Wait until you guys get a load of the mature wit we have in the next episode of Monkey Island! For example:
Monet, Kierkegaard, and Dostoyevsky walk into a bar. Monet looks around for a few seconds, and then hastily departs. Kierkegaard runs after him and says "Monet, what is the matter?!" to which Monet replies "That place gave me a bad IMPRESSION."
Pure hilarity!
That's brilliant!
"The Diamond belongs in a museum!"
"So do post-impressionist paintings, Mr Threepwood. So do post-impressionist paintings."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"Some day you will understand."
(Monkey Island needs to be less like Monkey Island and more like Frasier )
"The Diamond belongs in a museum!"
"So do post-impressionist paintings, Mr Threepwood. So do post-impressionist paintings."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"Some day you will understand."
(Monkey Island needs to be less like Monkey Island and more like Frasier )
is the time right yet id love to know what it means
Listen closely to Kevin Blackton playing Good Guy LeChuck. At times he sounds so similar to Kelsey Grammer I swear he was going to start calling Guybrush "Niles"!
I think something people overlook a little when they say that Monkey Island has always had silly humor and therefore the new Telltale episodes are in the same vein as the old games is -
Sure, the old Monkey Island games had a lot of silliness, they were supposed to be funny games. And the new games have a lot of silliness too.
But - I think the difference is that the first two games had a lot of silliness placed in a pirate world that actually looked like a 'serious' place, so the silliness was a big contrast to the world itself.
In the new games, everything is silly, so this contrast is gone. Starting with CMI, so this is not something Telltale did... they just continued the style set in CMI.
Anyway, I like the new episodes, they're great little games.. but I have to admit that I like the original games better(and not only because of nostalgia!).
Wait until you guys get a load of the mature wit we have in the next episode of Monkey Island! For example:
Monet, Kierkegaard, and Dostoyevsky walk into a bar. Monet looks around for a few seconds, and then hastily departs. Kierkegaard runs after him and says "Monet, what is the matter?!" to which Monet replies "That place gave me a bad IMPRESSION."
Pure hilarity!
That pun is so terrible it actually swings back to hilarious.
And now, a poem:
And to my dying die
I shall always say
"The Mer-folk are so funny!"
Seriously, Spinner Cay is, I think, fully of atmosphere, and if the ambiguous sexuality of the Vaycalians, De Singe's hobby of mutilating and maiming people and Guybrush getting his hand chopped off isn't mature enough for you, well, you obviously like your dark comedy much, much darker than I do. I have to admit I never finished SoMI, but either the second half of the game was waaaaay darker than the first or I got a toned down copy.
Sure, the old Monkey Island games had a lot of silliness, they were supposed to be funny games. And the new games have a lot of silliness too.
But - I think the difference is that the first two games had a lot of silliness placed in a pirate world that actually looked like a 'serious' place, so the silliness was a big contrast to the world itself.
YES, thats it, I couldnt explain properly why i didnt like the style of the game, but this guy, yes this guy gets it in one
Maybe this post should have been named Where is the contrast instead of where is the atmosphere,
Id like to shake your hand sir, if only to thank you for explaining in one sentence that i struggled to say in an entire thread
Seriously?? "Where is the atmosphere"?? Are you kidding me?!?
If you open your eyes, and pull the rubberchickens out of your ears, then maybe you will discover it?
ToMI = Pure atmosphere.
Aw, come on. Everyone has right for his own opinion. I, for one, don't hate EfMI, and actually like it very much.
I think the division between people who preferred the slightly more serious stuff and the people who preferred the more zany stuff can be mostly attributed to some people having grown up with 1 and 2 initially and others being exposed to 3 as their first, which would set a decisively different set of expectations than 1 and 2.
the first game had an ancient civilisation of Manatee's This island has merFolk, no offense telltale but you have lost me .... i cant see myself playing any more of this bolderdash
Ye Gods, are you complaining about mermaids in a gameseries where you have to fight a ghost-zombie-demon pirate who can be defeated using rootbeer and whose evil plan was an damned amusement park?
From reading your posts, you appear to have firmly gripped the stick by the wrong end. You might, in fact, have misunderstood the entire series. The entire series is a comedy, based on pirates. In fact, much of it is satire about pirates. Every single pirate we have met, and correct me if I am wrong here, have been an ineffectual oaf or otherwise completely incompetent for the life of a pirate. The nearest the series gets to a proper pirate is LeChuck, and he is undermined by a grotesk lack of common sense and his insane attempts at wooing Elaine.
