You picked the wrong examples.
That kind of things can be pretty fun, as you said, but it was just over used and not so fun in chapter one.
It got better in chapter two, so i ain't complaining about that for this episode.
I've learned to view the dialogue options as what Guybrush is thinking, and not necessarily what he'll
say.
...
The dialogue is a bit more directed this way, but we still feel like we're getting all the hilarous options to choose from.
No, we don't. We're not getting a choice at all. We're getting a pause in the dialouge and some buttons that start it back up which may or may not have something funny painted on them. It's downright lazy.
I believe that the older games would occasionally override your choice, like if you choose to insult someone threatening you, Guybrush would grovel anyway. This was a joke. Tales is both using it too much and in the wrong situations to say there's any purpose behind it other than to save having to write responses or voice the lines.
The first chapter DID overuse the not saying what choosing thing, but there was a lot less more of this in chapter 2. And I do remember at least one perfectly right situation when it was used: telling LeChuck about Elaine's plan.
...
Well, it MAY be the only one perfect situation so far, I'm not quite sure.
I'd like to reiterate that a lot of the options were very funny to read, but I wouldn't have laughed hearing them again out loud, especially when the other character in the dialogue would have responded the same way to any one of them.
The first scene on the beach with Nipperkin seems to me like it was originally written as a completely non-interactive cut scene, and then the dialogue "options" were added later to give the scene a few more jokes.
No, we don't. We're not getting a choice at all. We're getting a pause in the dialouge and some buttons that start it back up which may or may not have something funny painted on them. It's downright lazy.
I want you to pause in this dialogue and notice the word feel—we feel like we're getting choices. I never said we actually were.
Maybe file size comes into play here? Time could be a factor as well. Maybe you should try your hand at pumping out episodic content every month using enormous dialogue trees. All for ungrateful fans who call you lazy.
Dialoguetrees with radically different outcomes than the one expected has been a staple of the series since the first one. Even though, yes, Telltale might have used them a bit much.
Maybe file size comes into play here? Time could be a factor as well. Maybe you should try your hand at pumping out episodic content every month using enormous dialogue trees. All for ungrateful fans who call you lazy.
"If you hate it so much why don't you try?"
Honestly? That old chestnut? I'm not permitted to dislike anything I can't make myself?
If this is what comes from releasing a chapter every six weeks, I'd rather wait a little longer.
The first scene on the beach with Nipperkin seems to me like it was originally written as a completely non-interactive cut scene, and then the dialogue "options" were added later to give the scene a few more jokes.
Would the scene REALLY have been funnier if you heard Guybrush say out loud the option you had just read to yourself? Or would you have just preferred they kept a completely straightforward cut scene without the benefit of extra jokes?
The points still stand. Fake choice is nothing to applaud.
"If you hate it so much why don't you try?"
Honestly? That old chestnut? I'm not permitted to dislike anything I can't make myself?
If this is what comes from releasing a chapter every six weeks, I'd rather wait a little longer.
Dialogue Options:
1) Again, don't put words in my mouth. I never said you aren't allowed to complain. Please, continue complaining.
2) I like chestnuts.
3) Show TTG a little respect and be grateful you even have a Monkey Island game to complain about. You can send you're thank you letter and gift basket to Telltale Games, P.O. Box 9737, San Rafael, CA 94912-9737.
4) You must be new here. Welcome to the wonderful world of episodic adventure games! Your journey will be faster, smaller, and full of "fake choices" because it's the method proven to be financially successful. If you don't like it, you can go back to the 1990's.
I can't be bothered to read every reply in this thread, so this may have been said already, but I think that the people complaining about a lack of atmosphere actually made up most of the atmosphere they're missing.
In the first two games, the sound and graphics were minimal, so a lot was left to the imagination. Our imaginations obviously filled the gaps in with vivid, awesome atmospheres. With the progression of graphics and sound, less is left to the imagination and the gaps filled in. The gaps may not have been filled in with what you had imagined for the first couple of games though, so you're upset that your personal expectations weren't met.
