Thrik

Presidents do typically have a fairly large influence on things. If he pushes for something then he's most probably going to get it, kind of like how the previous president knowingly avoided things like Monkey Island and internal development. Who knows exactly what the deal is, but it wouldn't surprise me if we had no special editions, no Tales of Monkey Island, and no internal development whatsoever if Ward were still in charge.

I'm just going to quote my post on Mojo's comments because I can't really voice my thoughts any better than that:

I'm surprised you even notice stuff like that to be honest. Is it really a big deal? I mean this stuff goes right back to Ron Gilbert being on the box of MI1, I don't think anyone's reading into it too much. :~ Hell I'm sure Tim Schafer isn't as responsible for how his games turned out as we'd probably imagine, but there his name is on the box all by itself. It's just how most industries work, particularly film.

Oh Kroms you do need to lighten up when it comes to these industry figures. Considering the silly content so prevalent in his games I'd imagine Kojima is quite a self-deprecating and light-hearted guy — I really doubt he's using those credits as some kind of epic ego boost. It's just a joke!

Yeah what you don't realise is that joke's based on merciless bullying Jake has endured for years at Telltale. ;

I really want them to do a re-release on the PS3 like they did with God of War, but I suspect if they did there's no chance Twin Snakes would end up in the pack despite being absolutely perfect as an alternative to MGS1. Pity as I literally can't replay MGS1 any more as the superior fidelity in Twin Snakes makes so much difference — the original sits on the wrong side of the 3D boom for my liking. Guess I'll have to dig out the Wii each time forever.

What I want is this game echoing itself onto my plate so I can eat it.

Haha. Play the final fist fight on extreme and you'll never want to relive it again. I literally spent about three hours straight at it, frequently getting to the Ocelot section only for one CQC move to take me right back to the beginning. It's like a chemically synthesised brew of the most unforgiving arcade fighters in history. Yet still awesome. The Metal Gear fight was pretty insane on extreme too, although it did make me learn how to properly use REX's CQC moves. I didn't realise it has special moves depending on location — at one point REX started twatting the fuck out of RAY against a pillar.

Tee I know Kroms, apparently he now considers Peace Walker the handheld MGS5 and Rising the console MGS5. But at least it's not just going to be a mad spin-off as I was kind of suspecting. I think the whole 'action' tagline thing that got everyone in a huff was just typical Kojima misdirection and it'll probably feature a Snake of some sort to boot.

So in other news Hideo Kojima has labelled Metal Gear Solid: Rising the next-generation MGS5 and says the Peace Walker team has now moved over to full-steam development on it (presumably including himself). Fuckin' hell. But yeah the last fist fight was excellent, a fantastic nod to all the previous games' use of a fist fight towards the end. Shit man, you're making me want to replay this again after only doing so for the third time half a year ago. Unfortunately I've now completed it on Extreme (which completely changes how you have to play it btw) so I guess the only next step is tranquilisers only.

Yeah that's a really annoying aspect that casts a 'What could have been?' type shadow over the game. It does seem like things just needed more polish which is mental considering the development time, and I also thought maybe there'd be some ultimate demon island with the final battle(s). I hadn't actually considered the first island until you mentioned it, but now I come to think of it the place you start off is named as the demon's home isn't it? Or is it just an overrun shrine to Ormagoden? Or both? It's been long enough now that any grievances with the gameplay have been mostly forgotten though, and my memories of the game are mostly pleasant. It's the atmosphere and story I remember most which were spot on IMO. Unfortunately due to the gameplay being a bit of a slog I'm unlikely to replay it like I can with other Schafer games, even though I found the RTS gameplay kind of easy on normal (didn't fail once).

Haha I never heard about the TV-B-Gone thing. What dicks.

Ordered in the face, waiting on Steam. The game looks strikingly better from a brief gameplay video I saw earlier, that's for sure. Mostly lighting, but it makes such a difference to atmosphere.

I don't know if it's because my computer is hooked into a huge plasma TV, but the SE art doesn't look washed out in the slightest to me. In fact I'd go so far as to say the original art has too much contrast — the roots in the original and the Thunderpeel edit look like a big dark blob to me, whereas in the SE art I can see all the rich detail. I personally think the colour balance and contrast looks great — zapping some of the oversaturation out of the original is a good move IMO, which is what I suspect is compounding it not looking right to your eyes. Hopefully the game has a brightness/contrast/saturation slider so you can tune it to your satisfaction, though. Clearly things like contrast will differ depending on the display. Failing that I guess you could fiddle with your display settings.

I'm sure some will be doing more than staring.

Haha, I applaud whoever came up with this. I love imagining board meetings and stuff where these kind of things are thrown around.

I've just finished it and really enjoyed the whole experience, even if the two Ethan plot holes and the Madison plot hole continue to dumbfound me. Those aside the writing was way above Fahrenheit and was thoroughly competant, and I very much enjoyed the way it built up to the reveal. The voice acting for the childen was truly poor, though. Did they just get real kids who can't act or what? Everyone else seemed fine though IMO.

Hahahahaha.

Eh, the controls are all right. I still think having movement bound to the left stick would be more comfortable and I've certainly encountered mild irritation a select few times, but it's not exactly a hindrance to enjoying the game. I'd compare it to Grim Fandango and even Tales of Monkey Island in this way: it's not perfect but the gameplay experience is worth the slight inconvenience. Everything other than general movement is absolutely fine. They pretty much nailed the whole contextual gesture/button thing, even if it is something some people aren't very keen on.

Er, wow. That looks awesome. Really good to see the criticism was addressed so just like the original MI2 it will be better than its predecessor. It's hard to see how fantastic the new art is on the official site, so get the high-resolution pack here: http://www.lucasarts.com/company/vip/monkeyisland2.html I agree that Guybrush looks a little soft-faced from the front (though that may be because I imagine the MI2 Guybrush looking older, whereas he's relatively youthful in the chronologically later CMI, EMI, and TMI... so I dunno), but all the other characters seem superb to me.

I've still not gotten far, but I'd agree that the voice acting is for the most part fine. There are some noticeable exceptions, for example the kids sound forced, but it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting from some comments.

Given it a quick go and first impressions are very good. The demo was cool but didn't really win me over as it was mostly a demonstration of technology, whereas in the full game I've only been introduced to one character and the first major thing that happens to him, yet I'm already completely invested in his story and found it hard to stop playing. The whole opening sequence is pretty powerful too. The gameplay can hardly be considered taxing, yet it's somehow completely engaging — even when the action scene consists of little more than frantically checking your pockets or walking through a crowd.