I just want a mention a few things. Okay after playing the game for a while, the problems I had at first have faded away. It just all works out so well. I think it was just first time shock, the game is actually great. The midis in classic mode don't sound sucky anymore, they sound great after a few plays.
Also on the lack of commentary, I notice that sometimes the commentary doesn't always show up on cue the way it should. This is a big obviously, so you may have to play some scenes more than once to see the commentary where its intended.
So yeah, man. I love this game so much. That is all.
What about Stan and the spitting contest? have they gotten easier?
I haven't made it that far yet but as far as I know all of the puzzles are exactly the same. So they'll only be easy if you immediately remember the solution. I play and replay MI2 all the time, so I could only say yes because I play those puzzles over and over.
I adore the new version, as i haven't played the first. Sure it's got a few bugs, but it just looks,sounds and plays so good! (yes, i know that was probably grammatically incorrect, but hey.)
And the MI2 Monkey island theme can be heard in the menu screens.
No dancing monkeys in the menu screen though. And I haven't checked, but it looked like the chapter screens are high-res versions of the originals, which is awesome, but now I would've liked to see how the drawings in the opening credits would have looked in high-res.
Lack of the intro is disappointing and I can't see why they didn't do it, but everything else about the special edition is perfect. It looks and sounds beautiful. Ok, some of the character design isn't consistent, with proportions differing between characters so it will just look weird sometimes (compare Bart and Fink's overstylized art to more realistically proportioned Guybrush, for instance), but thats minor niggling. I don't care about any issues with the classic mode, I didn't buy the game to use the 20 year old version of it.
The missing intro doesn't really bother me that much. I mean it's a shame it's not there but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the game. And I love it. Played through twice now, first run taking my time, looking at everything and the 2nd was a speed run - did it in about 2 hours. Probably can do it quicker if I can work out the best order to get the 4 map pieces. Going to play it through at least once more in the next few days to listen to the developers commentary.
Oh and I'm chuffed that I'm currently 76 out of 4644 on the Xbox (I guess it's just Xbox) leaderboard with a score of 92994. No doubt I'll drop once more people play it and complete faster than me.
I love everything about this game. Okay, there are a lot of edits and cuts, but I can appreciate and understand why each of them was made. I always skipped the intro anyway.
Every song in the game is just so gorgeously remixed. I'm gonna rip the whole soundtrack and put it on my iPod. The iMuse isn't perfect, but it works ten times better than I'd expected, and for digital audio the effect is amazing.
Hey just for fun. Next time you go to the library, search for a book marked under Labyrinths. It's probably one of the more clever jokes in the game, and I never noticed it before. Mostly because I never look at every book in the catalog. This time I am.
Oh, and what's said in the commentary in the library is very interesting.
Pro's
1. Less woody voice acting because it isn't as slooooooooooow as in SoMI:SE
2. Art style for most places
3. Voice acting in general was awesome (Except for Largo, I rather had Dominic reprise his role from the April Fools mp3).
Cons
1. No intro in old/remake form
2. Guybrush's parents as skeletons singing the song was not in tune with the music rhytm at all. Like there was a 2 sec difference between them singing and the music.
3. Removing Easy Mode/Mega Monkey Mode option (Easy mode should have been kept in for little kids and old players who have to get used to the new interface)
Now to hope that LucasArts re-releases CoMI. If only so that it works WITHOUT ScummVM (Seeing how even ScummVM lags for me sometimes with MI3 scenery transitions on my Windows Vista PC and Windows 7 Laptop)
Also, didn't they say that the game would have more content? I thought they ment a secret ending after the ending, but alas, it is only concept art. Of which most was on their website anyways.
Indeed. And it's a sad thing, too. Obviously they tried hard to present the soundtrack as it was meant to be heard; from a real MT-32. This would have allowed a great number of people to experience the game as it was meant to be heard without having to buy an MT-32 somewhere. Unfortunately, all the screwups really bring that value down a lot.
On the upside, you can extract the original unmodified game files for Monkey2 from the SE PAK file and use ScummVM to play the original in all its glory (I tried it).
ooh! is it then possible to replace the SE classic version's music files with those from the old VGA version and fix the music that way?
