Roderick

Tales of Monkey Island

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While I consider it a minor quibble, I do agree about LeChuck - he looks smaller, both from a height and girth standpoint, than expected. Although his shape and size has changed over the years (he was an effing giant in CMI and EMI), he was always physically intimidating compared to Guybrush. From what I've seen of TMI he looks more like LeChuck Jr. I feel like Guybrush could take him in a barfight if no voodoo magic was involved. I like his new design otherwise, though, with the glowing beard being a nice touch.

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I'm impressed. It looks like it's going to be great.

I started playing CMI for the first time in probably six years or so. Well, I've attempted to play it a few times over the years, but Part I always disheartens me. I have high hopes this time though as I just completed Part I in the fewest clicks possible. Damn you, Wally.

Is the Wii version coming out on the 7th as well?

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LeChuck's actually noticeably taller* once they actually get near each other

Scoop!

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Really happy that in one of the recent interviews with Dave Grossman that Ron Gilbert is said to have come in and given some direction on the Elaine character.

Yeah that was a fun couple of days. He was around for a few days but I made the (correct? incorrect?) decision to go to GDC for some of that time, but hearing Ron's thoughts on Monkey Island in the context of a story I helped develop* was pretty awesome.

Is the Wii version coming out on the 7th as well?

Nope, but hopefully it will be out reasonably close to that date.

While I consider it a minor quibble, I do agree about LeChuck - he looks smaller, both from a height and girth standpoint, than expected. Although his shape and size has changed over the years (he was an effing giant in CMI and EMI), he was always physically intimidating compared to Guybrush. From what I've seen of TMI he looks more like LeChuck Jr. I feel like Guybrush could take him in a barfight if no voodoo magic was involved. I like his new design otherwise, though, with the glowing beard being a nice touch.

I almost posted an unreleased screenshot just to shoot this down, but I guess it will be released eventually through some sort of official channel. Needless to say, when he's not standing 30 feet away on the deck of a ship, he's big. For any other weirdness or opinion about the art in Tales I can easily and happily leave each person to their own, but I can at least safely say LeChuck is the right size.

* PS: this is scary to reveal. Fortunately, I'm the most junior "guy who helped develop the story" of the people who could claim to have done so, because the thought sort of still scares me shitless, a bit.

Edited by Jake

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a story I helped develop

a) That's awesome to the fucking maximum, and

B) Do you know how it ends? Can you tell us?

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I'm impressed. It looks like it's going to be great.

I started playing CMI for the first time in probably six years or so. Well, I've attempted to play it a few times over the years, but Part I always disheartens me. I have high hopes this time though as I just completed Part I in the fewest clicks possible. Damn you, Wally.

The conversations with Wally are definitely too detailed for the beginning of the game, and it loses the excitement a little, but you can always skip them. Once you're off the ship, the fun really begins with CMI (although I did enjoy "meeting" Murray for the first time). It's such a great game.

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While I consider it a minor quibble, I do agree about LeChuck - he looks smaller, both from a height and girth standpoint, than expected. Although his shape and size has changed over the years (he was an effing giant in CMI and EMI), he was always physically intimidating compared to Guybrush. From what I've seen of TMI he looks more like LeChuck Jr. I feel like Guybrush could take him in a barfight if no voodoo magic was involved.

It's all about camera angles!

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For some strange reason, this thread makes me want to replay Escape from Monkey Island. Surely it can't be as bad as I remember it?
Do it and post your findings...!
For what it's worth, I'm about 2/3 of the way through and have surprised myself by liking it a lot. The graphics are reasonable. The puzzles have been fairly intuitive and interesting.

The writing is really good and has had a few good laughs. My only significant problem with it is that there's too freaking much of it. This might seem like a strange thing to quibble over, but I'm one of those anal retentive sorts who goes through every single dialogue tree and even saves the game when there are options that I won't have a chance to go back to. And there are sooooo many characters, most of whom don't actually contribute anything other than making the world seem populated or giving hints so obvious that I'd already worked them out myself. I feel like I'm spending the entire game in conversation rather than puzzle solving. But that really is just a minor quibble.

