Any Monkey Island Enthusiasts Out There?

When The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition was originally announced I was only mildly excited.

Now, after having looked at the screenshots almost daily since the announcement, I am very, very excited. I'm only now beginning to appreciate what LucasArts has managed to do here. They've done an amazing job of updating the graphics, and yet somehow completely retaining the look and feel of the original game. These new graphics - and they are new graphics... the artists at LucasArts apperently had to re-do everything - remind me of a Tintin graphic novel by Herge. The whole game has a very children's story look to it.

I don't know if the younger generations realize this or not, but Monkey Island was the first 256 color VGA game released, meaning of course that you needed to have a VGA monitor in order to run it. Back then there were no video cards. What mattered was your monitor. I bought the first VGA monitor in my city - a Zenith ZCM VGA monitor, which cost me $1000 - and I proudly ran Monkey Island on it. Monkey Island was the Crysis of its day. Not only that, but it was the only title of note that was released that entire spring.

I see that Steam will be selling this title on Tuesday evening. It's a minute one purchase for me then. Can't wait to start this title. It'll be wonderful to have a long, haggling conversation with Stan again. :)

Can't wait.

Monkey Island is my favourite adventure franchise and I used to love that genre. But haven't played any lately, not since MI4 I think, maybe this will get me back to them.

I love the series.

Everyone I showed the game started playing it.Guys or girls with no idea of gaming.

I don't know many games that can cause such a hysteria.

its my all time favourite adventure game.

the graphics were certainly amazing back in the day, something that doesnt get mentioned though was how utterly genius the soundtrack was, from the title screen music to the scumm bar theme, the twin peak-esque voodoo lady music and then the tribal monkey island music. it played a big part in creating the game's atmosphere and will hopefully have been re-made or remastered rather than replaced.

i will definitely be buying the new version even though ive not long since played through the original. will be interesting to hear the voices theyve given the characters, hearing some of the iconic lines should be pretty cool "ahoy there fancypants!"

LucasArts, with this new edition, completely got the graphics right - and how can they fail with Dominic Armato as the voice of Guybrush... they can't. "Look, behind you! It's a three-headed monkey!"

I always thought that you could buy games off of Steam and download them beforehand though? - not that I expect this to be a sizeable download. But unless I've missed something, we're not being provided with a purchase option?

And am I correct that we can't download until Tuesday night at midnight? Would that be midnight Pacific time? They should release it right now instead.

I'm a text/point and click enthusist. I miss the good old days when sierra and lucasarts were on the top of their game.

I hate the new graphics, I don't usually care about graphics but...

2D > 3D, when it comes to adventure games. Hand-drawn will always look better than computer graphics. Especially if the use such low end, blocky models as they seem to be using. That's one of the reasons (the other being the horrible control scheme) I never got too far in MI4.

I played the demo.. I just can't get over it. Curse of Monkey Island looks much better. Heck, even LeChuck's Revenge looks better. And they're over 10-15 years old!

Also what's with the new control scheme, they should've just kept it point-n-click, not this, whaddya call it - point-n-drag...? Also a big WTF at the black bars at the top and bottom when using 4:3 resolutions - I'd expect that from a crappy console port, not from a title where PC is the lead platform.

IMO

Edit: Talking about Tales of Monkey Island of course. Dunno about the Special Edition. But I figured that eh, it's Monkey Island in any case.

When The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition was originally announced I was only mildly excited.

Now, after having looked at the screenshots almost daily since the announcement, I am very, very excited. I'm only now beginning to appreciate what LucasArts has managed to do here. They've done an amazing job of updating the graphics, and yet somehow completely retaining the look and feel of the original game. These new graphics - and they are new graphics... the artists at LucasArts apperently had to re-do everything - remind me of a Tintin graphic novel by Herge. The whole game has a very children's story look to it.

I don't know if the younger generations realize this or not, but Monkey Island was the first 256 color VGA game released, meaning of course that you needed to have a VGA monitor in order to run it. Back then there were no video cards. What mattered was your monitor. I bought the first VGA monitor in my city - a Zenith ZCM VGA monitor, which cost me $1000 - and I proudly ran Monkey Island on it. Monkey Island was the Crysis of its day. Not only that, but it was the only title of note that was released that entire spring.