I think the division between people who preferred the slightly more serious stuff and the people who preferred the more zany stuff can be mostly attributed to some people having grown up with 1 and 2 initially and others being exposed to 3 as their first, which would set a decisively different set of expectations than 1 and 2.
The order I played it was:
1-4-2-3.
My order of preference is, from favorite to least favorite:
Ye Gods, are you complaining about mermaids in a gameseries where you have to fight a ghost-zombie-demon pirate who can be defeated using rootbeer and whose evil plan was an damned amusement park?
From reading your posts, you appear to have firmly gripped the stick by the wrong end. You might, in fact, have misunderstood the entire series. The entire series is a comedy, based on pirates. In fact, much of it is satire about pirates. Every single pirate we have met, and correct me if I am wrong here, have been an ineffectual oaf or otherwise completely incompetent for the life of a pirate. The nearest the series gets to a proper pirate is LeChuck, and he is undermined by a grotesk lack of common sense and his insane attempts at wooing Elaine.
Hear-hear.
Besides, the fact is, it's the fabulous (and THE most popular, judging by the poll) MI3 that turned a menacing MI2 proper pirate villain into a satirical not so proper not so pirate villian. Though I do admit, that Earl Boen's acting is top notch, I mean, I still can clearly remember his "That'll show her how much I truly care" in the beginning. His acting was awesome, dialouges with LeChucks were funny. Yet, it's MI3 that made a turn in the series. For example, just remember a trio of ex-pirates which was still called a quartet, and their stories: one had a captain which found gold exactly where they threw it away, the other one didn't respect someone picking up heavy things with help of kness, the third one was in a crew which was droven mad by Monkey Island theme. I mean, just think about these stories - it's clearly a satire, farce, so people could laugh. So far ToMI has a blend of MI1-2 aspects (despite being a satire also, MI2 was the piratiest adventure of the bunch) combined with MI3-4 aspects, which turns out to be pretty good.
Oh, by the way, merfolk and sea monsters were more a part of sea folklore (and considered more real) than carnivals, barbers, marta grass parties, PTAs, some sort of absurd pirate trials, lemonade shops, and many other things, despite which, we still love the series.
To whoever said that MI1 and MI2 had realistic settings you're out of your mind. It's especially noticable in MI2 that all the locations and settings looked completely silly. MI1 not so much, but it had it's fair share of silliness. Like the slanted and skewed edges of the walls of the Governor's Mansion and many of the other buildings on Melee Island among others. CMI just enhanced the silliness by a factor of 10.
Wait until you guys get a load of the mature wit we have in the next episode of Monkey Island! For example:
Monet, Kierkegaard, and Dostoyevsky walk into a bar. Monet looks around for a few seconds, and then hastily departs. Kierkegaard runs after him and says "Monet, what is the matter?!" to which Monet replies "That place gave me a bad IMPRESSION."
Pure hilarity!
You forgot why the other two men had to leave. You see, they did not have MONET to pay for the drinks.
Seriously, Spinner Cay is, I think, fully of atmosphere, and if the ambiguous sexuality of the Vaycalians, De Singe's hobby of mutilating and maiming people and Guybrush getting his hand chopped off isn't mature enough for you, well, you obviously like your dark comedy much, much darker than I do.
Not quite, I think. The serious matters are played out very lightly, Guybrush's hand getting chopped off goes practically unnoticed, even by the owner. Similarly with De Singe, we never met any consequence of his activity. All these things seem much more wacky than dark to me. I liked the pun on the Vaycalians, though - even if it was done over-cautiously
To whoever said that MI1 and MI2 had realistic settings you're out of your mind. It's especially noticable in MI2 that all the locations and settings looked completely silly. MI1 not so much, but it had it's fair share of silliness. Like the slanted and skewed edges of the walls of the Governor's Mansion and many of the other buildings on Melee Island among others. CMI just enhanced the silliness by a factor of 10.
You can't deny the two first games had a lot more realistic looking settings than the games have now. They did become a lot more cartoony.
