Monkey Island Remake & New Episodes Confirmed!

I appreciate that all of the Secret of Monkey Island remake achievements on 360 are "Secret." Gave me a laugh.

And, there's nothing stopping you from hitting F10 and playing it in all of it's VGA glory

I did that, a number of times. The interface was painfully awkward for trying to do certain puzzles. That's why I'm complaining!

Monkey 3 had an outstanding interface. Why didn't they just copy that design, and modify however they needed to for the extra verbs?

Malor wrote:

Monkey 3 had an outstanding interface. Why didn't they just copy that design, and modify however they needed to for the extra verbs?

Because it's not based on that engine version. I suspect that the remake is another variant of the SCUMM engine-there's really no way that they could transition to the original graphics and interface that smoothly if it wasn't.

stevenmack wrote:

One other minor niggle is that I think can be a little tricky to pick out objects in the hi-res version as they don't stand out quite as much as before. But that's only really been a problem in a couple of places so far.

I noticed that as well. When I had a problem in a room I dropped down to lo res for a second to see if I noticed anything out of place. Usually did the trick for jogging my memory.

I really enjoyed the game. The mouse and keyboard interface was a little annoying (how do you mess that up, really?) so I switched to using my 360 controller on my PC. I found that I remembered most of the puzzles though, and in an adventure game that can shorten the experience significantly. All the same, it was good fun and worth the $10.

My only question is WHY on earth did they decide to "letter/pillarbox" the entire game (360 version)? Very odd.

nihilo wrote:

I noticed that as well. When I had a problem in a room I dropped down to lo res for a second to see if I noticed anything out of place. Usually did the trick for jogging my memory.

Can you give an example (in a spoiler block)? I have yet to find an issue where I missed something in the high res version, though I am about 30% in. I played the old version many times before so any info won't spoil anything for me. Thanks.

kazar wrote:
nihilo wrote:

I noticed that as well. When I had a problem in a room I dropped down to lo res for a second to see if I noticed anything out of place. Usually did the trick for jogging my memory.

Can you give an example (in a spoiler block)? I have yet to find an issue where I missed something in the high res version, though I am about 30% in. I played the old version many times before so any info won't spoil anything for me. Thanks.

Sure

Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]When you are imprisoned by the cannibals, there is a skull you need to pick up in order to find the secret passage out. In the high res version, it looked very much like it was a part of the background, but in low res there is less detail and you think.. why is there a skull there? Then you try picking it up, and the passage is revealed.[/color]

[/quote]

sh*t, I should've written down what comebacks to what insults I needed before I last quit. Stupid memory lapses.

How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

I'm playing through LeChuck's Revenge now (lucked into a copy of Monkey Island Madness from Goozex). Better game than the first overall, but whew - tough.

If you thought the first Monkey Island was hard, you'll probably need vast reservoirs of patience or a FAQ for the sequel. There's way more pixel hunting than I remember.

Mi2 was annoyingly difficult. And the story kind of sucked, too. It got pretty much incoherent by the end.

Didn't Monkey Island 2 have a choice of difficulties? I'm sure I remember something like that when I played it, so if you are struggling with the puzzles can't you just play it on the easier mode? I don't remember having any problems with the difficulty and my Dad beat the game without looking at a guide, something he rarely ever managed with adventure games (he's been stuck on Monkey Island 3 since it came out).

The story did get a bit weird towards the end, but I still think MI2 had a lot of the best jokes from the series. I'm still hoping it gets the Special Edition treatment like the first game.

Thowky wrote:

Didn't Monkey Island 2 have a choice of difficulties? I'm sure I remember something like that when I played it, so if you are struggling with the puzzles can't you just play it on the easier mode? I don't remember having any problems with the difficulty and my Dad beat the game without looking at a guide, something he rarely ever managed with adventure games (he's been stuck on Monkey Island 3 since it came out).

You're right - there is a choice, when you start a new game, to play at a lower difficulty setting. I imagine that it'd cut out some of the meat of the game, though, so I've never played it that way.

Monkey Island 3 had the same deal, but the higher difficulty level only threw a couple more steps into each puzzle.

Chapter 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay just came out, downloading now.

Started playing it, but got really frustrated with the voice audio distortion with "S" sounds. Went searching on the TTG forums and apparently this problem occurs with every TTG game. The voice recordings for Elaine are really poor and probably the worst. It looks like the voice files for the game are really small too (15.1mb this episode), to the point where doubling them or tripling the quality would only add 15-30mb. It is supposedly being looked at.

PandaEskimo wrote:

Started playing it, but got really frustrated with the voice audio distortion with "S" sounds. Went searching on the TTG forums and apparently this problem occurs with every TTG game.

Damn, why did you have to go and say this. I never noticed it before but now I hear it every time. It would be nice if they maybe gave us a choice, larger download with better sounds or smaller downloads with audio distortions.

