Telltale doing new Monkey Island series...

Never thought I'd see this happening. That Sam & Max money must be glorious.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1024

YESSS!!!!!!!! HURRAY!!!!! This is the end of boring games !!!!!
I love the Monkey Island series...

I think this is a matter of humour. I have to see a demo before I get this. Currently there are very good adventures on the market (Jack Keane, Ankh, Book of Unwritten Tales, ...).

Graphically it looks weak and much worse than competition:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/screenshot.php?id=10143

The hero has bad shading, too much specularity, simple textures. Environment is very simple. Lighting looks flat.
Probably this is because it is made for Wiiware and PC is only a port.

Here is how competition looks:


And this game is funny also and makes everything like an adventure should do and got excellent scores in magazines.

Yes - that's it (and of cause the story).

I only like the games 1 and 2.
The other games just dont feel like the original monkey island.
I really hate that cartoony and overexpressive 3d look.

I would have liked the games after MI 2 to have a more realistic look. As the original games did not try
to make a cartoon look, but where simply limited by the resolution
and technology at that time.
(Also: there is one bigger zoomed-in picture of Guybrush, I think in MI-1
where they tried to make him look very realistic)

But maybe Im too old for the current style of adventure games.

i also hate the cartoon look. i can't identify with such ugly cartoon characters. adventure games only worked for me when the resolution was 320x200 or less. then the graphics was abstract enough to leave room for your own imagination.

Theres also a Remake of the original coming, right? There 'ya go. The hair of guybrush is ridiculous, and I don't know if I like that.

--



Apart from the somewhat weird lighting, I don't really mind that style. Plus, for me Monkey Island is more about the writing anyway, and Telltale just might be able to pull this off

Not so sure if the limitations are really due to the file-size-limitation of Wiiware (which is what you're getting at? Technically, the Wii should be able to allow other styles as well), since this is not too far off of the style they used in the latter games. And at least in the third game, I didn't mind it. The weird 3D-look in the fourth I could have done without, though.

--



This is a quote by Ron Gilbert, where he comments on the original Monkey Island - a very interesting read, but full of spoilers, obviously.

It is not only the lighting. The main character probably has some strange polygon flow that causes these problems in the face.

By the way: I like the design of the characters from the Lucas Arts website that you linked in your post. The faces are not that exaggerated small and thin and skinny. But the hair of the hero is a bit like a tower indeed.

Original


"Cool, every kid must love this" New Style


Ok, the original picture might be a bit too realistic,
but its still better than some stange-porpotion
cartoon style.
Maybe such games only worked back then in the 320x200 low res times, as the fun was sometimes watchin a single pixel jump around.


Here, the REAL DeluxePaint Guy.brush

...don't know if i ever posted THIS?

http://www.majusarts.de/film/monkey/

Aah, yes, you're right. See, thats what I get for not being a modeldesigner

Apart from that, however, I still don't mind the style. But I do hope they're going to fix the polygonflow.

Too bad that you don't like the style, Damocles, but I really don't think its going to be that much of an issue when you play it. After all, the game is more about the humor and writing, no?

Of course the game lives on the dialogs, puzzles and jokes
in the long run, its also about "imersion".
So then I have a nice graphical style, I feel like beeing in the game.
If I get put of by stupid Art all the time, I cant enjoy
the game itself.
And playing any Monkey Island, I will automatically
think of the very first game, and how the
world was presented.
So it probably works for (most Kids now) people that
never played the old games.

A similar thing was with Gothic 3. They changed a lot,
and a lot to the worse in my eyes.
Although beeing a big fan of Gothic (1+2+addon), I never
finished the third game. I just never felt like beeing in
that gameworld again.

Fallout 3 could have been the same error.
But fortunately, although much different to the originals,
its a cool game by itself.

Hahahaha what a game this truely is a hall of fame game. I remember when i bought the boxed 5 and quarter version. Man those where the days of true ADVENTURE GAMES.

I even remember the raymond feist game "Betrayal at Krondor" by Dynamix - who are now funny enough Garage Games hahaha i bought the 5 and quarter boxed version of this too

Even Return to Krondor was good

i can remember so many great games i have in my collection or i should say my kids collection back in Australia!

The cartoon look doesn't look very impressive to me either.

I feel a bit like when Blizzard decided Warcraft 3 should be cartoony.. and WoW too. A shame as the original games had great graphics for their time. I feel it's somehow a trend when it comes to these much older games and their remakes. Speaking of remakes, the remake of the first Monkey Island doesn't look very different from the original. Or perhaps in my memory it was much higher-res graphics than it really was. Of course, it's not really a bad thing, but I've still got the original disk of Secret of Monkey Island right here.



I agree, but I also have to say that the Sam & Max episodes do not suffer from their 'poor' graphics. The humor and fun still very much exists.

In the end, even though the animations of the 2D games looked a hell of a lot better being smooth, crazy and true cartoony, I did like the Sam & Max episodes. I guess a lot can be said for going 3D these days (less expensive, less work), but I do find that the 3D animations often look stiff and almost boring compared to the old 2D game.

