The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[Zeusthecat]

I've been working through my Steam backlog and started up The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition last night. I can't believe it's already been almost 2 years since I first played it and damn does this game have some excellent dialog. I have mixed feelings on the special edition version though. On the audio side, the voice acting and musical arrangements are actually pretty solid. I think the humor in the game works better with just the text but I'm finding myself enjoying the voices more than I expected. On the visual side, I really like how pretty and high resolution-y the updated graphics are but the characters and character animations look a little bit strange. I expected it to look a little bit more like CoMI but instead the characters have this kind of weird, lifeless doll look to them.

 

All in all, the original version of the game is the best, hands down. I think a big part of what made this game so great and funny had to do with the timing of the dialog popping up on the screen and the way the characters expressed themselves in their limited sprite forms. Having voices and weird doll looking creatures takes a little bit away from this.

 

Also, I streamed my first session last night but for some reason the stream turned out all choppy. I'm going to mess around with my OBS settings to see if I can get it smoothed out and assuming I do, I'll be streaming the entire rest of the game throughout this week if anyone's interested. 

[syntheticgerbil]

Did you play the original series without the voices? I forgot. I think the original SE doesn't let you play the original graphics with voices.

 

I've ranted and raved so much on how ugly the first Special Edition was, but I guess it's just a matter of having the right people. If they would have at least just redone the characters to have the CMI designs instead of either prerendered 3D Model sprites plus weird corpse Guybrush close up paintings I think it would have made a little bit more sense, so besides being frustrated I'm still really confused by a lot of the choices.

 

You need to get to the Tales of games Zeus! I think you'll love 'em... or if not generally enjoy them.

[Zeusthecat]

Yeah, when I first played through MI 1 and 2 I played the original versions on ScummVM. I figured I'd give these special editions a whirl since I purchased them after the fact and they've just been sitting in my Steam library gathering digital dust. I really don't get why they didn't go with the CMI look either. Up until starting it last night I assumed that's what the special editions were going to look like since that was a great look. Instead I was greeted with freaky mannequin Guybrush.

 

And I will definitely play the Tales of games... after I finish my backlog. Soon I will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Zeusthecat]

I finally got my Twitch stream running smoothly last night without any dropped frames and got through the last part of act 1, all of act 2, and the first half of act 3. I think I've seen enough now to definitively say that I don't like this version of the game nearly as much as the original. It is still decent but having all of the characters voiced has had an overall negative impact on how funny a lot of the dialog is to me. The storekeeper is still pretty solid at least. As far as the graphics go, some of the backgrounds are really gorgeous (especially the sword master's house area) but I am not too fond of how the characters turned out. I'll finish it up with the updated visuals and voice acting but if I ever end up going through it again, I'm definitely sticking with the classic graphics.

 

As far as the puzzles go, I surprisingly got stuck for a few minutes on some of them because I had forgotten some of the specific details. Luckily those have only been minor speed bumps though and I'm managing to make it through at a pretty decent pace.

 

Also, I finally got around to updating the first post in this thread with links to the start of each game that was played.

[Zeusthecat]

I finished Secret of Monkey Island SE and moved on to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge SE last night. The Special Edition-ness of this one is quite an improvement over the first. The character models actually look decent this time! And I'm also liking the re-done music quite a bit as well. I wasn't sure how well that part would translate but I was happy to see that Woodtick still felt really Woodticky.

[RubixsQube]

I recently started replaying Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (The Graphic Adventure), which you played ages ago, Zeus. I played it a lot when I was a kid, and it holds a special place in my heart, even if it relies too much on action sequences, and even if you can screw yourself over and get into fail states. 

 

I'm just a real big fan of the art, here, especially those handsome windows on the left side of Barnett College. Sure, Fate of Atlantis is better, and looks better, but I'm seriously thinking of printing this out and framing it. Look at cute little Marcus there, going back and forth from display case to display case. 

 

 

it's also neat to look at how they changed the perspective slightly as you go down the hallway to simulate the "camera panning," even though they're just scrolling across a static image.

[Zeusthecat]

Funny you should bring that up. I'll be replaying that one in the next week or two after I go back through Loom and The Dig and was just going back through ThunderPeel's guide to get a handle on how to get through the game without fighting any guards. The first time I went through, my enthusiasm for the game was dashed a little bit by how brutal and difficult those fights were. Realizing after the fact that you can actually get through the whole thing without fighting, I'm looking forward to a second playthrough and trying to get a decent amount of IQ points.

 

And that game definitely has some pretty sweet art. If it weren't for all the fighting I ended up having to do on my first playthrough, this one would have ranked pretty high on my list of favorite LucasArts adventure games.

 

On another note, I finished Monkey Island 2 Special Edition last night. Big improvement over the first Special Edition. I really liked a lot of the redone music in this version but I think I could generally do without the voice acting.

[RubixsQube]

I can't remember - did you have a copy (even in pdf form) of the Grail Diary that came with the game? (I guess I could go search for this myself in the thread) That was a really important aspect of what made this game real, the fact that you had to look for clues all the time from a real life book. 

