Thrik

I don't know about Germans, but he's a regular on the Mojo forums. He reckons he's doing the Voodoo Lady's scene at the moment as an experiment.

You fucking what? Never mind the leaked footage — you can't release something like that original teaser trailer and not follow through.

Haaaahahaha. If ever there were a need to resurrect the quote of the moment, this is it. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56633

If nothing else, you should be able to enjoy the music!

In the original comic, 'Tales of the Black Freighter' was a comic within the comic. I think it's definitely something fans will appreciate. Adds like 20 minutes.

Not that I don't respect your opinion, but are you sure you're not seeing EMI through rose-tinted glasses? Because to me the EMI art direction was awful, completely devoid of any charm or warmth. The fact that so much of it looks little better than TMI's 3D despite being pre-rendered is laughable, especially when put next to its engine predecessor Grim Fandango. (Shots chosen due to having similar lighting to Flotsam Island.)

Are you trying to get him to incriminate himself? Seems fairly obvious he downloaded the leaked version.

To be honest right clicking an item to inspect it isn't the most intuitive solution ever, even if we adventure games are attuned to it. I think the magnifying glass icon is a good feature for the new crowd who'll be playing, although right clicking should be there as an option. Same for the combining. Them being combined via an exceedingly visual interface is good, but for more experienced users there's no harm in having the direct-click way of combining too.

Not read half the posts here because I've not finished it, but I agree about the inventory. Simply clicking two items together would be much better for combining items, although perhaps the current mechanism could be left there as an option for consistency and usability for people new to the series. It also seems like moving the mouse away should definitely close the inventory, but I think it should remain a button to open it as otherwise you might be trying to click a hotspot on that side of the screen, trigger it, and then have to move your mouse right out the way to close it.

I've heard numerous times throughout my life that using any kind of wired electricals during lightning is dangerous, although I'm enough of a twat to still do it. Having quickly done some searching, there're many reports of lightning having travelled through TV cable wires after hitting the box and destroying anything connected to it. In fact, one bloke apparently had his bed set on fire because of it! I wouldn't imagine it being turned on or off actually makes a difference though when it comes to direct strikes like that — you'd need to physically unplug your appliances to prevent damage because lightning is surely powerful enough to jump right through a small circuit break. There was actually an episode of MythBusters I saw a few years ago where they testing something like this, except it was a phone wire and not electric. They established that you can indeed be electrocuted (as in, to death) via one if you happen to be connected to it. So if you want to protect your life, don't be physically connected to an appliance. If you want to protect your appliance, physically disconnect them.

The best ScummVM filter IMO is h3x or something like that, which is also used by SNES emulators. It does a great job smoothing things up.

n/t

I was mostly referring to the whole ending sequence when I said culminate, which is where the little anachronisms and such went from being a quirky touch to full-on weirdness. As I said though, I'm not trying to say this is how the series' story should be taken or anything — as far as I'm concerned what was in the later games is fine, giant monkey robots and all. It's just really obvious they were going with the theme park imagination thing in the first two IMO, and I'm not sure whether or not you're disagreeing with that? But yeah thorn, maybe... but what really is there to reveal? I can't for the life of me think of anything he could have done after that ending to wrap it all together neatly, at least not any better than CMI did. Seems like it'd be the ultimate hype-and-disappointment to me.

I suppose what makes the whole situation so tricky is that the game was totally set up to culminate in this reveal, and it was altered right at the last minute in a pretty cheap way. The fact that this happened isn't even up for dispute. I completely subscribe to MI2 having being ended in a way that allows the series to continue in the same piratey way as before — as Tiller said, the eyes and Elaine quote were a get-out clause for Ron (or whoever) should they decide to use it. Heck, maybe they had to include it as per LucasArts management's will. But come on, the maintenance tunnel that looks exactly like the Disney World tunnels? The Disney E ticket? The lift that goes up to Melee Island? The broken grog machine from Melee Island down there in a storage room? The character suits hung up on the wall? The lost/found room? And the endless little anachronisms throughout the game, albeit mostly a lot more subtle? Yeah, it can all be explained away by the 'voodoo curse'. But come on. MI2 left it ambiguous but clearly slanted towards the imagination thing, and then CMI took that cue and solidified the 'it was a spell' thing as canon. As long you're not denying the imagination thing was totally intentional for much/all of MI1/MI2's development I've no argument here.

I don't think I'm confused? I'm fully aware that the whole imagination thing ultimately didn't become series canon, but putting that stuff right at the end of MI2 was borderline retcon at the time IMO. To clarify what Bill Tiller was saying: they pretty much set up the whole imagination thing and intended it to be the absolute ending, but then put the two things Tiller mentioned in as a get-out clause so the series could potentially be continued. I don't see how you could possibly interpret that any other way. Ron can claim what he likes nowadays — just like he continues to say there's some amazing secret we don't know (WTF is there to reveal other than the imagination thing?) — but I'm pretty sure the series was never intended to continue after MI2 and I'm almost as sure I've even seen Ron say this in some interview somewhere. Him leaving the damn company kind of bolsters this. What makes you think it was actually Ron who put those things in, by the way?

I think it's a fairly established fact that the first two games were meant to have been the imagination of a kid. The scene you posted was thrown in at the last minute just to leave things open to question (or a sequel), as it being a genuine LeChuck spell would totally contradict far too much evidence to the contrary. Heck, maybe Elaine is just another kid in on the game and she's wondering where her buddy has gone! There's no 'may' about it, with quotes in Monkey Island 1 like "Pirate lingo, Guybrush! It's how they all spoke back then!" from a pirate who couldn't have even known Guybrush's name — not to mention the stuff we've all seen in that SCUMM Bar article. This quote from Bill Tiller both addresses the scene you posted and confirms the whole notion:

Nah, I don't think that whole kid thing was really meant to be LeChuck's magic or anything like that. There were too many clues — including in the original game — hinting towards the whole lot being make-believe. Plus let's not forget that LeChuck used a voodoo spell to make the doll of Guybrush, so that line could be considered completely irrelevant to the whole imagination thing.

I think he was saying Ron kind of encourages the nutters with his jesting, even if he is patently joking. It's they who don't see it that way.

Don't forget the later tweets:

I have a hard time believing he had a plan for a third game. I honestly can't see how it would be continued without completely dispensing of the whole pirate thing, which'd kind of make it suck for me anyway. It'd be like getting to the end of the film with an 'it was all a dream' ending, and then expecting the film to carry on for another few hours. It's like, do you really want it to? To this day I'm glad that MI3 fell into the hands it did, and that the whole 'it was all his imagination' thing was done away with — I have absolutely no desire to see a Gilbert MI3 whatsoever. I think I'm in an extreme minority here, though.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that CMI is one of the best games that's ever been created.

What, you don't have a console?

You'd actually want to know that?

Is he not the same height as Guybrush? That's how he was in the first three games, although he's definitely lost a lot of the bulk he gained in CMI. Presumably that ties in well with his new form for ToMI, though — I don't know if that's shown later in the video as I haven't watched it all.

I only watched like 30 seconds but I was very impressed by LeChuck's voice. It's clearly not Earl, but it's close enough that I don't really care. The music is naturally amazing, too.