"LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will combine the best elements of all previous LEGO games while adding brand new gameplay to make it the most action-packed LEGO videogame to date. Developed by the same team at Traveller’s Tales that created the critically acclaimed LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones series, the game will ship on the Wii, Nintendo DS, PS3, PSP , Xbox 360, and Windows in the Autumn of 2010.

“LucasArts is an amazing partner, and working with them on the next iteration of the LEGO Star Wars series continues to be a great experience,” said Tom Stone, director at TT Games. “The team at TT is working hard at making this simply the best LEGO game ever with all new gameplay and features never before seen in a LEGO game.”

• Sam & Max Save the World is on sale for $4.95 through January.
  
• A new piece of concept art from the upcoming Sam & Max season has been released.
  
• Telltale is running a new survey. You'll want to take the questionnaire both because you know this is a company that values feedback, and because the questions drop major hints about the third season of Sam & Max. (Tingler adds: you get a 15% off coupon too)
  
• The DVD release of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures will ship to season subscribers on the week of February 8th. In the meantime, Telltale has actually published the game in select North American stores, among them Best Buy and soon Walmart. This practice, which I earlier speculated will be true of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, represents the very first time Telltale has published a game in retail channels on their own.
  
• Speaking of Strong Bad, Telltale is extending the special $19.95 price they've slashed the season to in celebration of Trogday to last through the end of January as well.
  
• The oft-delayed North American Wiiware release of "Rise of the Pirate God" will occur on Monday, February 1st.
  

You guys licensed out Monkey Island to Telltale. Is that a process that you think is going to be something you'll continue to do, license out things like Monkey Island for other people to work on if you're not interested in continuing that IP?

DR: Well, we also do the Special Edition ourselves.

That's true.

DR: We did the Special Edition on XBLA and on iPhone, and it did tremendously well. And on PC, it's on Steam. It did tremendously well. We did that internally. We had a great partnership with Telltale, and we hope to do something in the future with them. They're phenomenal partners. They get it. Will we do stuff like that in the future? Yeah, I mean, I'll look at all opportunities.

I'm a huge fan of the adventure genre, adventure games and also the classic LucasArts titles, and whatever way we can get out there for our rabid fanbase.

Do you ever the possibility of bringing back any of the older IP or is it all moving forward for you?

DR: That's what we did with Monkey Island, right? We brought it back and we reimagined Monkey Island with the Special Edition. We're working with Telltale on the Tales Of series. So, we kind of are bringing it back a little bit.

Sure, but in general, but do you see your IP as an opportunity for you? How do you make those decisions?

DR: Absolutely. If you look on Steam, we're doing a number of interesting bundles on Steam, and we'll continue to do that sort of thing because the fans want it. If you look at the blogs as well as all the emails and all the letters that we get, we're going to do what they want.

Ghoul Patrol
Original platform: Super NES
Publisher: LucasArts
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: The main attractions at the library's Goblin exhibit have come to life! As the Ghoul Patrol, you'll go back in time and de-spook an encyclopedia of zombified historic dudes. Vaporize garbage-can ghosts and ninja spirits, rescue bug-eyed librarians and wigged-out pirates, dodge flying books and adolescent-eating plants, and ultimately put the beastly spirit back in the history books.

The design, FMVs, characters, and animation for Part 2 were finished, the levels were about 1/2 done, and then of course there was a lot of tuning to do. And, while I can't promise that getting half the game won't leave you hanging, if you've not played Part 1 yet, or only seen the DS version of Insecticide, the PC one is worth a look.

For those interested, we're trying to get the FMVs to Part 2 posted on our YouTube page. I know it's not the conclusion we all wanted, but it may give some fans some closure. Remind me not to make any more games with cliffhangers though. :)

After the extremely successful adventure titles Myst and Monkey Island, the adventure game genre seemed to be growing. Grim Fandango expanded on (and perhaps even perfected) certain elements of this genre while delivering the complexity and difficulty that fans of the genre demanded. Grim Fandango is one of the first examples of gaming as art. It had an impressively literary storyline (complete with social commentary on corruption and government), and showed a heavy film influence. But the game just didn’t sell well. And nobody knows why. Today, gaming aficionados still refer to the Grim Fandango Effect: games that fail despite being awesome.

I can't really do anything much of quality until I've figured out what something is about. Wallace and Gromit's Muzzled! was a steaming pile before I realized that it was about Gromit's relationship with and faith in Wallace and not about flash gadgets that turn arctic water-fowl into jewel thieves. Same goes for Monkey Island -- I routinely pee'd in Joe Pinney's cheerios, metaphorically speaking, giving him narrative garbage to work with until I put my finger on the pulse of Guybrush's grand story and what it's about. (Uh, monkeys, right?)

Riccitiello also said that the company is planning to launch "our major new MMO"--presumably BioWare Austin's Star Wars: The Old Republic--in "spring 2011." It was unclear if he meant calendar year 2011, or EA's 2011 fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2011.

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We have it from a very reliable, confidential source that Telltale Games may be planning to release its entire lineup of games to Macintosh very soon, possibly next month (February 2010).

The timing is perfect to coincide with the upcoming MacWord 2010, taking place February 9 through 13, 2010, at the Moscone Center in in San Francisco, CA (USA). An official announcement likely won’t be made until then.

“Ultimately, if you have a really good story you’ll have a really good episode and as result you’ll have a truly great game. I always say to the games people ‘Look, with that idea this is how I would do it. If that makes sense for you or not in your game, I don’t know, but a Jedi would definately do that in our show,’ for example.”

The last MojoCast of the year is finally available. The entirety of Tales of Monkey Island is discussed as jp-30 and elTee join the cast for the first time. It also serves as the first MojoCast to use g0blin's excellent jingle.

Have a listen!