I only played the intro to Spinner Cay.

Very fun starting point. Excellent puzzle. It's apparently all downhill from there, but it starts on a high slope indeed.

The intro was definitely the best part so far. Lots of references to earlier MI games in this one. My favorite so far is...

Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]that he whistles Largo's theme from MI2 while waiting for the store clerk.[/color]

Yeah, I have to agree that the opening is the best part of the episode. The rest isn't bad but I think overall the first episode was better. Also I will agree that the sound compression is very bad when you first talk to Elaine but either I got used to it or it gets better later on.

Spoilery discussion wrote:

[color=white]I think Morgan LeFlay is a great new character. A female pirate hunter who is a Guybrush Threepwood fangirl? Genius. As was the sword fight opening scene that introduced her. Other stuff was okay but not great. I liked the Merfolk but McGilliycutty was a pretty weak villain even compared to DeSinge. Human LeChuck may be his most insidious incarnation yet and the final puzzle to get the Turtle Artifact was neat in a slap myself on the head that I didn't think of it sooner kind of way. However I thought the puzzles to get the Fish Artifact was too easy while the one for the Seahorse Artifact was too roundabout and fiddly. I had to look on the forums to realize that there was another island on the map that I hadn't checked. Also I found the remaining puzzles in the game after you collect the artifacts to be really easy and straightforward. I was disappointed that there wasn't an additional puzzle when LeFlay shows up at the end.[/color]

kazar wrote:
PandaEskimo wrote:

Started playing it, but got really frustrated with the voice audio distortion with "S" sounds. Went searching on the TTG forums and apparently this problem occurs with every TTG game.

Damn, why did you have to go and say this. I never noticed it before but now I hear it every time. It would be nice if they maybe gave us a choice, larger download with better sounds or smaller downloads with audio distortions.

Misery loves company. They have acknowledged the problem and said they aren't doing anything about it.

They released a new version of Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay (Chapter 2) which has better voice audio than before. The actual voice audio file is about 3 times the size it was before. I'd recommend anyone re-download chapter 2 if you've already downloaded it. Anyone who downloads it from now on will have the new voice files. Steam is also supposed to automatically update the game.

I actually thought the humor in Ep 2 was funnier than Ep 1. I had several truly laugh out loud moments, especially when consulting with the first mate.

I am at the end of the episode and I agree, there were at least 3 occasions that I was laughing uncontrollably.

Arise, thread!

FYI, anyone who hasn't seen steam yet this weekend: Steam's having a weekend 50% off sale on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition at $4.99. Five bucks!

That's cheaper than lunch right now. Go!

Also you can play the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island for free on International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

http://www.telltalegames.com/playlik...

Latrine wrote:

Also you can play the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island for free on International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

http://www.telltalegames.com/playlik...

The code is good for downloading the game and after you use the code, you own the game. If you already own it, they give you a code for any other episode. Not sure if the codes work after the promotion, but I redeemed mine for the Strong Bad game.

Amoebic wrote:

Arise, thread!

FYI, anyone who hasn't seen steam yet this weekend: Steam's having a weekend 50% off sale on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition at $4.99. Five bucks!

That's cheaper than lunch right now. Go!

I just grabbed the iPhone version for $3.99.

The Duckling and I have played through both episodes from TellTale so far. He loves them. I mean, he's 6, so he needs a little nudge now and then to get past some of the puzzles...but he laughs and laughs at them. I've not noticed the voice thing, so I'm going to try and forget you said that before the next episode.

Speaking of TellTale though, they are probably one of my very fave game publishers. I have all of the Sam and Max games, and the Wallace and Grommit games, and I'm about to start on Bone because they're giving it to me for free because they lurve me. As episodic producers go, these guys are best, and I've never had such great customer service as I've gotten from them. I like them almost as much as I like chocolate.

duckideva wrote:

I've not noticed the voice thing, so I'm going to try and forget you said that before the next episode.

...

Speaking of TellTale though, they are probably one of my very fave game publishers. I have all of the Sam and Max games, and the Wallace and Grommit games, and I'm about to start on Bone because they're giving it to me for free because they lurve me.

I hadn't tried the Sam & Max TTG episodes and started playing 104 (the demo). I noticed right away that the voice audio in those games is about 5 times worse than in Monkey Island. Perhaps in 2015, TTG will finally release a game without this problem. They were nice enough to fix the really bad Monkey Island Chapter 2 problems, some of which I think were caused by overlapping audio streams from dialog and background chatter which they removed.

As far as Bone goes, if you haven't read the books, they're very good for adults and I'm assuming children. The 1300 page black and white (original art) version is on sale for about $25, while there is a hard cover colored version broken up into $10-$20 chapters which is published by Scholastic. I think I prefer the original B&W art, but both are great. Both have samples on Amazon.com and I think even http://www.boneville.com/.