LucasArts Reveals Monkey Island Return.

[InCreator]

Disneytized graphics.

Yuck.

[Esseb]

Apart from the fake dialogue options and the horrible walking implementation, which I assume is due to it being targeted for the Wii, I rather like it so far. Feels a bit empty, but I guess that's the drawback of short episodic games.


Why even have the options there?... The previous games did this a couple of times as well, but for humorous effect at least.

[magintz]

Apart from the fake dialogue options and the horrible walking implementation, which I assume is due to it being targeted for the Wii, I rather like it so far. Feels a bit empty, but I guess that's the drawback of short episodic games.

So far I agree. I love the game just not so much the controls...

[Mr Flibble]

I got used to the controls after a while. I enjoyed the game, it was longer than I expected it would be, but I felt the puzzle design was a little screwy in places. Far too many instances of things being wildly illogical. And a few too many EMI-esque anachronisms. Overall, good but I hope it improves.

Spoiler

Check the pirate's sock to find his membership card.

[close]

[DazJ]

I like the COMI cursors and font used but like everyone else, I think the controls are a bit hit and miss. Still, it FEELS like a Monkey Island game and that's what matters

[Angel Dust]

I think the remake looks good, the background art is lovely and updated music is a nice, but I agree that some of the new character designs look a bit naff. I personally can't stand Telltales games though. They scream medicority, are visually very sterile and have boring puzzles. With the pickings being as slim as they are for commercial adventure games these days, I think people are a little forgiving of what are pretty dull games. This very community, in my opinion, produces a dozen or so games a year with better artwork, writing, puzzling than anything that Telltale have produced.

Hmm, in my opinion Total Recall is one of those films they don't make anymore. Today they take a concept out of a book and dumb it down and change it.

That is exactly my problem with 'Total Recall'. In my opinion it was one of the biggest offenders of Hollywood's penchant for taking a Philip K. Dick story and shoe-horning it into a sci-fi action film template so I say being on the remake, as long as it's using 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale' as it's reference point.

And while I love my traditional 2d art there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with a 3d approach. The reason a lot of modern 3d adventure games look stiff and sterile is simply due to the lack of skill/tech/budget available to those developers. As someone already illustrated with a Brutal Legend screenshot, you can get wonderful results with 3d too.

[Eggie]

On the puzzles; I think Mike Stemmle's design philosophy is the write the story first then slap on arbitrary scattered obstacles whether they fit or not.

Leads to very hit and miss gameplay but at least you DO get a good story. Which this game definitely has. It definitely, definitely has. It's a really good story, guys!

[Mr Flibble]

The walking thing makes sense when you consider the dynamic camera angles it allows for, which change as you walk around. You couldn't really do that with point and click walking without getting confused and disorientated.

[DanielH]

Too much to wirte in a post here! Check my blog for a full but poorly constructed review.

http://hurton.blogspot.com/

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Quick review:


Pros:

1.  Longer than any of the Sam and Max episodes (it sure felt that way, at least).

2.  Varied locations and characters right from the start.

3.  Good (if understated) music by Michael Land.

4.  Pleasant visuals.  Good use of lighting and aliasing and the character designs are an improvement over the Escape versions (in my opinion).

5.  Multiple inventory items.

6.  Passable voice acting.

7.  Some enjoyable puzzles (mainly in the jungle section and de Singe's lab).

8.  It's nice to be able to turn off voices and add subtitles, which change color based on character.

9.  Movement with the WASD keys + LEFT SHIFT to run made it easy to get around Flotsam island.

Cons:

1.  Really, really flat humor.  This is one of my biggest gripes with Telltale.  They NEED to get someone who knows how to write witty, amusing dialog.

2.  Poor dialog choices that often mis-represent what you are saying or lines of choices that all say the same thing.  What happened to the wildly different replies?

3.  Some confusing puzzle elements that didn't make sense until AFTER they were solved.

4.  Title screen takes too long to appear (having to move back and forth through the trees).  Quicksave/quickload/quit shortcuts would help somewhat here.

5.  Inventory combination seems needlessly tedious.  Why not just allow you to pick up the item and left-click on the target?  This seems like a device to pander to casual gamers more than anything.

6.  The click-and-drag mouse movement is wonky at best.  I'd often find Guybrush turning in the opposite direction I was pointing at because of the changing camera angles while moving.


