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Randal from Kevin Smith's Clerks to voice Randal's Monday
Fans of Kevin Smith's 1994 geek-comedy film Clerks (or its raunchy 2006 sequel) might want to take note of Randal's Monday, a point-and-click adventure game from Daedalic Entertainment and Nexus Game Studios coming this fall to PC. Why? Because Randal of Randal's Monday will be voiced by Randal of Clerks, actor Jeff Anderson. "When we first started to design this story in that filthy old garage, we could never have imagined that he would end up being the voice of our Randal," lead producer Enric Costa said in a related press release. "Nobody else in the world could ever interpret Randal better than he does. It's like the icing on the cake for this huge project." According to the press release, Anderson will also help develop the game's script. Randal's Monday is a game that pays homage to nerd culture in more ways than its choice of voice actor; Daedalic and Nexus are populating the game with references and homages a plenty. The game's announcement trailer, for example, combines The Twilight Zone with Freaks and Geeks within the first ten seconds. We'd close this article with a reference and a link to a clip from Clerks or Clerks 2, but let's keep things family-friendly, yeah? [Image: Daedalic Games]
Turbine takes on new CEO
Turbine, the company behind Asheron's Call and Lord of the Rings Online, has announced the surprise appointment of Jim Crowley, in place of former, long-standing CEO Jeff Anderson. Crowley was the Chief Operations Officer of mobile billing firm m-Cube, which was acquired by Verisign for $250 Million USD in 2006, and is described by Turbine as being key to m-Cube's growth and success to-date. No reason has been given for Anderson's departure from Turbine, only a generically neutral "the move is one of many that Turbine has recently made to invest in new talent that will drive the next wave of the company's growth." [via Gamasutra]
Joystiq impressions: Lord of the Rings Online
Turbine's upcoming Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar will usher gamers into a massively multiplayer online version of Tolkien's fantasy universe. I got to play some of the still-beta game at a recent media event; the title's setting and story will be its main selling point, otherwise it resembles other MMOs -- not to say that's a bad thing.It takes a little work to learn an MMO, and Turbine said the company isn't trying to change Lord of the Rings just to be different. Instead, game controls and quest system felt like other titles, and I was killing defenseless forest creatures right away. Lord of the Rings also looked like other MMOs; what I saw didn't set any new standards, but it matched competitors. I was told that game art and other assets were still being updated for the Spring, 2007 launch.Lord of the Rings Online's story-driven approach and setting should be unique. The game is based on the original three books and The Hobbit, not the recent movie properties. So while the game looks similar to the movies -- hobbit houses have round doors and passages, and Gandalf looks like Ian McKellen -- Turbine says that's because the game matches the original, detailed prose.
