Monkey Island 2: SE

[Udvarnoky]

Well it's good you're starting with some of the worst-designed ones. X: X: X:

 

*runs away*

 

There's some bullshit puzzles in the first two Monkey Island's, but overall and comparatively?  No way.

[Zeusthecat]

These games are definitely scratching an itch I never knew I had. I don't know how the hell I have gone through life and completely missed the graphic adventure genre, but hey, I'm here now and enjoying the hell out of it. And jesus, if the writing is this good in all of the LucasArts (and Sierra?) games then I will absolutely play every single one. Udvarnoky, I will take your recommendation and do them in order of release. I am so excited to have discovered a new genre and I feel compelled to experience as much as possible.

 

Is there a site somewhere that has a consolidated list of all of the downloads for the Scummvm supported games? So far I have just randomly googled MI1 and 2 and found them that way.

[Thrik]

Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. My god, so good. You should at least play those before potentially burning yourself out on LEC's other classics. The last greats before their downfall too.

[Udvarnoky]

Or Sam And Max Hit The Road.

 

I personally agree, but I'm just going from the experience that the games I've listed have a negligible amount of detractors.  Hit the Road earns a bit of flak for some truly cruel puzzles and a rough middle section pacing-wise.  It's still indispensable.

[Udvarnoky]

These games are definitely scratching an itch I never knew I had. I don't know how the hell I have gone through life and completely missed the graphic adventure genre, but hey, I'm here now and enjoying the hell out of it. And jesus, if the writing is this good in all of the LucasArts (and Sierra?) games then I will absolutely play every single one.

 

Understand that by limiting yourself to LucasArts adventures you're basically experiencing the absolute best of a genre where awful games are probably the overwhelming majority, but yeah, the experience of a truly great graphic adventure game is basically incomparable.

[Twig]

There's some bullshit puzzles in the first two Monkey Island's, but overall and comparatively?  No way.

Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Fate of Atlantis are my top three and they're all vastly superior. (I have not played Grim Fandango or Full Throttle or any of the other LA MI games.)

 

IN MY OPINION, OBVS.

 

It's mostly the map, the traveling that ruins it for me. Not the puzzles. I sorta explained this earlier, but basically if I'm already struggling with a solution, don't make me travel back and forth across a bunch of different areas super slowly. Please!

[Udvarnoky]

The back-tracking complaint is certainly fair enough, but I think the puzzles in Fate of Atlantis (mazes, firing the torpedo, not to mention brutal back-tracking once you reach the lost city that MI2 can hardly compete with) and Sam & Max (golf retriever + magnet + twine ball) are generally more sinister.

 

Day of the Tentacle is just aces.

[Nappi]

Yeah, the last part of The Fate of Atlantis was absolutely horrible in terms of backtracking.

[SecretAsianMan]

Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Fate of Atlantis are my top 3.  I won't argue they're the best, but as Jake pointed out in the latest cast, there's a difference between favorite and best.  I love Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, MI 1 & 2, etc. as well, but those three stand out to me.

 

I'm also going to advocate for The Dig.  It's got some flaws for sure (stupid dead creature bone puzzle), but I really love the atmosphere, style, and xenoarcheology theme.  Plus the T-1000, Robert Patrick.

[BigJKO]

Don't dig too deep into the Sierra ones. There are some fun ones, but nothing that comes close to LucasArts in the writing department.

Maybe don't play through Maniac Mansion right away after MI2, it's really dated compared to most LucasArts games.

[Udvarnoky]

I'm also going to advocate for The Dig.  It's got some flaws for sure (stupid dead creature bone puzzle), but I really love the atmosphere, style, and xenoarcheology theme.  Plus the T-1000, Robert Patrick.

 

I understand this completely.  Sometimes you buy into the game's world so much because it's just that good that the shortcomings shrink in relevance. It's the point I was trying to argue in A Vampyre Sory's favor in that game's thread.  I think comparisons to that game and The Dig are very apt.

 

Heck, even Grim Fandango, which on some days of the week is my favorite, is a bit inferior from a design standpoint than some other LEC titles for my money, but the game is so good it makes you feel like an asshole for dwelling on anything else.