Of course they weren't fully realistic looking, often far from it, but there are degrees here... as you pointed out -
CMI just enhanced the silliness by a factor of 10.
Some people, including me, found the games more atmospheric when they weren't as silly looking as they became later on. When everything is silly, nothing really stands out to me.
I'm not saying I dislike the newer games, though... they're still fun games.
You can't deny the two first games had a lot more realistic looking settings than the games have now. They did become a lot more cartoony.
Of course they weren't fully realistic looking, often far from it, but there are degrees here... as you pointed out -
Some people, including me, found the games more atmospheric when they weren't as silly looking as they became later on. When everything is silly, nothing really stands out to me.
I'm not saying I dislike the newer games, though... they're still fun games.
So basically you are saying your only complaint with the later Monkey Island's was artistic direction? If that is the case I offer a difference of opinion: I thought the artistic direction in CMI was fantastic and perfectly encapsulated the style and humor the series always conveyed. Also, the artistic direction in EFMI was the least of my concerns. In fact it was probably one of the games relative strengths.
I'm not sure if the originals were meant to look realistic (and whether they do or not is highly debatable). Ron Gilbert said on his blog that the realistic looking close up shots of the characters in SoMI bothered him because "[he] never felt they matched the style of the rest of the game."
Though, as you said, they did make a conscious decision to look more "cartoony" from the third one on. I think the question would be would they have chosen to go in that direction for the first two had the technology been available at the time?
I personally can't imagine Monkey Island looking "realistic." That would just be a different game.
There is a DEFINITE shift between games 1&2 vs game 3.
Now, the beautiful thing about COMI is that while it moved away from the dark setting of the first two, it managed to do so in a way that was convincing, fresh, and consistent. Yes, everything was brighter, and yes, a character like Murray might not have played the same way in the first two games, but it worked because the tone stayed consistent throughout.
It had moments of eeriness, hard puzzles that made Monkey Island (TM) sense, and were logically consistent with the world we had been presented with. It was a departure, but a fresh and INTERESTING one. MI4 was simply an abortion. To even consider the artistic merits or the 'tone' is really to do a disservice to the other 3, and even Tales. Tales is head, shoulders, knees and toes above MI4. So while I complain a lot on these boards, please realize I do appreciate playing these new games and see them as a definite upgrade to MI4.
That said, what was unrealistic about the first two games? A mythological element would be introduced to the series, the logic clearly explained, the corresponding reactions from the main characters, and then the puzzle logic and character interaction flowed from there.
Here, we have almost no feeling of atmosphere. We are thrust into a world that RESEMBLES one we have been to before, but it markedly different. Guybrush now claims to be a mighty pirate, and people BELIEVE him. We spend an entire episode building up an ancient civilization only to blow our load in the first few minutes of Episode Two without any emotional payoff. Some of the characters were good for a quirk or two, a chuckle here and there, but serve no place in the overall mythology of the Monkey Island (TM) series. Can you see Anemone playing a role in the story? No. Because the character is HOLLOW.
Can you see Largo playing a role? Sure. We understand his motivations and how he thinks. The same goes for a whole host of characters. While Winslow and Morgan LeFlay are somewhat interesting additions, they are really far from being fully fleshed out or truly INTERESTING. Again, they have enjoyable quirks, but there has simply been no consistent development. Why introduce the French Aristocrat Doctor if we're not going to keep with his development? Why introduce LeFlay if she is just going to be out of the picture in 2 minutes? The first scene on the ship was the best in the series so far, and then she is out of sight, out of mind.
There is no tension in the game, and thus, no atmosphere worth REMEMBERING.
There is a DEFINITE shift between games 1&2 vs game 3.
Now, the beautiful thing about COMI is that while it moved away from the dark setting of the first two, it managed to do so in a way that was convincing, fresh, and consistent. Yes, everything was brighter, and yes, a character like Murray might not have played the same way in the first two games, but it worked because the tone stayed consistent throughout.
And I agree with all those points, so why are we disagreeing...
MI4 was simply an abortion.
I think you mean aberration.
That said, what was unrealistic about the first two games?