Contrary to what you may have imagined, the first two games were supposed to be cartoony too (according to some of the staff). Since the graphics were so minimal, those who thought of the game as being cartoony saw a cartoony game, and those who thought of it as being realistic saw a realistic game (and are now disappointed).
In fact, just to prove that Monkey Island is inherently cartoony: here is a drawing of LeChuck, Guybrush and some other pirates (presumably the barber shop trio) by Steve Purcell, the guy who did most of the art for the first two games:
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but to me, hearing one of the jokes after seeing all three jokes would have just been redundant, especially when all the jokes are saying the same thing in the context of the conversation.
I can't be bothered to read every reply in this thread, so this may have been said already, but I think that the people complaining about a lack of atmosphere actually made up most of the atmosphere they're missing.
In the first two games, the sound and graphics were minimal, so a lot was left to the imagination. Our imaginations obviously filled the gaps in with vivid, awesome atmospheres. With the progression of graphics and sound, less is left to the imagination and the gaps filled in. The gaps may not have been filled in with what you had imagined for the first couple of games though, so you're upset that your personal expectations weren't met.
Contrary to what you may have imagined, the first two games were supposed to be cartoony too (according to some of the staff). Since the graphics were so minimal, those who thought of the game as being cartoony saw a cartoony game, and those who thought of it as being realistic saw a realistic game (and are now disappointed).
In fact, just to prove that Monkey Island is inherently cartoony: here is a drawing of LeChuck, Guybrush and some other pirates (presumably the barber shop trio) by Steve Purcell, the guy who did most of the art for the first two games:
In the first two games, the sound and graphics were minimal, so a lot was left to the imagination. Our imaginations obviously filled the gaps in with vivid, awesome atmospheres. With the progression of graphics and sound, less is left to the imagination and the gaps filled in. The gaps may not have been filled in with what you had imagined for the first couple of games though, so you're upset that your personal expectations weren't met.
Contrary to what you may have imagined, the first two games were supposed to be cartoony too (according to some of the staff). Since the graphics were so minimal, those who thought of the game as being cartoony saw a cartoony game, and those who thought of it as being realistic saw a realistic game (and are now disappointed).
While we obviously all "filled in the gaps", as you said, the fact that some of us might have imagined things differently that it was done afterwards is completely true.
One exelmple of this could be the voice acting : I, for instance, never was such a fan of Dominic Aramtto as guybrush's voice. Absolutely not because he did it "wrong" : on the contrary, he clearly did a great job. The only reason is that it's just not what I had imagined while playing the first games, so it struck ME as wrong.
Realizing this, i never ever blamed the guy for this, and just kept thinking "well, that's not quite what i had in mind, but so what?"
That being said, i still can't agree when you say the atmosphere is ALL "fill in the gapping player's imagination". Of course, much was left to it, but there was still a story, and the graphics, even if there were limited technically, still had some direction to them.
While it was nowhere near horrific, there definitely was a spooky element (which made the humour stand out even more actually) and "serious story going on" vibe, and even though different people can interpret things differently, it still wasn't just the imagination : it WAS in there, and it HAS been lessened in CMI and even more in EMI. The "cartooney" look may had had a part in this but this isn't the main reason. The approach just changed over the time.
That being said, i don't see this as a BAD thing (except probably for EMI which just got silly), I just wanted to point out than arguing about atmosphere IS valid, even if that's the kind of subject that's bound to remain rather subjective.
True, I'd forgotten how I felt when I heard Guybrush for the first time in CMI. His voice didn't seem to fit with what I thought he would sound like, but then again, that whole game was very different from the first two games, style-wise. Not necessarily bad, just different.
Fealiks, here is some other art by Steve Purcell that is ACTUALLY FROM the first two games (the cartoony art you posted is obviously from CMI, which they had decided to go a more cartoony route on).
