Monkey Island 2: SE

[Forbin]

Your assertion that it's only the lower-quality pixel work that was ruined by the new LucasArts doesn't really hold any water when you look at their cover artwork they've made so far.

First of all I don't think they ruined anything. But if you would take a look at the concept art unlocks in MI2:SE, you'll see that a lot of the work was created as faithfully as possible given the source material. Whether you disagree with how they've stylized the environment is subjective. What I'm saying is that the higher detail the source material is, the less the designers have to stray. And with fewer creative choices, they upset fewer people who've created their own picture in their minds of how the characters exist.

[thorn]

Definitely, smoothing out those models and adding maybe some detail to the backgrounds and rerendering everything in a higher resolution would do the game great justice.

I think the backgrounds are fine, but an improved movement engine and better quality character models would do wonders.

Rerendering the FMVs would be good too, but probably beyond what they'd be prepared to do.

[syntheticgerbil]

Rerendering the FMVs would be good too, but probably beyond what they'd be prepared to do.

Yeah, it might be really tough to get everything just right as it originally was with new models and new post processing and then I'm sure there would be a million problems before you could just "simply" rerender a cutscene.

I can only dream though. I think Grim is amazing how it is. It's still my top game in terms of atmosphere and story, and while it's still great, I wouldn't mind seeing it improved upon at all. Reinterpreted though? No way.

Since Forbin was speaking about rerecording the audio, I would hope for any kind of high definition remake that they wouldn't do such a thing. It's perfect the way it is, music as well. I'm assuming for cases like that people have higher quality masters of all of the recordings, but who knows?

Earthworm Jim HD had all the voices rerecorded for the sake of higher quality audio and even though it's just a platformer with throwaway lines, it was infinitely disappointing.

[ThunderPeel2001]

First of all I don't think they ruined anything. But if you would take a look at the concept art unlocks in MI2:SE, you'll see that a lot of the work was created as faithfully as possible given the source material. Whether you disagree with how they've stylized the environment is subjective. What I'm saying is that the higher detail the source material is, the less the designers have to stray. And with fewer creative choices, they upset fewer people who've created their own picture in their minds of how the characters exist.

Apologies for putting words in your mouth, you didn't say they'd ruined anything. But I think Synthetic Gerbil made a very good case for why it would actually be quite difficult to do. I think Super Street Fighter II HD is a great example of how simply upping the resolution and staying absolutely true to the original artwork can look very stiff and jerky.

Also, the fact that their animations seem to mostly come from 3D models isn't very promising, either. I just don't think they've got the necessarily animation skills in house at the moment (even if the background art skills in MI2:SE has improved massively over the first SE).

So, did you like the new cover art, then?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think the backgrounds are fine, but an improved movement engine and better quality character models would do wonders.

Re-rendering the FMVs would be good too, but probably beyond what they'd be prepared to do.

Yes, yes, yes!!!

I wish someone would make this, but as Gerbil says, no need for any re-interpretation, I think.

I wonder if Schafer kept a copy of the assets. I have the feeling it's the type of thing he might do...

[Patters]

Apologies for putting words in your mouth, you didn't say they'd ruined anything. But I think Synthetic Gerbil made a very good case for why it would actually be quite difficult to do. I think Super Street Fighter II HD is a great example of how simply upping the resolution and staying absolutely true to the original artwork can look very stiff and jerky.

And the backgrounds look absolutely awful.

[syntheticgerbil]

I wonder if Schafer kept a copy of the assets. I have the feeling it's the type of thing he might do...

Haha, he did have that design document with all of the concept art lying around still it seems. I wonder if he had to smuggle that out of there or if he was allowed to have a copy for himself.

[Forbin]

So, did you like the new cover art, then?

I didn't really notice it, i grabbed it through steam.

[Lu]

So how much commentary is in the thing? Because finished Monkey Island 2 not too long ago, so I wouldn't really play through it just for voice and fancy new art.

[toblix]

Yeah, I played through it recently as well, and would like a version where I don't have to actually do all the stuff to get the commentary, although it's not a big deal. I haven't gotten far enough to really ascertain how much commentary there is, or if it's worth playing through again to hear.

[syntheticgerbil]

There could be more. It comes in really short snippets.

I want to say there's a total of around 40 minutes of commentary. I could be wrong though, that may be a little high.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Actually it's supposed to be an hour's worth. I'd still recommend picking it up, even for those who recently completed it. 1: It's incredibly cheap and 2: There's lots of never-before-seen original Purcell/Chan artwork to unlock.