Nobody mentioned the lack of vertical scrolling. This REALLY bothered me. It happened twice. On the edge of the cliff and while diving to the shipwreck. They even commented about how cool the vertical scrolling was on the commentaries but they cut it from both the new and the classic version. What the hell?
ooh! is it then possible to replace the SE classic version's music files with those from the old VGA version and fix the music that way?
I don't know. That's a different ball game altogether, though. That's about re-injecting the classic soundtrack (which is implemented in the same way the SE soundtrack is) with replacement music files and I'm not sure that's possible yet. Essentially it's doing the opposite of extracting. It is possible to extract the two versions of the soundtrack, though. It all just comes down to re-injecting proper recordings of the MT-32 soundtrack for classic mode.
"Nobody mentioned the lack of vertical scrolling..." "...while diving to the shipwreck".
WHAT?!?! They dropped the diving sequence?! How could they! That part was awesome and it also means that if play the special editions, through to TOMI, then the diving reference in TOMI is completely lost. Outrageous.
Dear Lucasarts, I love the fact that you're revisiting your old classics but for the holy love of an iguana on a stick, PLEASE will you stop dropping the ball like this? It's not cool.
Don't misunderstand me.. the diving sequence is still there as are all three scenes of it but there is no vertical scrolling between them. It just goes black and to the next scene. I distinctly remember it going smoothly in the classic (DOS/ScummVM) version as if it was one scene and the camera angle changing. Here it's split into 3 scenes (as if there were 3 cameras) - in both the new and the classic version.
Don't misunderstand me.. the diving sequence is still there as are all three scenes of it but there is no vertical scrolling between them. It just goes black and to the next scene.
Oh okay, that is less of a blow but none the less, it is still the lesser of two weevils. It just strikes me as lazy and/or a hurried release. It doesn't look good that a 19 year old game has better effects (in this and the cliff scene case) then a game made in 2010.
If Lucasarts wish to continue down the special edition route then I truly hope that they apply more polish (including extensive, or any kind of QA) on all future titles. One or two more months of QA could have resulted in the ultimate version of MI2, which is surely what a special edition should be.
P.S. Sorry for the weevils gag, but I was watching 'Master and Commander' the other day
I don't know. That's a different ball game altogether, though. That's about re-injecting the classic soundtrack (which is implemented in the same way the SE soundtrack is) with replacement music files and I'm not sure that's possible yet. Essentially it's doing the opposite of extracting. It is possible to extract the two versions of the soundtrack, though. It all just comes down to re-injecting proper recordings of the MT-32 soundtrack for classic mode.
Yes, well SMISE will use files put in uncompressed that it usually would look for in the .pak files, so we can update/fix the art in SMISE so that it looks better... why then can this not be done with the classic version's music in MI2SE?
If Lucasarts wish to continue down the special edition route then I truly hope that they apply more polish (including extensive, or any kind of QA) on all future titles. One or two more months of QA could have resulted in the ultimate version of MI2, which is surely what a special edition should be.
It's interesting that, when Lucasarts stayed completely faithful to the original game with TSOMI:SE, people complained about the slow text and choppy animations that were part of the original game, whereas now, people complain that it's not completely faithful to the original game.
It's interesting that, when Lucasarts stayed completely faithful to the original game with TSOMI:SE, people complained about the slow text and choppy animations that were part of the original game, whereas now, people complain that it's not completely faithful to the original game.
The problem is that the areas where they didn't stay faithful (i.e. the two scrolling screens) aren't as a result of artistic merit but rather as a result of sloppiness.
That's what I was thinking. As a result of putting speech into MI2 classic mode they had to alter the dialogue in classic mode so that the same speech would be properly representable. So they removed the Steve Purcell line, Stayin' Alive, etc.
Hey, just got done playing! Here's my review of the PC Steam version:
Pro's:
+ Grade-A voice-acting!
I was amused to find out Denny Delk (aka Murray) played a lot of characters as well as Roger Jackson (aka Mojo Jojo). Was wow'd by the inclusion of Phil LaMarr from Futurama fame. And LucasArts does fans a great service by bringing back all of the original cast.
+ Great musical score as always.
+ Perhaps the best interface for a MI game ever.
Seriously improved from the 1st game. They even went above and beyond and made it so you couldn't waste time trying out actions/items that have absolutely no use in the game. But don't worry, the "I can't push that" answers are still available if you use the scroll button.