I see that Steam will be selling this title on Tuesday evening. It's a minute one purchase for me then. Can't wait to start this title. It'll be wonderful to have a long, haggling conversation with Stan again. :)

Charles_Dickens

Ya, not even close to the first VGA/MCCGA game, and of course computers had video cards, what do you think VGA stands for:D

Yeah, I wasn't writing about Tales Of Monkey Island - I'm not actually interested in that.

And as far as computers not having video cards in 1990, what I meant, of course, was 3D cards.

Just finished the TOMI first episode and have to say it was pretty good. It was nothing amazing but Im glad they didn't ruin the series. I can't wait for the SOMI Special Edition, mainly for the voice overs.

The original came out way back when I was in middle school. I remember playing through it over and over. My entire family either watched or played through it themselves. Suffice to say, I have some pretty happy memories attached to that game and it's sequels. I was actually pretty happy that Telltale has taken charge of a new sequel. I got it the day it came out and so far I have to say that they've maintained the that Monkey Island feeling. Good stuff. Had a goofy grin on my face during the credits...

not only doI love the Monkey Island series Ilove all the old lucas art adventure games. counting down the days for the monkey island remake.

just bought loom and indi fate of atlantis though steam.

waiting for sam and max hit the road and day of the tentacle.

Yep, I'm definitely going to get the new version from Steam when it's released on Tuesday. I loved the original.

On a minor side-note:

Tales of MI iso if not exactly on par with it's former glory a rather good game and it was a welcome revisit to the world of Guybrush.

Holy monkey bladders, am I ever excited about this.

As of Monday afternoon at one o'clock Steam is informing me that Monkey Island will be released in 'approximately 1 day and 11 hours'. So, again, holy monkey bladders. Tomorrow night, I'm staying up past my bedtime... er... to download this game, and maybe play the first part, to where Guybrush is tasked with the 3 trials in order to become a pirate.

"I suddenly feel an urge to complete the 3 trials."

Hey, what the?

Monkey Island requires 2.5GB of space? - how can that be? The original game shipped on floppy discs. Okay, LucasArts re-painted the stills, and included voice-over work, but 2.5GB? I never would've said that you needed 2.5GB of space. That's got to be a typo?

That's really too much space! But, anyway... can't wait to play it! And I hope that Lucasarts decides to remake Grim Fandango... that would be awesome

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

baryjayne

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

baryjayne

I know I do. :)

I generally play games without any graphical mods, and I love that 320x200 resolution.

Dunno what it is, it can't be nostalgia since I didn't play most of these old games when they came out.

[QUOTE="baryjayne"]

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

HenriH-42

I know I do. :)

I generally play games without any graphical mods, and I love that 320x200 resolution.

Dunno what it is, it can't be nostalgia since I didn't play most of these old games when they came out.

[QUOTE="HenriH-42"]

[QUOTE="baryjayne"]

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

baryjayne

I know I do. :)

I generally play games without any graphical mods, and I love that 320x200 resolution.

Dunno what it is, it can't be nostalgia since I didn't play most of these old games when they came out.

Does anyone else prefer the original graphics? Sure they're pixelated but they have so much personality I think.

baryjayne

yep the new ones look nice but i prefer the originals. im only interested in this to hear the voice overs tbh. playing through the new episodes at the moment and the first part is actually pretty good. definitely better than monkey 4

11 hours and counting.

I can't understand why I can't pay for and download Monkey Island now, and then unlock it at midnight? It's just maddening.

Holy monkey bladders, just 5 more hours till Monkey Island.

Holy monkey bladders, just one more hour, and I can commence my download.

Also, I e-mailed the producer, and yes, the download is that big. The HD graphics, the voice-overs, and the newly recorded score all take up a sizeable amount of space.

Oh blast.

There's been a delay. An 11 hour delay. So no Monkey Island tonight.

(I stayed up past my bedtime for nothing, then. Bah.)