[toblix]

If there was an hour's worth of commentary in there, I'd like to know where. I played through it, and the commentary parts were few and far between. I would actually prefer to just watch the playthrough they were watching, rather than having to play through everything again, rushing through the puzzles to hear the next comment, but I guess that defeats much of the point of the game. It'd be nice as an alternative, though.

Also, while the art has improved in resolution and colour depth, it's still very sloppy. There are old pixels jutting out all over the place, which is disappointing. I also find my own internal reading of the dialogue to be more hilarious than the voiced ones, even if they all well done.

[ThunderPeel2001]

If there was an hour's worth of commentary in there, I'd like to know where. I played through it, and the commentary parts were few and far between. I would actually prefer to just watch the playthrough they were watching, rather than having to play through everything again, rushing through the puzzles to hear the next comment, but I guess that defeats much of the point of the game. It'd be nice as an alternative, though.

Also, while the art has improved in resolution and colour depth, it's still very sloppy. There are old pixels jutting out all over the place, which is disappointing. I also find my own internal reading of the dialogue to be more hilarious than the voiced ones, even if they all well done.

What with all the Ron Gilbert hate?!

kidding

[toblix]

What with all the Ron Gilbert hate?!

I don't hate him, I really enjoyed the Blackwell games.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I really felt like there was only 30 minutes or so of commentary and I'm sure I was very thorough. I think the hour was something LucasArts was touting by rounding up.

[Forbin]

They probably were in the studio for an hour. It sounds like they basically jumped through a few scenes because there were a few times where they were lost "where is this screen again?". I doubt it was a full playthrough.

[toblix]

I read a thread somewhere where someone said that the whole theme park thing was hinted at all throughout the game, and I started to recall where this was. So far I've got:

• The fake waterfall with maintenance tunnels
  
• Everything after falling down into the finale tunnels.
  

Which references/hints have I missed? Is there a list somewhere?

[syntheticgerbil]

They might be a little off in saying that. I mean I've heard people say because they reuse the main Booty Island layout for the end, the original background is referencing the ending itself, when to me it just seemed more of a funny type thing to revamp an existing background than to create a new one, not exactly supporting the theme park theory indefinitely.

Then there's Guybrush's parents referencing he ran away or was lost as well before the bone song.

EDIT: After reading Noyb's post I realize you may be talking about the first two games completely leading up to the "Guybrush is a kid stuck in a carnival" theory rather than various carnival references in-game themselves leading up to the end of MI2.

Edited July 16, 2010 by syntheticgerbil

[Noyb]

Are you talking about this ancient Scumm Bar article? http://www.scummbar.com/resources/articles/index.php?newssniffer=readarticle&article=2

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I dislike that article because it ignores a ton of other fourth-wall/anachronistic stuff that's in all the games. For example: It's funny that they have a Grog machine with Grog Lite, Diet Grog, Cherry Grog, etc. It's not a clue.

In MI2 Guybrush says things like (when trying to open the telescope) "This isn't Monkey 1" and (when looking at the waterfall pump) "What's this doing in a pirate game?". In order for the "it's all a child's fantasy" idea to work you have to deliberately ignore these statements that suggest it's just a game, but then take other things very literally. So yeah, that just doesn't work for me.

I honestly think the ending of MI2 was just made to be as deliberately as confusing/messed up as possible.

Edited July 17, 2010 by ThunderPeel2001

[syntheticgerbil]

I honestly think the ending of MI2 was just made to be as deliberately as confusing/messed up as possible.

I think that's pretty much what they said in the commentary. They sought out to twist it as much as possible.

Too bad they didn't say what the point of doing that was or really explain further than that.

[toblix]

Yeah, considering the whole thing built up around a single truth, like Lost or whatever, seems like a stretch. I really like when things are "off" in a setting, though (a big reason the world of the Gunslinger books appealed so much to me.) I'm not sure why I don't get all angry about it ruining everything, like much of the jokes in Fallout 2 did, but I really think it adds to the setting. Even though it's obvious they're not taking anything completely seriously in MI2, the ending still grips me and makes me feel all mysterious or whatever. toblix out

[circadianwolf]

Yeah, considering the whole thing built up around a single truth, like Lost or whatever

Best

[MrHoatzin]

The Secret of the weirdness of Monkey Island is in its use of white I like to call casual anachronism. It is an anachronism and it is just an aspect of the world.