Anyone who argues that the first two games weren't artistically and tonally different than CMI and the ones that followed is blind. Even the in-game graphics are 'realistic,' and it's not just people filling in the gaps of primitive graphics with what they want. The MI games had the same resolution and color depth as Day of the Tentacle and the Indiana Jones games. One look at the proportions and design of any MI character sprite shows they have WAY more in common with the Indy sprites than the DOTT ones. MI1 and 2, while fanciful, were NOT the Disney cartoon CMI turned the series into. It had more aesthetically in common with the Pirates of the Carribean ride, and pulp adventure story covers.
Other posters hit the nail on the head when they said one of the early games' strengths was the contrast between a dark, hyperreal (not stricly historically realistic) world and the more zany, surreal elements which were parceled out carefully and felt all the more funny and strange for it.
I'm enjoying ToMI, I like the character design more than any MI game since the first two (so pleased to see Guybrush's beard and jacket back!), and there have been some genuinely funny moments. But my enjoyment of them comes with the fairly major caveat that these guys are doing the best they can with where the series has gone. And that the presence of some of the great writers and designers from the early, truly great, games, while not bringing a total return to form for the series, will at least ensure some quality ideas and clever writing.
But then there's the matter of the GIANT, SHIP-EATING MANATEE, which could be a deal-breaker.
I was always bothered by these close-ups. While they were great art, I never felt they matched the style of the rest of the game. Not sure how I feel about them 20 years later.
Considering the art direction was handled by Steve Purcell, and he did both the cover art and much of the in-game artwork, I'd say the realistic look the two share an aesthetic. Those portraits are a bit different stylistically from the cover artwork (and don't looke like Purcell's work), though to me personally, they fit right in with the rest of the game.
Has Ron ever gone on record championing the stylistic fidelity of the cartoon sequels he wasn't a part of? Or the artistic abortion that is the Special Edition?
The first two games had pretty much a dream team with the artwork of Steve Purcell, and the story/concepts of Gilbert, Grossman, and Schafer. The fact that both the artistic facet and the story/concept facet were given over to new folks (Tiller and Ackley/Ahern, respetively) in the third game gives it, to me, the feeling of a fan game - albeit an extremely polished one - and serves as kind of the point where it went off the rails.
Among my friends who played CMI first, it is usually regarded as their favorite entry in the series. Among my friends who played them from the beginning, 2 is typically seen as the best. And to me, personally, 3 was pretty uniformly disappointing, though still a good game.
I can't be bothered to read every reply in this thread, so this may have been said already, but I think that the people complaining about a lack of atmosphere actually made up most of the atmosphere they're missing.
In the first two games, the sound and graphics were minimal, so a lot was left to the imagination. Our imaginations obviously filled the gaps in with vivid, awesome atmospheres. With the progression of graphics and sound, less is left to the imagination and the gaps filled in. The gaps may not have been filled in with what you had imagined for the first couple of games though, so you're upset that your personal expectations weren't met.
Contrary to what you may have imagined, the first two games were supposed to be cartoony too (according to some of the staff). Since the graphics were so minimal, those who thought of the game as being cartoony saw a cartoony game, and those who thought of it as being realistic saw a realistic game (and are now disappointed).
In fact, just to prove that Monkey Island is inherently cartoony: here is a drawing of LeChuck, Guybrush and some other pirates (presumably the barber shop trio) by Steve Purcell, the guy who did most of the art for the first two games:
Very valid point,
And one of the reasons why id love to play a new monkey island game using early to mid 90's technology
Thats when the interface was perfected in my opinion.
