LucasArts Reveals Monkey Island Return.

[Huw Dawson]

Just watched a short clip with Grossman talking to a GameSpot interviewer. He explained that this game ISN'T Monkey Island 5 but it happens afterward, despite MI5 not actually existing - their justification for this is that MI5 needs a blockbuster budget, needs to be 40h long and so on. They're quite right about this.

Of course, if that's not a dropped hint that "MI5 will still happen at some point" I don't know what is. LucasArts seem to have finally noticed that Point and Click Adventure Games are not dead and never will be. 

- Huw

[BOYD1981]

No, they're just braindead for the most part, and being hurled at us as episodic games. Hoo-bloody-ray.

[m0ds]

Looks good, it's a start Undoubtedly handled better because it's not by LucasArts (in their current era), but yeah, maybe it'll give their creative department a kick up the backside. Nice to see some interesting names working on these games too - though I haven't been enticed by episodic games yet. Wallace & Gromit and this series are quite tempting though!

[veryweirdguy]

I have really enjoyed the two Sam and Max seasons and the Strong Bad games also, so I am on board for this. Really made my day before I had to go to work.

The remake, however, I'm not too bothered about. May give it a shot, just out of loyalty.

[Mordalles]

yes, i totally agree with jburger on the graphics. i bought season 1 of sam and max, and the whole thing was kinda disappointing and felt rushed. re-using characters from one episode for completely unrelated roles in a next episode to avoid building new characters felt lazy. and the trailer of monkey island doesn't seem to be much of an improvement. we'll have to wait and see. though, i'd prefer telltale doing something new. but there's more money to be had by riding the success of famous titles. 

[Babar]

OH.


I had not seen the videos when I checked out the sites the first time. I gotta say about the SE art: AWESOME (even if Guybrush does look silly).

[Erwin_Br]

Both announcements came as a big surprise to me. A very pleasant surprise, to say the least. Both projects look very promising too!

[Ghost]

I'm not that euphoric, to be honest. Graphics-wise it's just not my style, even the Escape From Monkey Island iteration of Guybrush looked better... and judging by the screenshots, hm, I feel they'll do a streamlined, more action-ey remake. For me MI is a thing of the past, something that really *belongs* to the past. It's something to dig out and play via ScummVM. I don't really know who is the target audience here. Newcomers won't easily be won over to adventure games, not even with a flagship name. And ancient dinosaurs like me will automatically compare the remake to the original. A lose-lose situation.

They might even include achievents.

"Clicked the Parrot 100x achievement unlocked!"
wheee...

[Eggie]

The remake won't be actioney in the slightest, it really is just the orginal game with 'bad gaming webcomic' graphics pasted on top.

[DeviantGent]

'Steamlined, more action-ey remake'?!

Uh... you DO know it's built on the code of the original game, right? And that it's pretty much a 1:1 remake, complete with the option of instantly flipping back and forth between the original and the enhanced?

Really, I fail to see what about this venture cannot be seen as totally effing awesome.

[Matti]

I'm not that euphoric, to be honest. Graphics-wise it's just not my style, even the Escape From Monkey Island iteration of Guybrush looked better...

Yeah, I feel the same way.. except that I'm not excited at all. I loved MI1+2, couldn't really get used to the comic style of MI3 and didn't even play MI4 for I consider that 3-d art just ugly*. Also the humour + puzzle elements weren't as good as in the old games..

* in contrast to Grim Fandango which I liked very much (though I would have preferred drawn characters and backgrounds there too).


EDIT: Ah, you meant the remake... I'm talking about the Sequel...

[Ghost]

The remake won't be actioney in the slightest, it really is just the orginal game with 'bad gaming webcomic' graphics pasted on top.

Uh... you DO know it's built on the code of the original game, right? And that it's pretty much a 1:1 remake, complete with the option of instantly flipping back and forth between the original and the enhanced?
Really, I fail to see what about this venture cannot be seen as totally effing awesome.

Okay, so it won't be action'd up- one point for them 

I still hold to my view that I'm not impressed by the graphical makeover, that I *have* a memory-tinted view on the game (it being one of the first adventure games I ever played and so on) and that I'd rather not ruin my fond memories by playing the remake, even if I *can* buy and make it flip back to the original I ALREADY OWN.

That's all I'm saying, and that's why it is not effing awesome for me.

Note how I say "for me", because I admit that all my points are rather subjective.

[Mr Flibble]

I never really understood the backlash against cartoony graphics in Monkey Island games... nor do I understand it here. I'll admit that the repainted cover art looks naff, and the design for Guybrush as seen there looks dire, but having watched a few gameplay videos I can say that in the game it looks nice. And I love the new backgrounds too. I don't agree with "bad gaming webcomic" graphics at all.

And if you really can't get into the graphics, what about the freshly recorded music and voice overs? I for one am excited.