On the other hand, my major quibble is the controls. Other people have mentioned them in this thread but if you haven't played the game, you can't begin to imagine how painfully bad they are. Guybrush moves and turns unpredictably, the paths and entrances are really narrow so you can often miss where you're trying to go and end up spinning around 180°. If you try turning whilst walking on a narrow path, he'll just keep on going forward and ignore your commands. If you're running in the wrong way, you need to stop, press right and wait as Guybrush sloooowly spins on the spot and then go back the way you came.

On a related note, the exits to many rooms are so big that I found myself constantly accidentally walking out when trying to just walk past, and then having to negotiate my way back in again. Also, it feels like they've cut out half the game; there are buildings that look like they're meant to be meaningful and pathways and exits that catch my attention but when I try to explore them, Guybrush just spins around and runs off in the other direction. I never know whether it's because they're irrelevant or because of the shoddy controls.

On a positive note, it's been shocking that when I start the game, it appears immediately (with no loading screens!) and save games come up in about half a second. I can't remember when I last played a game like that.

So, total summation: some minor quibbles, one major headache, but overall I'm really enjoying it. That said, I'm not yet up to Monkey Kombat, so my opinion may yet change.

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Yeah that was a fun couple of days. He was around for a few days but I made the (correct? incorrect?) decision to go to GDC for some of that time, but hearing Ron's thoughts on Monkey Island in the context of a story I helped develop* was pretty awesome.

:tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup:

(15 Maximum thumbs up images that don't work!)

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So, total summation: some minor quibbles, one major headache, but overall I'm really enjoying it. That said, I'm not yet up to Monkey Kombat, so my opinion may yet change.

Keep going... and come back with your thoughts on the last third :)

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Keep going... and come back with your thoughts on the last third :)

Argh, that throwing various hard objects at Herman's head puzzle was so stupid.

Can I say I enjoyed all the giant monkey robot stuff even though I knew while playing it that it wasn't what any of the original team had in mind?

I know I run the risk of being flabbergasted by saying that, only to check out a link that is only loosely related to the original topic.

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I've been playing Curse. I can't believe good it is. It'll take Telltale a lot to top that one...LeChuck is just so perfect:

6p9bpguYS7A

"Sufferin' sailors, 'tis good to be dead!"

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

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Yes, what a fantastic game, with great cinematics =) Well, we'll know in a couple of days whether Telltale manages to go the extra mile! The benefit of the doubt is theirs of course, with such a track record and lots of the original players behind Monkey Island working along.

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I remembered reading something about SoMI in a old Ron Gilbert interview.(well not tooo old , from two years ago) Its sort of amusing.

From http://www.worldofmi.com/features/interview/gilbert.php

Some fans would like to see MI1 remade with today's graphic and voices. Is that something you think is a good idea or do you feel it should be left as it is, for nostalgic reasons.

Remaking MI1 would be a huge mistake and wouldn't add anything to the game. Having recently played the game again, it's just fine.

Has Ron Gilbert sold out !?

Also, has anyone read anything about Ron's original plans for MI3? Sort of curious as to how he intended to deal with the Big Whoop carnival

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I suspect he meant a wholesale remake, like Sierra used to do with their early quest games. The entire layout of locations would be changed and puzzles added for no good reason. Generally things would be change for the sake of changing them. But the new remake seems to be faithful to the original.

And, Ron has never revealed his intentions of MI3. Why do you think he's constantly hounded for the true Secret?

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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.

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I'd like to see Ron Gilbert's version of MI3, if it exists, just for the sake of it. In fact, since MI consistency has never been a huge concern for the guys who participated in each games, I would like Telltale to start the equivalent of Marvel's What if ? series.

My opinion is that, since anyone within the adventure game community can play Six Degree of Telltale successfully, they could set up a series in the MI universe in which each episode featured a guest (game designer, writer or art director) providing a personal view on MI yet in a limited canvas.

They could even give a little bit of continuity by making it an exquisite corpse game series.

I can see the human resource and content management issues this would raise, but seeing how stimulating the mentioned series was and how the form of omnibus anime (which use a similar idea) isrevered, I think it would definitely be wort the hassle.

Mind you, they could also do that with a brand new universe or Sam & Max and I'd be happy too.