[Udvarnoky]

The thing about the voice acting for the special editions is that while it's pretty much impeccable, it's like you said: there's an awkwardness to voicing text that wasn't intended to be heard.  I've decided I just like the availability of it; there's a continuity-based comfort to knowing that there exists recordings of Dominic Armato saying all of those lines.

[Zeusthecat]

No, I never did get a copy of that. Thanks for the reminder though. I'll try to find a pdf of that before I start my next playthrough.

[RubixsQube]

Here's where you can download it from replacementdocs, although if you can't get it to open, I have a copy of the pdf I can send you, also. It's a bit of reading, but it's fun. 

[Zeusthecat]

The thing about the voice acting for the special editions is that while it's pretty much impeccable, it's like you said: there's an awkwardness to voicing text that wasn't intended to be heard.  I've decided I just like the availability of it; there's a continuity-based comfort to knowing that there exists recordings of Dominic Armato saying all of those lines.

 

That's exactly where I stand on it. It's really nice that it's there and I think they nailed it about as good as they could have, but there is something about the pacing of the humor that just doesn't work as well when you are hearing them voiced and waiting for them to finish speaking the lines that you finished reading 5-10 seconds earlier (and I guess I could just turn subtitles off but I still don't think it would work as well as the original).

 

The visuals and music though were pretty fantastic across the board for MI2:SE. Because I'm a purist though, I will probably only ever play the original version in the future if/when I feel like coming back to them.

 

And thanks RubixsQube. I'll let you know if I end up having issues getting that.

[Udvarnoky]

So since you're replaying Loom, are you going to check out the voiced version this time?  Pretty sure I manipulated you into playing the EGA version the first go round.

[Zeusthecat]

So since you're replaying Loom, are you going to check out the voiced version this time?  Pretty sure I manipulated you into playing the EGA version the first go round.

 

Yeah, I did go with your recommendation on my first playthrough and played the EGA version after watching a YouTube video with that prelude story. Is the voiced version the one that's available on Steam? That's the one I'm planning on starting tonight.

 

Also, as with Monkey Island 1 and 2, I'm going to stream my playthroughs of Loom and The Dig since I can get through them at a decent pace now without getting stuck. Probably not for Last Crusade though. I think that would be too painful to watch with the constant saving and reloading that is bound to occur.

[SecretAsianMan]

Are you going to replay Fate of Atlantis and take a different path?  If so, I'd suggest the Wits path since you did the Team path last time and the Fists path sucks.

[Zeusthecat]

Are you going to replay Fate of Atlantis and take a different path?  If so, I'd suggest the Wits path since you did the Team path last time and the Fists path sucks.

 

Absolutely, I haven't forgotten about that promise I made long ago to replay using the Wits path! After I get a bunch of these quick burn games cleared off my Steam backlog I'll jump back into that.

[Udvarnoky]

Yes, VGA Talkie Loom is the version available on Steam and now GOG.com.

[syntheticgerbil]

Play Pajama Sams with your kids!

 

Or Freddi Fish!

[Zeusthecat]

Play Pajama Sams with your kids!

 

Or Freddi Fish!

 

Never heard of those games before. Are they any good?

[Twig]

Yes yes Freddi Fish!!!!

[syntheticgerbil]

Adventure games for kids written/designed by either Ron Gilbert or Dave Grossman among other people. They have multiple paths too!

[Zeusthecat]

Oh hey that doesn't sound half bad. I'll have to check those out. My daughter loved watching me play Monkey Island so I'm sure she'll be interested in those, especially if they are geared towards younger kids.

[Trip Hazard]

Thanks so much for recommending Freddi Fish. My 7-yr old stepdaughter absolutely loves it, so far, and would probably have completed the game in one long session if I didn't force her to save something for another time. Cheers!

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I played most of those as an adult out of a need to play everything by those guys, having only played the first Pajama Sam and Freddi Fish when I was young (played some Putt Putts back then too, but he's for really young kids). Gave some to my wife's younger sister by over a decade and she loved Pajama Sam. I think both of those characters are just as fun for adults that might be playing with kids plus the animations and art are great.

 

One funny thing from a piece of commentary on Monkey Island 2 Special Edition by Dave Grossman is when he mentions designing some Humongous games and having to come up with endless scenarios and dialogue on why the character should be allowed to just take things from people or places, since most adventure game characters are generally thieves.

[Zeusthecat]

I finished replaying Loom the other night. The voice acting was super low quality and the dialog clips seemed to cut off rather abruptly with a lot of the dialog but I think I generally preferred this one with voice acting anyways because the game is just so quiet without it. I had forgotten how little there was in the way of sound effects and music so having some extra noise was welcome. Also, man, Bobbin is such a stupid name.

 

I also inadvertently played through on expert this time, forgetting how the different difficulties worked. So I had the additional challenge of trying to work through the notes for each spell by just listening to them and trying to repeat the sequence on my stafff. I'm not too good at this type of thing so each spell took a few attempts to get the notes right but I managed to get them all and wrote them down as I went. In the end, it really wasn't all that much more difficult than the standard mode. I like this game though and look forward to a possible sequel!