A phone booth in the middle of the jungle that calls directly to the LucasArts help desk, zombies and ghosts, an election being run with only one candidate, Piranha Poodles, cannibals who are watching out for their red meat intake, spitting contests as a spectator sport, grog, people dressed up as trolls who enjoy eating red herrings, using a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a flying fox, Herman Toothrot owning a boat on Monkey Island but refusing to use it to escape because he wants to be rescued, root beer as a ghost repellent, Guybrush being able to hold his breath under water for ten minutes, a three-headed monkey, etc. And this is just stuff off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry but the first two Monkey Island games were not realistic!
We spend an entire episode building up an ancient civilization only to blow our load in the first few minutes of Episode Two without any emotional payoff.
I agree, that was quite strange.
Some of the characters were good for a quirk or two, a chuckle here and there, but serve no place in the overall mythology of the Monkey Island (TM) series. Can you see Anemone playing a role in the story? No. Because the character is HOLLOW.
Can you see Largo playing a role? Sure. We understand his motivations and how he thinks. The same goes for a whole host of characters. While Winslow and Morgan LeFlay are somewhat interesting additions, they are really far from being fully fleshed out or truly INTERESTING. Again, they have enjoyable quirks, but there has simply been no consistent development. Why introduce the French Aristocrat Doctor if we're not going to keep with his development? Why introduce LeFlay if she is just going to be out of the picture in 2 minutes? The first scene on the ship was the best in the series so far, and then she is out of sight, out of mind.
I don't think we can complain about character development when we've only seen two fifths of the total story. I know we will be seeing much more of Morgan and De Singe down the line.
Anemone is not a rounded character but she only plays a minor role so it doesn't matter. Not all the characters in a story need to be rounded.
There is no tension in the game, and thus, no atmosphere worth REMEMBERING.
I disagree, there is plenty of tension in the game. Guybrush's relationship with Elaine, the voodoo pox, De Singe wanting to use Guybrush for a lab experiment. These are all points of tension in the story.
I like the atmosphere in Tales, it's closer to the bizarre logic and strangeness of the first two, and not like the blandness of a Saturday Morning Cartoon, so my tastes are satisfied. Didn't like the slapstick comedy route they took with the later games, prefer my jokes to make me go "Whaa?" than "oh that Guybrush..."
----
"A phone booth in the middle of the jungle that calls directly to the LucasArts help desk, zombies and ghosts, an election being run with only one candidate, Piranha Poodles, cannibals who are watching out for their red meat intake, spitting contests as a spectator sport, grog, people dressed up as trolls who enjoy eating red herrings, using a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a flying fox, Herman Toothrot owning a boat on Monkey Island but refusing to use it to escape because he wants to be rescued, root beer as a ghost repellent, Guybrush being able to hold his breath under water for ten minutes, a three-headed monkey, etc. And this is just stuff off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry but the first two Monkey Island games were not realistic!"
----
Every single one of those things is realistic and makes sense in the Monkey Island world. Remember, from the very get-go we got the sense that not all was "as it seemed" with the world of piratey adventuring. Taken from the logic we are presented with in the closing moments of Monkey Island 2, and all of those things all of a sudden makes perfect sense.
I am probably being a little vague, but I hope you know what I mean. I don't think we are very far apart in terms of disagreement.
NINJA EDIT: I suppose the way the story unfolds with Tales COULD provide the logic and thus BACK date the atmosphere I feel is lacking. I admit this possibility. I just don't think they have a dynamite ending.
Monet, Kierkegaard, and Dostoyevsky walk into a bar. Monet looks around for a few seconds, and then hastily departs. Kierkegaard runs after him and says "Monet, what is the matter?!" to which Monet replies "That place gave me a bad IMPRESSION."
I always knew the TT team were funny, but now I realize they are far Morisot than I ever expected.
Since I spent the last sixty minutes laughing, all I can ask for is my Auerbach.
Were any of the Monkey Island pirates ever serious?
I thought they were all jokes, and that's what created the atmosphere for me... even the ones who pretended to be tough/piratie were really jokes in my view.
I still want a much more detailed, less exaggerated styling, almost Crysis-like graphics, dark realistic-cartoon Monkey Island epic full-length game sometime in the future.
You may now continue to your regularly scheduled forum topic.
No your point is valid in the context of the original question
Id like that too by the way, crisis may be taking it a little far, but the more realistic the setting, the bigger impact the sillyness (and there should be some sillyness) will have
I still want a much more detailed, less exaggerated styling, almost Crysis-like graphics, dark realistic-cartoon Monkey Island epic full-length game sometime in the future.
