends to fight against Chaos, who still retains control over half of the original Pattern.

It would be a big undertaking for Telltale, if they were to go ahead with it. While the first game is essentially aimed at a family friendly level, it also contained more of an adult feel than the carefree, laugh-along examples provided by Monkey Island and Sam and Max. So could Telltale take on something that is both funny but deep at the same time? It’d break away from their body of work so far, it’s true, but it’s probably something that the team would relish the challenge of.

If they could accomplish it, then the only remaining hurdle would be convincing old-school weirdos like myself that it could live up to it’s predecessor!

Take a look at the interview article.

Like a thousand voices cried out at once, and were then silenced...

After building us up over the weekend, it turns out that LucasArts’ big secret reveal for this week is adding the classic Super Nintendo Star Wars games to Wii’s Virtual Console collection. Super Star Wars, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi will all be available over the coming weeks for 800 Wii points each. Oh, don’t forget to add a whole bunch of trademark and registered symbols to that last sentence, people playing along at home.

Now that’s all well and good, but when are we going to get to the real issues here, LucasArts? If that IS your real name? If we’re going to be milking old Star Wars franchise games, why aren’t we milking X-Wing Vs TIE Fighter yet? I’d let myself get heavily gouged for a working copy of that game, easy.

At this rate, we’re probably going to see the god-awful Rebel Assault before any classic X-Wing action!

They didn't even lose the spirit of the original box art

LucasArts have been in overdrive lately attempting to get an adventure genre revival happening.  It’s a much loved genre that has been sadly missed during it’s long, though some may say necessary, absence.  But now, with the re-release of so many LucasArts classics like Loom and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam, furthered by the old IPs getting new life from the crew over at Telltale, you could say that adventure is really re-emerging on the gaming market.

No better time then to make everyone nostalgia as hard as they can with the re-release of what most people would agree was the greatest adventure title of all time: The Secret of Monkey Island.

Ron Gilbert’s original masterpiece was truly a milestone in computer entertainment.  A game full of challenge, humour, memorable PC speaker music (now there’s a feat you don’t see often) and just a fantastic experience for gamers everywhere.  I feel a little bit sorry for those people who will be discovering the game for the first time with the release of the Special Edition, simply because they have missed out on discovering this game with the rest of the world.

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Guybrush approves of your online purchase

“Ballsy” is a word that could be used when announcing to the world that you’re making a new sequel for one of the gaming community’s all time favourite games.  “Smart buisness sense” is also an applicable phrase.  Whichever way you look at it, the amount of excitement that has surrounded this title since it’s announcement has been palpable, and the game itself hasn’t disappointed.

In Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, players take control of Guybrush Threepwood once again.  It’s nice to see that not that much has changed.  We join Guybrush as he catches up to the dread pirate LeChuck, who has kidnapped Elaine and plans to sacrifice thirteen monkeys in a voodoo ritual.  After some voodoo that you do (that you do do so well), the boat explodes and sends Guybrush drifting alone to Flotsam Island.  Flotsam Island’s peculiar weather means that the wind is always blowing toward the centre of the island, meaning that no-one can sail away.  In Launch of the Screaming Narwhal you have to work out a way to get off the island.

Oh, and you’ll also discover that due to a little voodoo mis-cue, your hand is now possessed by the Pox of LeChuck, and has a mind of it’s own. (more…)

After announcing their announcement to be announced today a couple of days back, LucasArts has come good on their promise and announced (just love using this word over and over) that the majority of their back catalogue will be finding it’s way onto Steam. When? Oh, say, by Wednesday? Wednesday good with you?

Apparently at least someone has been listening to my rambling wishes.

In a press release issued today, LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez had this to say:

“This effort is going to make it possible to introduce a whole new generation of gamers to LucasArts’ classic games. It also gives more people a chance to play our games by making them available long after they’ve disappeared from store shelves. We hope our fans are as excited as we are about our plans and we can’t wait to share what’s coming next. This is just the beginning.”

-Darrell Rodriguez, man after my heart

The full list of games to be released on the 8th is as follows:

• Armed and Dangerous
• LOOM
• Lego Indiana Jones
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• The Dig
• Thrillville: Off The Rails
• Star Wars BattleFront 2
• Star Wars Republic Commando
• Star Wars Starfighter

Don’t forget to imagine a smattering of trademark symbols on nearly every second word of the list above, by the way. Given that more is yet to come, we may yet see the wishes of many die-hard Star Wars fans come true with a re-release of Star Wars: X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter.

The older games are also the updated CD-ROM versions too, which means full voice acting in most of the titles. In an ultra-nostalgic move, the games will all come with digital equivalents of their original copyright protection (like the code generating “Dial-A-Pirate” that accompanied the original Monkey Island).

No word on pricing yet, we’ll just have to wait and see. Great news however, another little boost to an adventure revival!

Twitter is currently aflame with guesses flying back and forth on LucasArt’s announcement of an even bigger announcement, due this Monday (which is today, for us Australians). Although at first it was insisted that no hints would be dropped, something about getting inundated with hundreds of @ messages seems to have opened up information a little, to the point of:

Okay, we will do hints. It is awesome news for our old school fans. (anything more direct might get me in trouble)

-@LucasArtsGames, via Twitter

So, given that we also know the announcement isn’t anything to do with any new series, we’re obviously looking at an updated version of a classic LucasArts game. For my money I’d love something new for Day Of The Tentacle, but realistically it could be anything from Full Throttle: Special Edition to episodic Indiana Jones games. Anyway, we shouldn’t have to wait long to find out what the fuss is about, but kudos to LucasArts for using Twitter to ignite such a speculation-storm.

View their Twitter feed to sift through the hints and guesses. Apparently several people are dengerously close to guessing correctly, so see what you make of it.

UPDATE AN HOUR LATER: Apparently we’ll know in 12 hours, but someone on Twitter has guessed the announcement “dead on”.  Not surprising really with the quantity of guesses.  I’m hoping it’s this one: “RT @mhaley A Kingdom of the Crystal Skull game built entirely in SCUMM, but without the infamous refrigerator scene“.  Could we get the jungle vine scene cut while we’re at it?

Prepare for a waffling!

WARNING: This post contains Matt rabbiting on, some pixelated pretty pictures and not much else! Hope you didn’t get enough waffle at breakfast!

Once the staple of home PC entertainment, adventure games have seen a steady decline ever since the second half of the 90′s. This, perhaps, is one of the few bad points ever to come out of our increasing fascination with multiplayer gaming. It probably also suffers from the immediate 24 hour support line that we know and love as the internet. Gone are the days that if you hit a block with a game you’d just have to wrestle your brain around it (or worse, BUY A HINT BOOK). These days, and I’ll admit to this myself, if a puzzle takes more than half an hour to figure out, it’s off to plunder the internet for solutions!

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