Hopefully 'Tales of Monkey Island' proves me wrong in thinking they won't get close to the original game series. (I didn't actually like the last Monkey Island game by the way, nor the last 2 Leisure Suit Larry games, but that's a whole different topic.)

this will the original with beefed up graphics etc.

adventures are dead my ass! looks like the only solid genre these days are oldschool adventure suit me.

monkey island = gaming history. remake this will be kind of tricky, but if they come close to the first one, it might work.

i also agree that the look is terrible. mi was always a smooth and colorful game for me. kind of like a painting with strong colors and shapes.
the 3d version looks dull and empty. very bad in my oppinion!

but since mi is all about the jokes and storytelling i might swallow that bitter pill for the sake of entertainment.

arrrr

depends from player to player, taste to taste.
last adventure games i played were "dreamfall:the longest journey" and "still life". They were pretty good if you ask me.

altough reviewers give dreamfall low ratings, it was a great game(even better if you played the first one). There were a lot unanswered questions at the end of the game, it feels like there will be another game that continues story, but actually small hints back to first game answers a lot of questions. tho waited long for the next game idk when it will come out.

It would appear that he has a bowling pin shoved behind the back of his eye

@naysayers: Screw you guys, it's another monkey island. As a matter of fact 3 was the best MI in my opinion, you forget, Ron Gilbert was always with 1-4, I'm curious if he's with this one too...

Ron Gilbert did not work as project-lead on MI 3 or 4.
Maybe some little consulting, but thats not what I call
having big influence in the way the game is made.

The first one had better jokes, puzzles that made more sense and overall a better story though. The last 2 really weren't that good. No offense, but did you really play them all? Perhaps I'm just a bit nostalgic.

In a way Tales of Monkey Island does give me new hopes for a Full Throttle 2.

....Are you kidding me?

Did i play them? Well, I've played through the first one the most, I'm not sure how many times, at least twice through 2 (which i'm not that huge on) 3 I've played around 3-4 times, and i played 4 once. I thought 4 was not that great, I don't really care for the controls in that one, it's the same control set as in Grim Fandango, which i'm not a big fan of. I like point and click.

Lemme just say this, Lucasarts was my favorite developer for a while because of things like Dark Forces and Jedi Knight and the Monkey Island series, I'm a serious fan of MI, and I still think 3 is the best one. 1 was great, 2 was good(the end puzzles still aggravate me), 3 was the best and 4 was .... meh ok.

I hope they have the point and click gameplay in this one, I really do.

About FT though, I think it would be cool for a second one, but I don't think FT needs it. FT was really really good, also one of the best Lucasarts games, and one of the best adventure games.

The 3rd one was always my favorite (Curse). The 2D animation and art is the best in the series and they had some of the best performances you'll find in a game. The actor that did Guybrush in Curse is who they're using for these games.

Those first two are classics of course. I don't see the problem with this new one. It's a new MI series, and the cynicism is surprising. It's not going to look like the competition because those games take a long time to make. Telltales system is to release a new episode per month, so it's not going to have as much art direction.

Anyone ever play the game willybeamish? Now that was a cracker!

@mpdeveloper_B: Mmm, well when I think of it some more, I think the first game just appealed more to me, but perhaps you're right in that it's not necessarily a better game than the later sequels. A thing that bothered me from the 3rd game is that the art style is a lot different too.

I think this new MI will have similar controls as Sam & Max has. At least there's a good chance, meaning it has a point & click kind of control as well.



Same here, but their recent (read: last 5 years) focus on Star Wars and Indiana Jones ruined it for me at some point. It's why I hope for a new FT, even though you are very much right in that it probably was one of if not thé best game Lucasarts ever made and difficult to surpass.

It's because, you know what happened, right?

They stopped DEVELOPING games, Lucasarts were great developers, probably the best in that time. As soon as Lucasarts started hiring outside developers their games weren't as good. For instance, Jedi Outcast compared to Jedi Knight is crap.

Here's a preview of the HD remake of the original. Features a couple videos, one showing a before and after effect. All of the Curse of Monkey Island voice actors are returning for it (just like the new Tales series). The original game is also included:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1025

Sad but true.

But it seems Lucasarts agrees with us. Star Wars The Force Unleashed was developed by Lucasarts themselves again. They've already decided it's a pretty bad idea to sell licenses to companies that make crappy games ruining their franchise. But I'm not quite following why the think giving Telltale a license is a worthy choice. No offense to Telltale, I like their poker game and the Sam & Max games, but I had hoped for Lucasarts to develop a sequel themselves.

Cheers

They licensed out to TT, most likely because they are the most successful company out there at this type of game at the moment. Sam & Max is a hit and their franchises for Wallace & Gromit, Strong Bad, and CSI are all doing pretty good. I have no idea if they will do anymore Bone episodes. Anyway, they have 5 major franchises now, so they're a natural choice I think given LA isn't really focused on traditional P&C anymore (but they'll gladly take our money if we choose to buy something they have a piece of).