+ Commentary (which I haven't seen all of yet) + Unlocking Art adds to re-playability
+ Classic mode with voice-over is fun, I'll have to replay it entirely like that sometime.
Con's:
- Biggest gripe: NO MUSICAL INTRO! WHY?
I think LucasArts seriously underestimated how much fans love the main theme. And I hope they had a good reason for removing it, and that reason wasn't "Gamers have extreme ADD."
- Bone Song has great music, but the VA's can't carry a tune.
I guess the director felt trapped by this, but when I first played it I imagined them with transformed undead/jazz singer voices anyway.
- Some glitches that are harmless like the control dial appearing on the other side of the screen, and others that make some instances impossibly fast in SE mode, and others that can be fixed by restarting the game.
Nitpickery:
* Wally's VA forgot what he used to sound like.
* SE music's volume is a little too low.
* LeChuck limps incredibly fast. What's weird is I remember him walking slower on the official website a while ago.
* Art is improved (especially LeChuck and Guybrush) but one wonders what it'd look like if it wasn't outsourced.
* No explanation for the ending after 20 years ... Didn't LucasArts say something about revealing the secret in an unusual way?
Can't comment on iMuse. First time I played MI2, I couldn't get the sound to work.
I think this remake is a lot better than the first one, but it still feels kinda clunky and unpolished.
Guybrush just moves so jarringly and choppy around the screen.
LeChucks limping animates way to fast, it just looks odd whenever he walks now.
And the verb and interface systems just feels unintuitive to me.
They should have just had a verb coin with all the verbs or something pop up like in Curse.
My first inclination about the lack of title credits in MI2SE would be the same as what happened with some things on the ToMI DVD @ TTG.
LucasArts felt they would put it in near the end of when the project was being completed, but they got too behind and/or didn't budget enough money/time for the project, and they just dropped the title credits altogether (among other things I'm sure) because they needed to finish it quickly and get it out the door. Possibly the same reason why they didn't work to get the bone dancers synced to the music or the classic mode music sounding right.
I'd just like to ask about the difficulty of this game. I struggled with the previous one but found it to be about right. Is this one equally hard?
MI2 is certainly harder than the first game but it's easily one of the best in the series so don't let that stop you. Also, remember that you have the hint system in-game and that there are many walkthroughs available from such sites as GameWinners in case you really get stuck
I mention in my first post that the iphone version you cant play the new voices in classic mode, but as the Lucasarts lady says in the CGI E3 trailer "Theres a button for that" - of course there is :P
Good things:
-Everyone sounds as if they're actually talking instead of reading some lines like in Secret's SE.
-Earl Boen and Dominic Armato were incredibly good.
-Especially the Star Wars bit near the end.
-The music was very good.
-Especially Stan's theme. I like how they went the Escape route with it and had all sorts of different instruments in it instead of doing it like the boring Tales version. (Seriously, Stan's theme is one of the few things Escape did much better than Tales)
-Captain Dread's voice, especially the "We can't go there mon, that's the forbidden blablabla"
-It looks beautiful. I liked all backgrounds and almost all sprites.
-They managed to include 100 bottles of beer on the wall, and the "dubedadadadadee" sounds really funny. I also like the Scabb Island song and the Bone song.
-Very good animation, especially the voodoo doll business in the tunnels.
-Governor Phatt sounds like a drunk mr. Winslow.
Bad things:
-No intro.
-No music in the Dinky Island jungle.
-Kate Capsize and Wally sound a bit weird.
-Interface is annoying in some puzzles.
-No constructive suggestions of what to do next. Instead lots and lots of Legalese copyright crap and disclaimers.
-Steam.
Well, I just got a surprise. The new art style adds a grim fandango staring at me in a certain place in the game *wink*. Kinda like made me go ... wait a sec but neat.
Woah. I thought maybe you lot were nitpicking, but you're so right... just played the bone song. Way too out of sinc. This wasn't done on purpose to show Guybrush's parents were bad singers was it? Either way, it doesn't work. That's so far the only thing wrong with it in my eyes.
Now that is really nitpicky. Just turn down sfx and voice volume a bit. I did it by 4 taps and it worked satisfactory most of the time. Only the bone song voices felt too low in volume then.