You may now continue to your regularly scheduled forum topic.
Much more detailed and a bit less exaggerated would be cool, I think.
Day of the Tentacle... that's a game suited for very exaggerated cartoony graphics. I always preferred MI graphics to look a bit more 'real'... not realistic, but not extremely cartoony, either.
And a full lenght game... that would be amazing!
Episodes are cool too, though... I'm not really complaining about that.
Nobody answered my question about what they hope to achieve by creating threads that complain about the path that Telltale took. I think these people have a purpose, and I'm curious. what that purpose is.
----
"A phone booth in the middle of the jungle that calls directly to the LucasArts help desk, zombies and ghosts, an election being run with only one candidate, Piranha Poodles, cannibals who are watching out for their red meat intake, spitting contests as a spectator sport, grog, people dressed up as trolls who enjoy eating red herrings, using a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a flying fox, Herman Toothrot owning a boat on Monkey Island but refusing to use it to escape because he wants to be rescued, root beer as a ghost repellent, Guybrush being able to hold his breath under water for ten minutes, a three-headed monkey, etc. And this is just stuff off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry but the first two Monkey Island games were not realistic!"
----
Every single one of those things is realistic and makes sense in the Monkey Island world. Remember, from the very get-go we got the sense that not all was "as it seemed" with the world of piratey adventuring. Taken from the logic we are presented with in the closing moments of Monkey Island 2, and all of those things all of a sudden makes perfect sense.
I am probably being a little vague, but I hope you know what I mean. I don't think we are very far apart in terms of disagreement.
NINJA EDIT: I suppose the way the story unfolds with Tales COULD provide the logic and thus BACK date the atmosphere I feel is lacking. I admit this possibility. I just don't think they have a dynamite ending.
If that is the case then I argue that nothing in the later Monkey Islands is unrealistic, if we are going by the laws of MI's universe. And, if that is still the case, then what are we arguing about again
The first thing i noticed about guybrush however is that hes having a conversation and you are given the option of him saying nice or funny things, yet when you pick the funny things he never actually says them, he says something along the lines but without the malice of the intent which the user wanted him to use....
In SOMI and MI2, if you wanted him to say something funny or insulting he said it
This. I don't feel like I really have much control over how Guybrush acts. In quite a few places in the older games you're given an oppurtunity to suddenly say outrageous things. In Tales, sometimes you're not given a real choice at all! You pick one of a few options only to hear the same thing every time.
This. I don't feel like I really have much control over how Guybrush acts. In quite a few places in the older games you're given an oppurtunity to suddenly say outrageous things. In Tales, sometimes you're not given a real choice at all! You pick one of a few options only to hear the same thing every time.
Yes if i remember correctly, the first encounter of largo is a prime example before he has guybrush over the bridge you can make guybrush say some pretty insulting stuff
it was only when he was held over the edge of the bridge that guybrush held his tongue, much more entertaining
What a great scene that was by the way
classic
Yes if i remember correctly, the first encounter of largo is a prime example before he has guybrush over the bridge you can make guybrush say some pretty insulting stuff
To be completely fair, no matter what you make Guybrush say, you pretty much get the same exact reaction from Largo. Maybe they just thought both seeing the joke in the dialogue options AND hearing it said out loud was redundant. :P
This. I don't feel like I really have much control over how Guybrush acts. In quite a few places in the older games you're given an oppurtunity to suddenly say outrageous things. In Tales, sometimes you're not given a real choice at all! You pick one of a few options only to hear the same thing every time.
I've learned to view the dialogue options as what Guybrush is thinking, and not necessarily what he'll say. His first encounter with a mer-person is a good example. His choices/thoughts are:
"Are you a mer-maid?"
"Are you a mer-man?"
"Are you Ethel Merman?"
It's like he's thinking to himself, "Is this thing a dude or chick?" And then throw in a humorous third alternative that Guybrush arrives to by word association. But regardless of what you choose, he says, "Soo...are you a Mer...?" (the mer-persion cuts him off, "That's right! I'm 100% proud Vacaylian merfolk!") The way he sort of drones off because he doesn't know which to say is pretty funny.