Its all been downhill since the verbs disappeared
Dont get me wrong, it seems lucasarts cant match what i have in my head either
These are the new posters for SOMI:SE and tell me why the new one sucks
Original
Version 1 SOMI:SE
Verson 2 SOMI:SE
See the difference!! in the one they are actually using (to the best of my knowledge, its certainly the one i see the most) Guybrush has this cocky look on his face, as if to say look at me aren't i only brilliant, where as the first version and the original he has this look of awe, as in to say what an adventure i'm on, i do find the version 1 a bit bright and cheerful for my liking though
Its not really a complaint, its just that the way people perceive characters is different from person to person, personally i like the original and version 1, but im guessing that most of the people here will agree with his cocky face considering the "Im guybrush threepwood mighty pirate thing"
dunno
I just thought i would point it out
I think it's hard to capture Guybrush's unique blend of naivete, wide-eyed eagerness, and cockiness in a single facial expression. I agree with you about liking the first face more, but I think the second face is still applicable to Guybrush at times.
Incidently, i think they are doing a MI2:SE and i think the way guybrush is going to look is terrible,
Very angular
If they were to make it they should something along the lines of this drawing (which i did not do myself)
I think this is the sort of thing i would like not only for a remade MI2 but for TOMI also
In fact, just to prove that Monkey Island is inherently cartoony: here is a drawing of LeChuck, Guybrush and some other pirates (presumably the barber shop trio) by Steve Purcell, the guy who did most of the art for the first two games:
The issue is that this is art for Curse and not Secret of Monkey Island or Lechuck's Revenge.
In context, let's take this snippet from the blogpost in which that art appears:
"And today, here are a few more character concepts from Curse of Monkey Island. Larry Ahern was thinking hard about the Guybrush design and had been pushing his proportions. The one shown here was me enjoying the freedom to stretch Guybrush around like silly putty. "
As you can see, the idea of "pushing Guybrush's proportions" was Ahern's. Whether or not Steve Purcell himself LIKES the idea(which it seems he did) doesn't really matter as much as the fact that he was taking his cues from the guys in charge of Curse's art direction.
Just to point out, Version 1 of that SMI:SE picture was made by a fan. The official artwork has only has Guybrush with that silly grin. He took the facial expression from the close-up scene where Guybrush is looking in awe at the scary monster in Meathook's motel.
An interesting not is that XBox LiveArcade made a mistake for the icon for SMI:SE and used the fan image. LucasArts corrected them (unfortunately) and now the official version with the grin is used.
Among my friends who played CMI first, it is usually regarded as their favorite entry in the series. Among my friends who played them from the beginning, 2 is typically seen as the best. And to me, personally, 3 was pretty uniformly disappointing, though still a good game.
What about people like me, who played the games in the order 1->4->2->3?
I would rate the games 3-1-4-2. Yes, I'm putting 2 on the bottom. It was either way too hard or too easy, the ending was
anti-climactic and nullified whatever character development Guybrush had in the game
, and I guess that's why MI3 had to start from scratch. Thank god, it brought back everything good from MI1 plus the one thing of MI2 that didn't suck (the something of the head-thread-body-dead puzzle).
However, I would like to see Ron Gilbert back in the MI cockpit, just so I can see what he had planned for MI3.
Comments
That kind of things can be pretty fun, as you said, but it was just over used and not so fun in chapter one.
It got better in chapter two, so i ain't complaining about that for this episode.
No, we don't. We're not getting a choice at all. We're getting a pause in the dialouge and some buttons that start it back up which may or may not have something funny painted on them. It's downright lazy.
I believe that the older games would occasionally override your choice, like if you choose to insult someone threatening you, Guybrush would grovel anyway. This was a joke. Tales is both using it too much and in the wrong situations to say there's any purpose behind it other than to save having to write responses or voice the lines.
...
Well, it MAY be the only one perfect situation so far, I'm not quite sure.
The first scene on the beach with Nipperkin seems to me like it was originally written as a completely non-interactive cut scene, and then the dialogue "options" were added later to give the scene a few more jokes.
I want you to pause in this dialogue and notice the word feel—we feel like we're getting choices. I never said we actually were.