Adlib SFX in classic mode seem to be far more off. I can barely hear noises like breaking the shovel-sign with equal volumes. Interestingly, the original SCUMM didn't support Adlib and MT-32 at the same time.
-Especially Stan's theme. I like how they went the Escape route with it and had all sorts of different instruments in it instead of doing it like the boring Tales version. (Seriously, Stan's theme is one of the few things Escape did much better than Tales)
If you ask me, this is true not only for Stan's theme, but for the entire soundtrack of those games.
Comments
What about Stan and the spitting contest? have they gotten easier?
And the MI2 Monkey island theme can be heard in the menu screens.
I'm about half way through and it's pretty much everything I could've asked for.
Oh and I'm chuffed that I'm currently 76 out of 4644 on the Xbox (I guess it's just Xbox) leaderboard with a score of 92994. No doubt I'll drop once more people play it and complete faster than me.
Every song in the game is just so gorgeously remixed. I'm gonna rip the whole soundtrack and put it on my iPod. The iMuse isn't perfect, but it works ten times better than I'd expected, and for digital audio the effect is amazing.
Another interesting debate:
X360 version: around 900 MB
PS3 version: around 980 MB
PC version: 1800 MB...
Compressed (aka less quality) music and dialogs on the console versions?
Uh, what else is missing?
Oh, and what's said in the commentary in the library is very interesting.
Pro's
1. Less woody voice acting because it isn't as slooooooooooow as in SoMI:SE
2. Art style for most places
3. Voice acting in general was awesome (Except for Largo, I rather had Dominic reprise his role from the April Fools mp3).
Cons
1. No intro in old/remake form
2. Guybrush's parents as skeletons singing the song was not in tune with the music rhytm at all. Like there was a 2 sec difference between them singing and the music.
3. Removing Easy Mode/Mega Monkey Mode option (Easy mode should have been kept in for little kids and old players who have to get used to the new interface)
Now to hope that LucasArts re-releases CoMI. If only so that it works WITHOUT ScummVM (Seeing how even ScummVM lags for me sometimes with MI3 scenery transitions on my Windows Vista PC and Windows 7 Laptop)
Also, didn't they say that the game would have more content? I thought they ment a secret ending after the ending, but alas, it is only concept art. Of which most was on their website anyways.
ooh! is it then possible to replace the SE classic version's music files with those from the old VGA version and fix the music that way?
I don't know. That's a different ball game altogether, though. That's about re-injecting the classic soundtrack (which is implemented in the same way the SE soundtrack is) with replacement music files and I'm not sure that's possible yet. Essentially it's doing the opposite of extracting. It is possible to extract the two versions of the soundtrack, though. It all just comes down to re-injecting proper recordings of the MT-32 soundtrack for classic mode.
WHAT?!?! They dropped the diving sequence?! How could they! That part was awesome and it also means that if play the special editions, through to TOMI, then the diving reference in TOMI is completely lost. Outrageous.
Dear Lucasarts, I love the fact that you're revisiting your old classics but for the holy love of an iguana on a stick, PLEASE will you stop dropping the ball like this? It's not cool.
Same deal on the edge of the cliff.
Oh okay, that is less of a blow but none the less, it is still the lesser of two weevils. It just strikes me as lazy and/or a hurried release. It doesn't look good that a 19 year old game has better effects (in this and the cliff scene case) then a game made in 2010.
If Lucasarts wish to continue down the special edition route then I truly hope that they apply more polish (including extensive, or any kind of QA) on all future titles. One or two more months of QA could have resulted in the ultimate version of MI2, which is surely what a special edition should be.
P.S. Sorry for the weevils gag, but I was watching 'Master and Commander' the other day
Yes, well SMISE will use files put in uncompressed that it usually would look for in the .pak files, so we can update/fix the art in SMISE so that it looks better... why then can this not be done with the classic version's music in MI2SE?
It's interesting that, when Lucasarts stayed completely faithful to the original game with TSOMI:SE, people complained about the slow text and choppy animations that were part of the original game, whereas now, people complain that it's not completely faithful to the original game.
The problem is that the areas where they didn't stay faithful (i.e. the two scrolling screens) aren't as a result of artistic merit but rather as a result of sloppiness.
Pro's:
+ Grade-A voice-acting!