The dialogue is a bit more directed this way, but we still feel like we're getting all the hilarous options to choose from. Another example of this is when Guybrush encounters LeChuck to give him Elaine's instructions near the end of episode two. You can see what Guybrush is thinking—"LeChuck will get to be the hero because Elaine thinks he's better than me!"—but no matter what you choose, he gives LeChuck opposite instructions so that he can prove himself a hero to Elaine.
Comments
That's brilliant!
"The Diamond belongs in a museum!"
"So do post-impressionist paintings, Mr Threepwood. So do post-impressionist paintings."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"Some day you will understand."
(Monkey Island needs to be less like Monkey Island and more like Frasier
is the time right yet id love to know what it means
Dude, David Hyde Pierce would make an AWESOME Guybrush.
And Jane Leeves would be pretty hot as Elaine.
...come to think of it, I could see Kelsey Grammer pulling off LeChuck and Peri Gilpin as Kate Capsize...
Throw in John Mahoney as Herman Toothrot and Eddie as Walt the Dog...
Of coarse Kelsey Grammer would be LeChuck lol.
Sure, the old Monkey Island games had a lot of silliness, they were supposed to be funny games. And the new games have a lot of silliness too.
But - I think the difference is that the first two games had a lot of silliness placed in a pirate world that actually looked like a 'serious' place, so the silliness was a big contrast to the world itself.
In the new games, everything is silly, so this contrast is gone. Starting with CMI, so this is not something Telltale did... they just continued the style set in CMI.
Anyway, I like the new episodes, they're great little games.. but I have to admit that I like the original games better(and not only because of nostalgia!).
That pun is so terrible it actually swings back to hilarious.
And now, a poem:
And to my dying die
I shall always say
"The Mer-folk are so funny!"
Seriously, Spinner Cay is, I think, fully of atmosphere, and if the ambiguous sexuality of the Vaycalians, De Singe's hobby of mutilating and maiming people and Guybrush getting his hand chopped off isn't mature enough for you, well, you obviously like your dark comedy much, much darker than I do. I have to admit I never finished SoMI, but either the second half of the game was waaaaay darker than the first or I got a toned down copy.
YES, thats it, I couldnt explain properly why i didnt like the style of the game, but this guy, yes this guy gets it in one
Maybe this post should have been named Where is the contrast instead of where is the atmosphere,
Id like to shake your hand sir, if only to thank you for explaining in one sentence that i struggled to say in an entire thread
If you open your eyes, and pull the rubberchickens out of your ears, then maybe you will discover it?
ToMI = Pure atmosphere.
Aw, come on. Everyone has right for his own opinion. I, for one, don't hate EfMI, and actually like it very much.
Ye Gods, are you complaining about mermaids in a gameseries where you have to fight a ghost-zombie-demon pirate who can be defeated using rootbeer and whose evil plan was an damned amusement park?
From reading your posts, you appear to have firmly gripped the stick by the wrong end. You might, in fact, have misunderstood the entire series. The entire series is a comedy, based on pirates. In fact, much of it is satire about pirates. Every single pirate we have met, and correct me if I am wrong here, have been an ineffectual oaf or otherwise completely incompetent for the life of a pirate. The nearest the series gets to a proper pirate is LeChuck, and he is undermined by a grotesk lack of common sense and his insane attempts at wooing Elaine.
The order I played it was:
1-4-2-3.
My order of preference is, from favorite to least favorite:
3-1-4-2
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking with it!
Besides, the fact is, it's the fabulous (and THE most popular, judging by the poll) MI3 that turned a menacing MI2 proper pirate villain into a satirical not so proper not so pirate villian. Though I do admit, that Earl Boen's acting is top notch, I mean, I still can clearly remember his "That'll show her how much I truly care" in the beginning. His acting was awesome, dialouges with LeChucks were funny. Yet, it's MI3 that made a turn in the series. For example, just remember a trio of ex-pirates which was still called a quartet, and their stories: one had a captain which found gold exactly where they threw it away, the other one didn't respect someone picking up heavy things with help of kness, the third one was in a crew which was droven mad by Monkey Island theme. I mean, just think about these stories - it's clearly a satire, farce, so people could laugh. So far ToMI has a blend of MI1-2 aspects (despite being a satire also, MI2 was the piratiest adventure of the bunch) combined with MI3-4 aspects, which turns out to be pretty good.
