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Monkey Island To Return
Briareos was one of several readers to write with news that TellTale Games, along with LucasArts, will be bringing new Monkey Island games later this year. Tales of Monkey Island will be a series of episodic games released for PC and WiiWare in the coming months, and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be a remake of the original 1990 game, available on the PC and Xbox Live. A trailer is available for the former, and this is what the press release says about the latter: "The development team at LucasArts is bringing the game into the modern era with all-new HD graphics, a re-mastered musical score, full voiceover, and an in-depth hint system has been added to help players through the game's side-splitting puzzles. Purists will also delight in the ability to seamlessly switch between the updated HD graphics and the original's classic look." Grumpy Gamer has a nostalgic look back at the franchise.
I'm doubly thrilled at this announcement; first because I love the first two Monkey Island games, and second because it's been so long since Telltale's Sam and Max Season 2 ended and I miss playing episodic adventure games with my wife. None of Telltale's series since Sam and Max interested us so Monkey Island is doubly appreciated for finally filling the void!
These Telltale adventures are the perfect activity to enjoy with a loved one. They're clever and funny and have great stories, plus the frustrating bits are that much easier when you put two heads together on a puzzle. My wife and I would always count the days until the next Sam and Max episode, so I did not hesitate to preorder the Monkey Island season the moment I learned heard this announcement last night (plus I got a free game of my choice from their site last night for doing so).
Telltale is a studio I put my full faith into, and in my 24 years of PC gaming that's been a very rare thing for me to say. Their games are well programmed, the art style is creative and attractive, and the writing is consistently outstanding. I also love that you can get a very attractive DVD of the season plus some extras for free (plus about $7 shipping) if you own the digtal download season.
Now please excuse me - I'm off to practise my insult swordfighting.
I enjoyed the Monkey Island series, but I think Grim Fandango is the best game in this genre that I've played. I'm very glad they never made a sequel to it - it was a great stand-alone game but didn't leave any loose ends that needed tying up. Much as I enjoyed the Monkey Island games, I'm not sure that they need more sequels. I'd rather see more original games in the same style but with new settings or characters.
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And definatly dont re-play the originals. It's the only way to prevent the nostalgia from being tainted.
Could be true, if the games weren't as good as nostalgia tells you they were.
But have you actually played Monkey Island recently? Still funny as hell, comic book graphics stand the test of time (imo) better
than anything high-res 3D accelerated brought out in the 1998-2008 timeframe. The games are the peak of a genre.
Btw. tainting nostalgia (for some) is not a boolean function. Say you'd revisit something like Dune 2. Today, the deficiencies are
obvious. Yet, you can still have a bit of fun playing it. It's a trade-off. Fun for (slightly) tainted memories.
Now take a (supposed) underperforming modern sequel of some game. A bit of anticipation when you heard it announced, followed
by a complete lack of hours of fun. That tradeoff doesn't work.
I've never liked the animated look of "Curse" or these sequels. Guybrush should look like he could fit on the cover of an eighties pirate move cover, like this one:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2702481152/tt0099816
and indeed he does, on the original cover:
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/dos-games/1703-1.jpg
Look at that haircut! It's cool, It's part of what makes him dorky. But as a cartoon character, it doesn't work. It's just another exaggregated feature.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
It's interesting how different our reactions are to this news. I loved all three of the Monkey Island games. To me, re-issuing a game with updated graphics is money-grubbing, plain and simple.
The episodic content has potential, but I'm not sold by default. LucasArts must convince me that they still have the writing chops for comedy of Monkey Island caliber.
I agree. Curse of Monkey Island is my favorite in the series. Love the voice acting, (especially the songs) and the cartoon-style graphics seem much more appropriate to the game than the 3D in Escape. The jokes are well-written and made great use of comic timing.
I'm just finishing up season 1 of TellTale Games' Sam and Max, and I must say, it give me great hope for their Monkey Island revival.
Redundancy is good And also good.