I was amused to find out Denny Delk (aka Murray) played a lot of characters as well as Roger Jackson (aka Mojo Jojo). Was wow'd by the inclusion of Phil LaMarr from Futurama fame. And LucasArts does fans a great service by bringing back all of the original cast.
+ Great musical score as always.
+ Perhaps the best interface for a MI game ever.
Seriously improved from the 1st game. They even went above and beyond and made it so you couldn't waste time trying out actions/items that have absolutely no use in the game. But don't worry, the "I can't push that" answers are still available if you use the scroll button.
+ Commentary (which I haven't seen all of yet) + Unlocking Art adds to re-playability
+ Classic mode with voice-over is fun, I'll have to replay it entirely like that sometime.
Con's:
- Biggest gripe: NO MUSICAL INTRO! WHY?
I think LucasArts seriously underestimated how much fans love the main theme. And I hope they had a good reason for removing it, and that reason wasn't "Gamers have extreme ADD."
- Bone Song has great music, but the VA's can't carry a tune.
I guess the director felt trapped by this, but when I first played it I imagined them with transformed undead/jazz singer voices anyway.
- Some glitches that are harmless like the control dial appearing on the other side of the screen, and others that make some instances impossibly fast in SE mode, and others that can be fixed by restarting the game.
Nitpickery:
* Wally's VA forgot what he used to sound like.
* SE music's volume is a little too low.
* LeChuck limps incredibly fast. What's weird is I remember him walking slower on the official website a while ago.
* Art is improved (especially LeChuck and Guybrush) but one wonders what it'd look like if it wasn't outsourced.
* No explanation for the ending after 20 years ... Didn't LucasArts say something about revealing the secret in an unusual way?
Can't comment on iMuse. First time I played MI2, I couldn't get the sound to work.
Other than that no complaints so far, I really appreciate the hint system because I am an adventure games newbie, and hints really help me sometimes
Guybrush just moves so jarringly and choppy around the screen.
LeChucks limping animates way to fast, it just looks odd whenever he walks now.
And the verb and interface systems just feels unintuitive to me.
They should have just had a verb coin with all the verbs or something pop up like in Curse.
first one is much easier imo, 2nd one is much larger too so if you dont use hints you are in for a ride man :cool:
LucasArts felt they would put it in near the end of when the project was being completed, but they got too behind and/or didn't budget enough money/time for the project, and they just dropped the title credits altogether (among other things I'm sure) because they needed to finish it quickly and get it out the door. Possibly the same reason why they didn't work to get the bone dancers synced to the music or the classic mode music sounding right.
MI2 is certainly harder than the first game but it's easily one of the best in the series so don't let that stop you. Also, remember that you have the hint system in-game and that there are many walkthroughs available from such sites as GameWinners in case you really get stuck
-Everyone sounds as if they're actually talking instead of reading some lines like in Secret's SE.
-Earl Boen and Dominic Armato were incredibly good.
-Especially the Star Wars bit near the end.
-The music was very good.
-Especially Stan's theme. I like how they went the Escape route with it and had all sorts of different instruments in it instead of doing it like the boring Tales version. (Seriously, Stan's theme is one of the few things Escape did much better than Tales)
-Captain Dread's voice, especially the "We can't go there mon, that's the forbidden blablabla"
-It looks beautiful. I liked all backgrounds and almost all sprites.
-They managed to include 100 bottles of beer on the wall, and the "dubedadadadadee" sounds really funny. I also like the Scabb Island song and the Bone song.
-Very good animation, especially the voodoo doll business in the tunnels.
-Governor Phatt sounds like a drunk mr. Winslow.
Bad things:
-No intro.
-No music in the Dinky Island jungle.
-Kate Capsize and Wally sound a bit weird.
-Interface is annoying in some puzzles.
-No constructive suggestions of what to do next. Instead lots and lots of Legalese copyright crap and disclaimers.
-Steam.
Why is steam a bad thing ?
Adlib SFX in classic mode seem to be far more off. I can barely hear noises like breaking the shovel-sign with equal volumes. Interestingly, the original SCUMM didn't support Adlib and MT-32 at the same time. If you ask me, this is true not only for Stan's theme, but for the entire soundtrack of those games.
OMG! I thought I was the only one who noticed that.