Maybe file size comes into play here? Time could be a factor as well. Maybe you should try your hand at pumping out episodic content every month using enormous dialogue trees. All for ungrateful fans who call you lazy.
I'm not saying there weren't any, but which dialogue trees had radically different outcomes in the previous games?
"If you hate it so much why don't you try?"
Honestly? That old chestnut? I'm not permitted to dislike anything I can't make myself?
If this is what comes from releasing a chapter every six weeks, I'd rather wait a little longer.
And that's not good enough.
Dialogue Options:
1) Again, don't put words in my mouth. I never said you aren't allowed to complain. Please, continue complaining.
2) I like chestnuts.
3) Show TTG a little respect and be grateful you even have a Monkey Island game to complain about. You can send you're thank you letter and gift basket to Telltale Games, P.O. Box 9737, San Rafael, CA 94912-9737.
4) You must be new here. Welcome to the wonderful world of episodic adventure games! Your journey will be faster, smaller, and full of "fake choices" because it's the method proven to be financially successful. If you don't like it, you can go back to the 1990's.
In the first two games, the sound and graphics were minimal, so a lot was left to the imagination. Our imaginations obviously filled the gaps in with vivid, awesome atmospheres. With the progression of graphics and sound, less is left to the imagination and the gaps filled in. The gaps may not have been filled in with what you had imagined for the first couple of games though, so you're upset that your personal expectations weren't met.
Contrary to what you may have imagined, the first two games were supposed to be cartoony too (according to some of the staff). Since the graphics were so minimal, those who thought of the game as being cartoony saw a cartoony game, and those who thought of it as being realistic saw a realistic game (and are now disappointed).
In fact, just to prove that Monkey Island is inherently cartoony: here is a drawing of LeChuck, Guybrush and some other pirates (presumably the barber shop trio) by Steve Purcell, the guy who did most of the art for the first two games:
Yes. Yes it would. Isn't that why you have voice acting in the first place?
I read every other joke in the subtitles as wel as hearing it being said out loud, why not these ones?
You sir, know how to argue. I salute thee.
While we obviously all "filled in the gaps", as you said, the fact that some of us might have imagined things differently that it was done afterwards is completely true.
One exelmple of this could be the voice acting : I, for instance, never was such a fan of Dominic Aramtto as guybrush's voice. Absolutely not because he did it "wrong" : on the contrary, he clearly did a great job. The only reason is that it's just not what I had imagined while playing the first games, so it struck ME as wrong.
Realizing this, i never ever blamed the guy for this, and just kept thinking "well, that's not quite what i had in mind, but so what?"
That being said, i still can't agree when you say the atmosphere is ALL "fill in the gapping player's imagination". Of course, much was left to it, but there was still a story, and the graphics, even if there were limited technically, still had some direction to them.
While it was nowhere near horrific, there definitely was a spooky element (which made the humour stand out even more actually) and "serious story going on" vibe, and even though different people can interpret things differently, it still wasn't just the imagination : it WAS in there, and it HAS been lessened in CMI and even more in EMI. The "cartooney" look may had had a part in this but this isn't the main reason. The approach just changed over the time.
That being said, i don't see this as a BAD thing (except probably for EMI which just got silly), I just wanted to point out than arguing about atmosphere IS valid, even if that's the kind of subject that's bound to remain rather subjective.
Anyone who argues that the first two games weren't artistically and tonally different than CMI and the ones that followed is blind. Even the in-game graphics are 'realistic,' and it's not just people filling in the gaps of primitive graphics with what they want. The MI games had the same resolution and color depth as Day of the Tentacle and the Indiana Jones games. One look at the proportions and design of any MI character sprite shows they have WAY more in common with the Indy sprites than the DOTT ones. MI1 and 2, while fanciful, were NOT the Disney cartoon CMI turned the series into. It had more aesthetically in common with the Pirates of the Carribean ride, and pulp adventure story covers.