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I mean, I'd want to see it, but I largely agree with Thrik. I think he had some sort of idea for MI3, but I don't agree at all that it was always mapped out in his head any more than Leia being Luke's sister was mapped out in Lucas' head in 1977. I also have a hard time believing that fans would be all that receptive to his version of MI3 since, as you say, it seems to pull the rug out from underneath the idea that the Caribbean world Guybrush exists in is a real place. Who honestly wants that? I mean, yeah, it's an interesting idea, but I think the interpretative analysis that MI2's ending leaves us with is as far down that path as we need to go, and makes the mystery more exciting anyway. As a "what if" it's fascinating, as anything more...well, I dunno. It's so out there that it could either be brilliant or utterly horrible, but what it wouldn't be is a Monkey Island game as fans expect them to be.

People who worship Ron Gilbert's "true vision" just based on the fact that it's Ron Gilbert who came up with it have in fact been encouraged by Ron's incessant flaunting of such ideas as the "real secret" and "the real third game." Ironically, most people on the internet who are on a crusade to de-legitimatize any non-Gilbert Monkey Island game seem convinced that the Guybrush Is A Daydreaming Kid thing is utterly irrelevant and that the "real," bigger revelation is some separate, amazingly crafted twist entirely. Frankly, Ron himself is to blame for these lunatics. I love the guy, but I hate the way he fuels the fire whenever the topic is brought up during interviews. He gets to add to his image the spurned genius who had that amazing discontinued vision, which he conveniently will never have to show anything for.

Besides which, we can't ignore the fact that the ending of MI2 goes out of its way to make sure that CMI's plot could be possible. I don't get the impression that Gilbert was all that confident his MI3 would get made (or if it would be any good if it was). He left LEC right after the second game came out, so he clearly wasn't that uncomfortable leaving the third game in other hands. And we know now that the team of CMI knew of Ron's general idea for a third game, some of them having worked on LeChuck's Revenge. Maybe they were trying to respect Ron's vision by giving him the option of making his alternated version someday. Or maybe they just knew better than to deliver to fans a Monkey Island game that said, "By the way, you're not really a cool pirate in this awesome, rich Caribbean world that you've grown to love - it's in fact all fake!"

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I don't get the impression that Gilbert was all that confident his MI3 would get made (or if it would be any good if it was).

Only thing I ever found on him mentioning MI3 pre-CMI...MI2 hadn't been released yet (at least for the amiga):

John: Okay, well as I have heard from Liz at Lucasfilm, Ron, you will be leaving the company and starting your own. Does that mean you will be writing a Monkey Island 3 and selling it to Lucasfilm, or will it be given to a different project team to do at Lucasfilm?

Ron/Lucasfilm: It is true that I am leaving. As for Monkey 3, I doubt I will be the one doing it if it happens, but I have no doubt that I will be involved with it in some way.

John: Does this mean that MI3 has been slated for production and you will be a consultant on design and/or coding?

Ron/Lucasfilm: MI3 has not been slated for production. If everything worked the way I'd like it to, then I'd be the designer (or co-designer) of the game.

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People who worship Ron Gilbert's "true vision" just based on the fact that it's Ron Gilbert who came up with it have in fact been encouraged by Ron's incessant flaunting of such ideas as the "real secret" and "the real third game." Ironically, most people on the internet who are on a crusade to de-legitimatize any non-Gilbert Monkey Island game seem convinced that the Guybrush Is A Daydreaming Kid thing is utterly irrelevant and that the "real," bigger revelation is some separate, amazingly crafted twist entirely. Frankly, Ron himself is to blame for these lunatics. I love the guy, but I hate the way he fuels the fire whenever the topic is brought up during interviews. He gets to add to his image the spurned genius who had that amazing discontinued vision, which he conveniently will never have to show anything for.

Oh come on, that's completely ridiculous. It's obvious Ron's just having fun with the idea of there being a never-revealed secret. It's a bit of teasing! You make it sound like he's some evil, under-achieving sociopath. I'm not saying I know how the third game 'should' have been and frankly, I am perfectly happy with the way CMI continued the series (EMI not so much), but I do know that Ron is by no means trying to construct an image of himself as a 'spurned genius', carefully manipulating his flock of obviously crazy and stupid fans. That's an insulting, silly point of view.

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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. :D

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