[Zeusthecat]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I'll keep you guys posted on what I move on to next just to make sure I don't fall into a hole filled with shit. From the recommendations I'm thinking I pretty have to play almost all of the LucasArts games so I might as well start with Maniac Mansion (even if it's dated I feel compelled to play it; I'll use a guide if it gets too frustrating) and go chronologically by release from there. 

 

Would it be too self-indulgent to start a thread to track progress on these games? I really enjoy being able to talk about my progress in some fashion and I don't really know anyone that has ever experienced these games besides people here. Or better yet, if anyone else has yet to play some of these games it would be pretty sweet to play through them alongside someone else (I'm sad that I don't have any friends willing to play through these with me).

[Udvarnoky]

I personally would happily stalk such threads so that I could vicariously enjoy these games for the first time.

[BigJKO]

Yes, please. Just do a "The Big LucasArts Playthrough" thread. Dump it all in there. I might even join in on some of the games, even though I've played them.

[SecretAsianMan]

I wouldn't mind a chance to discuss some of my favorite games.  I'd probably also join in a replay if I can find the games.

[Zeusthecat]

Awesome! I'll keep posting about my MI2 progress here just so it stays coherent but I'll create that thread then to track progress and hopefully entice others to join me on my adventures.

[syntheticgerbil]

I'd recommend you only play the 90s LucasArts adventures for now if you are interested in more. Then maybe move to Telltale stuff instead instead of digging up a bunch of other older games.

 

If you do find you really enjoy graphic adventures of the 80s and 90s and you want to try other non LA games, I'd just advise you to ask around first because as Udvarnoky wrote, there's generally a lot of bad adventures hanging around. Most of Sierra's games are just not very good, but some are enjoyable enough.

[Zeusthecat]

Yeah, I will plan to stick to LucasArts for now. I will have to play Maniac Mansion though because I would like to be able to appreciate any references to it in DOTT.

[Twig]

Yeah, the last part of The Fate of Atlantis was absolutely horrible in terms of backtracking.

Yeah that's true. Last part is definitely particularly heinous. But at least it's only a SECTION of the game instead of the whole damn thing. Unlike Monkey Island.

 

Sam & Max has backtracking, but travel between areas is near instant. Again, unlike Monkey Island.

 

Also I don't really care about the backtracking. It's the TRAVELING. Monkey Island's puzzles are just as "backtracky", but more annoying because it's so slow.

[syntheticgerbil]

Are there any mediocre LucasArts adventures besides Last Crusade and Zak McCracken? I feel like they are all pretty solid besides those two. Never played the Labyrinth one. I kind of give Maniac Mansion a pass because it's pretty short and is kind of an early version of what Ron Gilbert was trying to do with adventures.

[Udvarnoky]

The worst LucasArts adventures (Zak and The Dig for me) are a damn sight better than mediocre.

 

I like Last Crusade quite a lot.  Zak McKracken I appreciate in a mostly academic sense, but I admire its scope and it's definitely got the imagination and humor to be recognizable as a LucasArts title.  The puzzles are a nightmare, but everything's relative: while Zak is excessively crude coming off of Monkey Island, Zak is basically Monkey Island compared to its contemporaries.  You pretty much have to familiarize yourself with the genre's output at the time to fully appreciate Zak.  When I played it I was still fairly new to adventure games, so even though I found it impossible, I had a lot of fun with it before inevitably giving up.  And that self-contained bit on the airplane where you repeatedly plague the vexed stewardess with catastrophe is a classic puzzle and vintage LEC.

[Ben X]

MI4 gets a lot of stick. I remember it being okay, but it kind of went overboard with the contemporary references and some of the graphics haven't aged very well.

[Udvarnoky]

Yeah, that's basically it.  It's still a very good adventure game and the idea of skipping it altogether is very silly to me.

[SecretAsianMan]

The only thing I remember from MI4 is their version of the dialog combat.

[Ben X]

Gahhh, let's move this over to the LA playthrough thread...