[Layabout]

I never really understood the backlash against cartoony graphics in Monkey Island games... nor do I understand it here. I'll admit that the repainted cover art looks naff, and the design for Guybrush as seen there looks dire, but having watched a few gameplay videos I can say that in the game it looks nice. And I love the new backgrounds too. I don't agree with "bad gaming webcomic" graphics at all.

And if you really can't get into the graphics, what about the freshly recorded music and voice overs? I for one am excited.

I also don't see how it looks like 'bad gaming webcomic." graphics.

If you look at this:



and this:



It is quite obvious the background artists have been very faithful to the original VGA version of the game. They are all hand painted and capture the feel of the setting.

Okay, so other than guybrush's hair (which I admittedly am not terribly fond of), he is rather faithful to the character appearance in all places other than in the close-ups.

If you will take off your rose coloured specs for a moment please, I pose a question. If you were told about this great game, inspired by a Disney ride (very important) about a naive kid who travels to a pirate-infested island to become a pirate, in an adventure jam packed full of comedy and ridiculous situations, would you envision a game with realistically proportioned characters, or a game with cartoony and stylised characters? Also note that at that time, Lucasarts and Sierra were in great competition, with Lucasarts pretty much playing catch up. In the move to VGA with KQ5 et al, Sierra introduced realistic looking character portraits to match the greater amount of colours available to them. Lucasarts would have most likely seen this and chose to go in a more realistic art direction to match this.

This may be only me, but the story and situations of the Monkey Island series are better suited to stylised, cartoony graphics over realistic characters. MI1 Guybrush v2.0 is more of an amalgam between CMI Guybrush and SoMI Guybrush with a bad haircut.

So on to the haircut. It's part of the character. Remember, at the start of SoMI, Guybrush is a very naive character who thinks it would be cool to be a tough guy Pirate. In this line of thought, he probably had little to no contact with a real pirate, so he wouldn't really know what a pirate really looks like. They didn't have TV back in those days. It would be quite logical for a kid to get what he thinks is a tough-guy pirate hairdo, where in fact he got a mullet.

Brock Sampson is a tough-guy and he has a mullet.

Alternatively, it could also be misguided art direction.

The ultimate test for this game will be whether it captures the feeling of playing the Secret of Monkey Island. Hopefully (and to me, watching the gameplay vids, hearing the voices and soundtrack, it kinda does, but playing it will be the ultimate test) it will be like meeting an old friend you haven't seen for a long time, cept he has cool new clothes. Unfortunatly, he had a slight accident with a lawnmower, but we can look past that.

[Krazy]

That poor pirate in that enhanced screenshot with the disproportionally short legs looks like he's only leaning against the wall because his legs have permanently stiffened. I really feel sorry for the guy  

[Laukku]

Maybe it's just me, but Guybrush's silly hair looks more natural in the acual game.   Might be the shading.

I don't like the new cover art. The thing I really liked about the original was how adventurous it felt. The new one has too bright and happy colours and cartoony style that significantly hurt the meaning of the composition.

Anyone noticed how they changed the Monkey Island logo?

EDIT:

My sole complaint is that LeChuck looks silly...

That's what I thought of his CMI design back then...

EDIT 2: They destroyed that "decent looking pirate" character. He was supposed to be smiling and friendly.

[Layabout]

That poor pirate in that enhanced screenshot with the disproportionally short legs looks like he's only leaning against the wall because his legs have permanently stiffened. I really feel sorry for the guy  

He's just a bit 'legless' from all the grog. :p

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I still think it's weird how closely they stuck to the original pirate designs for the 3 you can talk to close up (even their distant sprites are convincingly similar) as well as the sword trainer and yet Guybrush looks like some kind of gangly twatface with a cromagnon brow and razor hair.  It's like they completely disregarded his closeup portraits (and Elaine's) but stuck with everyone else's, which results in some really obvious and dodgy differences.

[SSH]

Guybrush looks like some kind of gangly twatface with a cromagnon brow

Isn't a Cro-Magnon brow a normal one?

[m0ds]

Just watched the SE video. How much bigger and more stupid will Guybrush's hair get?

He's gone from cool looking guy to someone I just want to punch. And whoever does Elaine's voice acting is terrible. They seriously shouldn't have used that seduction line in the video, lol - I'd have slapped her.

I'm sure the SE will make a lot of people happy, but I'm surprised they keep refering to "fans" in the video. I'd like to know which communities they actually approached, if any, or whether they just took comments from the LEC forums... Whoever keeps suggesting they make GT's hair bigger and more stupid, should be shot

We used to have a term in school many years ago called "Paste on head" which reffered to a few people there that looked like they'd stolen someone elses head and put it on their body, or were literally wearing a print out copy of someones face lol. Well, Guybrush in my eyes, is a paste on hair guy.