Oh, by the way, merfolk and sea monsters were more a part of sea folklore (and considered more real) than carnivals, barbers, marta grass parties, PTAs, some sort of absurd pirate trials, lemonade shops, and many other things, despite which, we still love the series.
You forgot why the other two men had to leave. You see, they did not have MONET to pay for the drinks.
*rimshot*
:eek:
Agreed :eek:
Not quite, I think. The serious matters are played out very lightly, Guybrush's hand getting chopped off goes practically unnoticed, even by the owner. Similarly with De Singe, we never met any consequence of his activity. All these things seem much more wacky than dark to me. I liked the pun on the Vaycalians, though - even if it was done over-cautiously
Of course they weren't fully realistic looking, often far from it, but there are degrees here... as you pointed out -
Some people, including me, found the games more atmospheric when they weren't as silly looking as they became later on. When everything is silly, nothing really stands out to me.
I'm not saying I dislike the newer games, though... they're still fun games.
So basically you are saying your only complaint with the later Monkey Island's was artistic direction? If that is the case I offer a difference of opinion: I thought the artistic direction in CMI was fantastic and perfectly encapsulated the style and humor the series always conveyed. Also, the artistic direction in EFMI was the least of my concerns. In fact it was probably one of the games relative strengths.
I'm not sure if the originals were meant to look realistic (and whether they do or not is highly debatable). Ron Gilbert said on his blog that the realistic looking close up shots of the characters in SoMI bothered him because "[he] never felt they matched the style of the rest of the game."
Though, as you said, they did make a conscious decision to look more "cartoony" from the third one on. I think the question would be would they have chosen to go in that direction for the first two had the technology been available at the time?
I personally can't imagine Monkey Island looking "realistic." That would just be a different game.
There is a DEFINITE shift between games 1&2 vs game 3.
Now, the beautiful thing about COMI is that while it moved away from the dark setting of the first two, it managed to do so in a way that was convincing, fresh, and consistent. Yes, everything was brighter, and yes, a character like Murray might not have played the same way in the first two games, but it worked because the tone stayed consistent throughout.
It had moments of eeriness, hard puzzles that made Monkey Island (TM) sense, and were logically consistent with the world we had been presented with. It was a departure, but a fresh and INTERESTING one. MI4 was simply an abortion. To even consider the artistic merits or the 'tone' is really to do a disservice to the other 3, and even Tales. Tales is head, shoulders, knees and toes above MI4. So while I complain a lot on these boards, please realize I do appreciate playing these new games and see them as a definite upgrade to MI4.
That said, what was unrealistic about the first two games? A mythological element would be introduced to the series, the logic clearly explained, the corresponding reactions from the main characters, and then the puzzle logic and character interaction flowed from there.
Here, we have almost no feeling of atmosphere. We are thrust into a world that RESEMBLES one we have been to before, but it markedly different. Guybrush now claims to be a mighty pirate, and people BELIEVE him. We spend an entire episode building up an ancient civilization only to blow our load in the first few minutes of Episode Two without any emotional payoff. Some of the characters were good for a quirk or two, a chuckle here and there, but serve no place in the overall mythology of the Monkey Island (TM) series. Can you see Anemone playing a role in the story? No. Because the character is HOLLOW.
Can you see Largo playing a role? Sure. We understand his motivations and how he thinks. The same goes for a whole host of characters. While Winslow and Morgan LeFlay are somewhat interesting additions, they are really far from being fully fleshed out or truly INTERESTING. Again, they have enjoyable quirks, but there has simply been no consistent development. Why introduce the French Aristocrat Doctor if we're not going to keep with his development? Why introduce LeFlay if she is just going to be out of the picture in 2 minutes? The first scene on the ship was the best in the series so far, and then she is out of sight, out of mind.
There is no tension in the game, and thus, no atmosphere worth REMEMBERING.
And I agree with all those points, so why are we disagreeing...
I think you mean aberration.
A phone booth in the middle of the jungle that calls directly to the LucasArts help desk, zombies and ghosts, an election being run with only one candidate, Piranha Poodles, cannibals who are watching out for their red meat intake, spitting contests as a spectator sport, grog, people dressed up as trolls who enjoy eating red herrings, using a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a flying fox, Herman Toothrot owning a boat on Monkey Island but refusing to use it to escape because he wants to be rescued, root beer as a ghost repellent, Guybrush being able to hold his breath under water for ten minutes, a three-headed monkey, etc. And this is just stuff off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry but the first two Monkey Island games were not realistic!