As you can see, the positives quite outweigh the negatives.  Frankly, I'm surprised that I found myself enjoying the game overall, considering how dismal the Sam and Max games were for the most part.  I wasn't overly impressed with Michael Land's new treatments of the original themes; I honestly think he's capable of much better, but they're serviceable.  The dialog writing was, overall, passable, though I can't remember chuckling at a single dialog option or random Guybrush statement like I did (and still do) with Monkey Island 1 and 2.  Clearly, Telltale needs to flesh out the dialogs so you feel like you aren't just wasting your time clicking to get the same responses.  

I don't think that The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is 'the' Monkey Island game everyone's been lusting after, but I do think episode one is a good, solid start towards what could be a very impressive series.

Oh, and Flibble:

Spoiler

He does explicitly tell you that he lost his card while fighting for mastery of the Narwhal, so you at least have SOME clue that it's around the ship.  I agree the sock doesn't seem like a plausible place for it to end up, but that area doesn't have a lot of interactions so it's not hard to find, either.

[close]

[Dualnames]

I don't think that The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is 'the' Monkey Island game everyone's been lusting after, but I do think episode one is a good, solid start towards what could be a very impressive series.

I so agree with that. Indeed.

[Mr Flibble]

Oh, and Flibble:

Spoiler

He does explicitly tell you that he lost his card while fighting for mastery of the Narwhal, so you at least have SOME clue that it's around the ship.  I agree the sock doesn't seem like a plausible place for it to end up, but that area doesn't have a lot of interactions so it's not hard to find, either.

[close]

Spoiler

I was thinking it'd be on the boat somewhere because he said that, and so I'd get it after I was able to knock him down. I found it in the sock right away just by clicking for fun to hear a description but I never would have looked there. I think it's a good example of a puzzle that makes sense afterwards; I can hear a designer chuckling to himself, "He lost it two years ago, okay so check his socks, because pirates don't wash or change their clothes."

It's like the cheesewheel being on the boat, or the bombs being in the jungle, or the nose-shaped sconce. They necessitate you finding them randomly before you encounter the puzzle, because when you encounter the puzzle first you have no idea to check those random locations for items.

[close]

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I agree.  Those all fall under my 'puzzles that make sense after the fact' statement, which I don't believe to be good puzzle design by any means.  Just to put these in some perspective, I would class the cheese wheel on deck  as being equivalent to forcing Guybrush to go to Wally's office to get a potato from his filing cabinet in order to make the Vichyssoise in MI 2 -- which of course he didn't have to do.  One example I can think of that felt similar to some of these puzzles in MI 2 would be the 'monkey' wrench puzzle.  That really got on my nerves back in the day!

[DanielH]

Oh man, the first time I did the MI2 'Wrench' puzzle when I was little, I never got it and my brother told me to use the monkey on the valve. But I never understood why i used the monkey until about a few months ago, re-playing the game, when my mouth fell open and I smacked myself in the face for not seeing 'Monkey-Wrench'.  :

[Mr Flibble]

You know, as dire as the puzzles were... I enjoyed playing it and look forward to the next episode. They must be doing something right.

[Krazy]

Yes, it was a good game. We've established this 

[abstauber]

Monkey Island: Special Edition has been released 
8,99 euro on steam!

Whooooohooooo!

source(german): http://www.computerbase.de/news/software/spiele/adventures/2009/juli/the_secret_monkey_island_special_edition/

[blueskirt]

The remake is receiving some flak on the LucasForums, namely for the PC controls that requires you to press keyboard keys to make the verb and inventory bars appear, speech being sprinkled with many pause in between sentences and several half-assed details in the backgrounds.

You can read the whole thing here, it starts on page 6 and continue on the next page: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php98020&page=6

Edit: Apparently the issue with the pauses in the speech can be corrected by going in the classic mode, changing the subtitle speed to maximum and going back to enhanced mode.

[Domino]

I have downloaded the trial version from Xbox Live, but have yet to try it.  But for ten dollars, I probably will buy the full version. I have a ton of Microsoft Points to use anyways.

[Chicky]

SE looks awful, the white artifacts around the stuff they've pasted in is such a joke. I've bought tales but yet to play it. To think that these are most of the same guys who spent hours pushing pixels and writing timeless scripts to get the perfect game back in the 90's, goes to show how much the games industry has changed.