Sign in to follow this  
Udvarnoky

LucasArts adventure games on GOG and Steam

Recommended Posts

As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, The Curse of Monkey Island made its way to GOG and Steam this week.  With the exception of Escape from Monkey Island, that makes all of the LucasArts adventures officially available* through digital distribution, and that's an awesome milestone.  Especially considering that for the longest time these games were not legally available at all.

 

*Yes, the version of Loom that's being sold is not the EGA version, and there's some controversy about the fidelity of the Monkey Island special editions, even in Classic Mode, to the original releases, but let's keep this positive for at least post #1.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This may be sacrilegious, but Escape is the only Monkey Island I ever played! I liked it. And Fate of Atlantis is the only other Lucasarts adventure I ever played - as a 10 or 11-year-old I wasn’t a fan. Does Fate of Atlantis hold up?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, dartmonkey said:

This may be sacrilegious, but Escape is the only Monkey Island I ever played! I liked it. And Fate of Atlantis is the only other Lucasarts adventure I ever played - as a 10 or 11-year-old I wasn’t a fan. Does Fate of Atlantis hold up?

 

Fate of Atlantis is my all time favorite P&C. It holds up to everything. B)

 

And I was so happy to see CMI pop up on GOG eventually. I didn't get this game to run ever since I switched from 98 to XP and... that's been a while. A looong, looong while.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, the GOG/Steam version just comes bundled with SCUMMVM, which you could have indeed been using to run the game since XP.   But hey, there's a legal way for people to get those game files again, without having to resort to the second-hand marketplace.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Udvarnoky said:

Well, the GOG/Steam version just comes bundled with SCUMMVM, which you could have indeed been using to run the game since XP.  

 

Believe me, I tried, so many times. And failed. No idea why.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man, I haven't played CoMI since I still lived in my mum's house. It's been nearly a decade. I gotta get on this and see how it holds up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

TCOMI, wow. That was such an important game for me in my teens. I played through it often - though mostly only disc 1 since my second disc had an error [possibly piracy-related]. I bet I can still just about dream the right sequences and puzzle solutions. Ah, to completely forget and be able to enjoy this game freshly again!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Curse of Monkey Island was an instant (re)buy for me. I played through it several times as a kid but not recently. These games sure feel different when you understand the language and the references better.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Curse is my personal favorite MI game.  It's definitely the one I played the most.  I could probably speedrun it in a couple hours just from memory.  I still occasionally sing the pirate's song.  A pirate I was meant to be, trim the sails and roam the sea!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I played it in English for the first time last weekend... which means that it was the first time I actually got to listen to "A pirate I was meant to be" in the actual game. For some reason the song is cut from the German version (probably the other FIGS languages as well).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Curse of Monkey Island is, arguably, why I play PC games. That, and the first two MI games that came bundled with it.

 

Separately: I don't think I've ever obsessed over a game before release as much as I did for Escape from Monkey Island. I was 10, and probably too young to be as disappointed as I think most people were.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

I played it in English for the first time last weekend... which means that it was the first time I actually got to listen to "A pirate I was meant to be" in the actual game. For some reason the song is cut from the German version (probably the other FIGS languages as well).

 

It was cut because the "solution" relies entirely on the English language and isn't something that can be translated without losing the point.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, dium said:

Curse of Monkey Island is, arguably, why I play PC games. That, and the first two MI games that came bundled with it.

 

Separately: I don't think I've ever obsessed over a game before release as much as I did for Escape from Monkey Island. I was 10, and probably too young to be as disappointed as I think most people were.

 

Escape is underrated, but there's no denying that it had an impossible standard to live up to where atmosphere was concerned once the decision was made to try to realize a lush cartoon world with the Grim Fandango engine.  Also, I think  pushing the plotline so far into satire, while funny,  had the unintended side effect of making the world less engrossingly piratey, which is one of the fundamental come-ons of the series.  It's an above average adventure game by any objective metric, though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Escape from Monkey Island was the first Monkey Island game I ever played, largely because the release coincided with us having our first gaming-capable PC. I had heard of Monkey Island games but due to the fact that I didn't use to have a PC or subscribe to a computer-centric magazine, I didn't even know what the games were like, just that many people liked them a lot. My initial thought was that they were side scrolling action games. Most likely one of the only screenshots I had seen had been of insult sword fighting in MI1.

 

Anyway, I liked Escape from Monkey Island quite a bit at the time. I had much more patience for poor controls at the time, I guess. After that, I went and played the previous games and was astounded by how fun they were.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/28/2018 at 10:55 AM, dium said:

Curse of Monkey Island is, arguably, why I play PC games. That, and the first two MI games that came bundled with it.

 

Separately: I don't think I've ever obsessed over a game before release as much as I did for Escape from Monkey Island. I was 10, and probably too young to be as disappointed as I think most people were.

 

Yeah, I was 13, so probably in a very similar vote. When I logged into The SCUMM Bar and saw all the disappointed people who'd grown up on the earlier games I didn't understand at all.

(Not to say I hadn't grown up on them a bit. MI2 was one of the first games I'd ever played thanks to a friend lending me that disc from a LucasArts Adventure pack, but I had limited access/experience with the rest of the catalogue.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For those who missed the memo, Escape from Monkey Island was released on GOG this week.  All fourteen LucasArts adventure games are now officially available for what must be the first time in fifteen years.

 

Now if only they'd offer the EGA version of LOOM and the non-SE versions of Monkey Island 1-2.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man, if only we lived in a world where the SE version of Monkey Island didn't bother with the modern graphics mode and instead let you swap between the CGA, EGA, and VGA versions of the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this