I agree, that was quite strange.
I don't think we can complain about character development when we've only seen two fifths of the total story. I know we will be seeing much more of Morgan and De Singe down the line.
Anemone is not a rounded character but she only plays a minor role so it doesn't matter. Not all the characters in a story need to be rounded.
I disagree, there is plenty of tension in the game. Guybrush's relationship with Elaine, the voodoo pox, De Singe wanting to use Guybrush for a lab experiment. These are all points of tension in the story.
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"A phone booth in the middle of the jungle that calls directly to the LucasArts help desk, zombies and ghosts, an election being run with only one candidate, Piranha Poodles, cannibals who are watching out for their red meat intake, spitting contests as a spectator sport, grog, people dressed up as trolls who enjoy eating red herrings, using a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a flying fox, Herman Toothrot owning a boat on Monkey Island but refusing to use it to escape because he wants to be rescued, root beer as a ghost repellent, Guybrush being able to hold his breath under water for ten minutes, a three-headed monkey, etc. And this is just stuff off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry but the first two Monkey Island games were not realistic!"
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Every single one of those things is realistic and makes sense in the Monkey Island world. Remember, from the very get-go we got the sense that not all was "as it seemed" with the world of piratey adventuring. Taken from the logic we are presented with in the closing moments of Monkey Island 2, and all of those things all of a sudden makes perfect sense.
I am probably being a little vague, but I hope you know what I mean. I don't think we are very far apart in terms of disagreement.
NINJA EDIT: I suppose the way the story unfolds with Tales COULD provide the logic and thus BACK date the atmosphere I feel is lacking. I admit this possibility. I just don't think they have a dynamite ending.
I always knew the TT team were funny, but now I realize they are far Morisot than I ever expected.
Since I spent the last sixty minutes laughing, all I can ask for is my Auerbach.
I thought they were all jokes, and that's what created the atmosphere for me... even the ones who pretended to be tough/piratie were really jokes in my view.
You may now continue to your regularly scheduled forum topic.
Id like that too by the way, crisis may be taking it a little far, but the more realistic the setting, the bigger impact the sillyness (and there should be some sillyness) will have
Day of the Tentacle... that's a game suited for very exaggerated cartoony graphics. I always preferred MI graphics to look a bit more 'real'... not realistic, but not extremely cartoony, either.
And a full lenght game... that would be amazing!
Episodes are cool too, though... I'm not really complaining about that.
Ain't that what a forum is for ?
If that is the case then I argue that nothing in the later Monkey Islands is unrealistic, if we are going by the laws of MI's universe. And, if that is still the case, then what are we arguing about again
Yes if i remember correctly, the first encounter of largo is a prime example before he has guybrush over the bridge you can make guybrush say some pretty insulting stuff
it was only when he was held over the edge of the bridge that guybrush held his tongue, much more entertaining
What a great scene that was by the way
classic
To be completely fair, no matter what you make Guybrush say, you pretty much get the same exact reaction from Largo. Maybe they just thought both seeing the joke in the dialogue options AND hearing it said out loud was redundant. :P
I've learned to view the dialogue options as what Guybrush is thinking, and not necessarily what he'll say. His first encounter with a mer-person is a good example. His choices/thoughts are:
"Are you a mer-maid?"
"Are you a mer-man?"
"Are you Ethel Merman?"
It's like he's thinking to himself, "Is this thing a dude or chick?" And then throw in a humorous third alternative that Guybrush arrives to by word association. But regardless of what you choose, he says, "Soo...are you a Mer...?" (the mer-persion cuts him off, "That's right! I'm 100% proud Vacaylian merfolk!") The way he sort of drones off because he doesn't know which to say is pretty funny.
The dialogue is a bit more directed this way, but we still feel like we're getting all the hilarous options to choose from. Another example of this is when Guybrush encounters LeChuck to give him Elaine's instructions near the end of episode two. You can see what Guybrush is thinking—"LeChuck will get to be the hero because Elaine thinks he's better than me!"—but no matter what you choose, he gives LeChuck opposite instructions so that he can prove himself a hero to Elaine.