Monkey Island

[neogramps]

LucasArts announced its plans to return to Monkey Island, the publisher's once popular P&C adventure series, with two new releases. The first is Tales of Monkey Island, a game that's going to be divided into 5 whole episodes, developed (we've seen this coming) by Telltale Games. The episodes will evidently be released "in just a few short weeks" for the PC and WiiWare.

The second release is The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, which is going to offer a hi-res remake of the classic The Secret of Monkey Island. This one features a re-mastered musical score and voiceovers and is slated to arrive this summer for PC and Xbox LIVE Arcade.

“We couldn’t be any more excited about bringing Monkey Island to today's gamers -- both in our special edition of the original classic, and through our collaboration with Telltale on the episodic series,� said LucasArts’ President Darrell Rodriguez. “We can’t wait for Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck to return to gamers’ screens.�

:)

[GingerPrinz]

Yeah I saw this. Pretty exciting!!!

[Hex]

Can't wait :D

[To0]

Shockingly I am only just this minute playing through the monkey island series.

[Bluepixie]

Not for the first time though right?

[Fyndir]

I've never played the Monkey Island series.

[neogramps]

I played the original a bit on my friend's amiga; as much as it was funny and clever, forcing you to use every object you had on every pixel until something works is not really a fun game mechanic for me, so I never enjoyed it that much

[Bluepixie]

That's why you you're meant to use your brain, it's a puzzle remember? Lol, it's not , Point and Shoot Adventure. Abstract yes, granted but certainly not unfathomable.

@Fyndir - How??!? I'd recommend playing them, adventure gaming has rarely been as good and as funny, apart from The Longest Journey (http://www.longestjourney.com/), Syberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syberia) and The Grim Fandango (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Fandango), the latter of which is probably the funniest point and click out there. Oh ok, maybe Day of the Tentacle or Sam and Max Hit the Road. The former two being quite serious really, black comedy to be honest.

[DAve]

I've never played the Monkey Island series.

then you've never lived.
Might I recommend simon the sorcerer, (sarcasm)space invaders and pac-man too ;) (/sarcasm)

[Fyndir]

I actually remember playing Simon the Sorcerer when I was young, I also had some Discworld based P&C games for my Playstation, which were pretty awesome.

My problem with them always amounted to the same thing Kenny mentioned, the solutions were so strictly defined and insanely abstract that (at least at that age) I couldn't work them out, so it became a case of trying to use everything with everything else, one thing at a time.

Perhaps Troll not has enough brains for these games?

[To0]

I never had the patience till now.

[GingerPrinz]

Those Discworld games were sick. Point + click might be my favorite genre of game to be honest, but I fell out of love with it pretty much after Grim Fandango. I just yearn for the days of those 2nd masterpieces I guess.

[Hex]

Point + click might be my favorite genre of game to be honest, but I fell out of love with it pretty much after Grim Fandango. I just yearn for the days of those 2nd masterpieces I guess.

I can't think of many decent point + click games that got released after Grim Fandango, the genre was already on it's way out at that point sadly...

[To0]

The only one I ever played through prior to about 2000 was Dig. Which apparently is one of the worst. I still think it is great, played Grim Fandango till disk 2 but not to completion (on my todo list). Sam and Max, Day of the tentacle and full throttle were all completed when I finally got the full talky versions.

[Bluepixie]

I can't think of many decent point + click games that got released after Grim Fandango

Indeed, but Syberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syberia) and it's sequel (2002 and 2004) were excellent, easily in the top 10. The Longest Jounrney (http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/The_Longest_Journey) (1999) was also brilliant. The latest Sam & Max episodes are meant to be decent but I've not played them, remember Strings quite liking them.

[GingerPrinz]

Anyone remember Operation Stealth? Or Loom? Loved Leisure Suit Larry of course, although I didn't care so much for Kings Quest/Space something(Possibly Quest?)/Black Cauldron. The thing that put me off Sam & Max episodes was exactly that they were "decent", which was a far cry from the "awesome" I was expecting. Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade is in my top 5 most difficult games - to the best of my knowledge it was in this game that "pixel hunt" was debuted.

[neogramps]

As much as point and click was never my favourite genre, I did recently enjoy playng throught sam and max on my DS; if you can run it, the scummVM emulator feels very natural on the DS.

[To0]

I tried LSL and Space Quest, again found that I didn't have the patience. I played a couple of the FMV point and clicks, Under a Killing Moon, Ripper and Phantasmagoria.

My Wii is getting kitted out in ScummVM soon.

[Hex]

LSL was always total shite IMO, titillation for schoolboys with a weak excuse for a game wrapped around it. Kings Quest was fairly average, I enjoyed the Space Quest games though (the humour was top notch!). As for Phantasmagoria....lord that was bad. Like MegaCD bad.