Other posters hit the nail on the head when they said one of the early games' strengths was the contrast between a dark, hyperreal (not stricly historically realistic) world and the more zany, surreal elements which were parceled out carefully and felt all the more funny and strange for it.
I'm enjoying ToMI, I like the character design more than any MI game since the first two (so pleased to see Guybrush's beard and jacket back!), and there have been some genuinely funny moments. But my enjoyment of them comes with the fairly major caveat that these guys are doing the best they can with where the series has gone. And that the presence of some of the great writers and designers from the early, truly great, games, while not bringing a total return to form for the series, will at least ensure some quality ideas and clever writing.
Yup. He did say that indeed.
I loved them, personally. I was... 5? at the time, and they were just the coolest thing to me.
Considering the art direction was handled by Steve Purcell, and he did both the cover art and much of the in-game artwork, I'd say the realistic look the two share an aesthetic. Those portraits are a bit different stylistically from the cover artwork (and don't looke like Purcell's work), though to me personally, they fit right in with the rest of the game.
Has Ron ever gone on record championing the stylistic fidelity of the cartoon sequels he wasn't a part of? Or the artistic abortion that is the Special Edition?
The first two games had pretty much a dream team with the artwork of Steve Purcell, and the story/concepts of Gilbert, Grossman, and Schafer. The fact that both the artistic facet and the story/concept facet were given over to new folks (Tiller and Ackley/Ahern, respetively) in the third game gives it, to me, the feeling of a fan game - albeit an extremely polished one - and serves as kind of the point where it went off the rails.
Among my friends who played CMI first, it is usually regarded as their favorite entry in the series. Among my friends who played them from the beginning, 2 is typically seen as the best. And to me, personally, 3 was pretty uniformly disappointing, though still a good game.
Very valid point,
And one of the reasons why id love to play a new monkey island game using early to mid 90's technology
Thats when the interface was perfected in my opinion.
Its all been downhill since the verbs disappeared
These are the new posters for SOMI:SE and tell me why the new one sucks
Original
Version 1 SOMI:SE
Verson 2 SOMI:SE
See the difference!! in the one they are actually using (to the best of my knowledge, its certainly the one i see the most) Guybrush has this cocky look on his face, as if to say look at me aren't i only brilliant, where as the first version and the original he has this look of awe, as in to say what an adventure i'm on, i do find the version 1 a bit bright and cheerful for my liking though
Its not really a complaint, its just that the way people perceive characters is different from person to person, personally i like the original and version 1, but im guessing that most of the people here will agree with his cocky face considering the "Im guybrush threepwood mighty pirate thing"
dunno
I just thought i would point it out
Very angular
If they were to make it they should something along the lines of this drawing (which i did not do myself)
I think this is the sort of thing i would like not only for a remade MI2 but for TOMI also
In context, let's take this snippet from the blogpost in which that art appears:
"And today, here are a few more character concepts from Curse of Monkey Island. Larry Ahern was thinking hard about the Guybrush design and had been pushing his proportions. The one shown here was me enjoying the freedom to stretch Guybrush around like silly putty. "
As you can see, the idea of "pushing Guybrush's proportions" was Ahern's. Whether or not Steve Purcell himself LIKES the idea(which it seems he did) doesn't really matter as much as the fact that he was taking his cues from the guys in charge of Curse's art direction.
An interesting not is that XBox LiveArcade made a mistake for the icon for SMI:SE and used the fan image. LucasArts corrected them (unfortunately) and now the official version with the grin is used.
What about people like me, who played the games in the order 1->4->2->3?
I would rate the games 3-1-4-2. Yes, I'm putting 2 on the bottom. It was either way too hard or too easy, the ending was
However, I would like to see Ron Gilbert back in the MI cockpit, just so I can see what he had planned for MI3.
well, except for blood island..
But it was moody!