[GingerPrinz]

LSL was always total shite IMO, titillation for schoolboys with a weak excuse for a game wrapped around it.

But it's not supposed to be titillating, it's supposed to be funny... Also it's the same as all the other equivalent genre games, so where's the weakness? If it was supposed to be a super-arousing wankathon I could see your point, but it's a laugh! Duke Nukem probably contained more "titillation"

[Hex]

The difference being Duke Nukem was a good game. Leisure Suit Larry never even got close to the likes of Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle, and anyone arguing otherwise is either a fool or has been smoking meth.

[GingerPrinz]

Not being able to hold a candle to Monkey Island and DotT doesn't make it a bad game. Opinion, opinon, yadda yadda. Also, LSL can't be so bad if they're still making it after all these years. I'd love to see more adventure of Bernard and crew in episodic format tho...

[GigaFuzz]

Also, LSL can't be so bad if they're still making it after all these years. I'd love to see more adventure of Bernard and crew in episodic format tho...

http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/scores/

Scroll down to the bottom of that list and look at the last-but one place. Developed by Team17, they of Worms fame :(

[GingerPrinz]

Lol. Ah well, guess that's what happens when you take Al Lowe out of the equation.

[Hex]

Quite asides from the proof Giga so kindly provided, I'm sure we can all name many long running series where the games have often (or even always) been of questionable quality. Popularity has never equalled quality, and never will.

[Gunder]

Lol. Ah well, guess that's what happens when you take Al Lowe out of the equation.

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-leisure-suit-larry-box-office-bust/17-664/

Watch that.

[Sid]

Monkey Island released for iPhone and iPod

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/07/23/monkey-island-released-for-iphone-and-ipod/

[To0]

That is only exciting because the app store does not allow emulators otherwise ScummVM would have done that for us ages ago.

[Hex]

That is only exciting because the app store does not allow emulators otherwise ScummVM would have done that for us ages ago.

Unless ofc your name is Sega. Fairly sure a lot of the 16bit Sonic releases for the iPhone are just ROM dumps and emulators, but packaged up nicely.

[Hex]

Download Tales of Monkey Island episode 1 for free today (http://www.telltalegames.com/playlikeapirate). The devs are celebrating talk like a Pirate day :D

Also Monkey Island SE is 50% off, a whopping £3.50 on steam

[Bluepixie]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr! That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on! Prepare to be boarded!

[Hex]

So I completed Tales of Monkey Island episode one today. All in all it was entertaining, though not as awesome as the originals. I'm in two minds as to whether the pack is worth buying - it's £25 for 5 episodes which isn't bad, but episode one was probably only about 3 hours gameplay, maybe 4. Also, you're obliged to buy all 5 episodes at once - there's no option to buy them individually. I'll see if I feel like more adventuring when I get paid I guess.

[saladin]

You know what I don't get about it - what was wrong with the tried-and-tested click to move? The worst thing about this episode is the hideous mouse-drag to initiate moving. It's neigh on impossible to get Guybrush to walk along some areas without him flipping out (the thin gangplank to the Doctor's house being the one that jumps to mind). Frustrating and unnecessary, and while not game-breaking, it rather put me off a few times.

[GingerPrinz]

Have you tried double clicking? Not installed yet but that's how it was MI4 if i am not mistaken

[Hex]

You know what I don't get about it - what was wrong with the tried-and-tested click to move? The worst thing about this episode is the hideous mouse-drag to initiate moving. It's neigh on impossible to get Guybrush to walk along some areas without him flipping out (the thin gangplank to the Doctor's house being the one that jumps to mind). Frustrating and unnecessary, and while not game-breaking, it rather put me off a few times.

While I agree that the controls are annoying, I don't use the mouse drag movement. You can either use WASD/arrows which is farrrrrr better than the mouse drag shite, or if you're going for a highlightable item you can click on it to walk there or double click to run. The lack of ability to run just in general is kinda annoying, sometimes I wish to move with pace!

I honestly don't know why they did away with the old fashioned "click on the floor to go there" controls, but they did for whatever reason...

[saladin]

Ah I didn't realise that WSAD worked. Fair enough then.

I do know that you can run by holding down the right mouse button. Whether that increases movement speed while using WSAD I dunno.

[Hex]

So I buckled and bought it all. I want more swashbuckling point and click!

[GigaFuzz]

Remake of Monkey Island 2 on its way!
http://lucasarts.com/games/monkeyisland2/#/features

And this should make some people happy:
Character voiceover available in both Special Edition and Classic modes

[saladin]

Nice one! The voice work was excellent for the Special Edition of the first game, and my memories of the second installment of the series are that it was better by far than the first.

[Apfel]

The second one was probably the best one of the series in terms of puzzles/locations/humour balance. The ending was horrible though.

[Bluepixie]

Yeah must admit, bit of a let down, but that was the point wasn't it? ;)