›

Your absolute first encounter with Monkey Island (tm)

StarEyeStarEye
edited September 2010 in Tales of Monkey Island
People discover new games all the time. Games they've never heard of or played before. What was your first encounter with Monkey Island (tm) like? How did it happen, and what was your first impression?

My first encounter with Monkey Island (tm) was thanks to my older brother. He wasn't the computer nerd in the house, his hobby was music. But he did enjoy playing games occasionally on my Amiga (and earlier, the C64).

Not long after I got my first Amiga, I had enough money for a memory upgrade (1 mb of ram in total!). Before that I had to rely on games that didn't require that amount of memory (to be fair, that was quite a few). One of the main reasons for the extra memory was so that I could play Elvira - Mistress of the Dark. Anyway, one day, my brother mentioned Monkey Island. He said he's heard of it and that it's supposed to be good. Well, it was one of the first games I got (along with Elvira) from my "contact".

Unfortunately, I don't remember the first time I booted it up, but I'm fairly sure it was quite soon after. I was very eager to test everything I brought home. It was also very rare that I got hooked on a game, but it was a genre I was starting to fall in love with, and Monkey Island was one of the greatest. After that I searched high and low for new adventure games - and although I loved many of them, few of them came close to monkey Island. Ever since I first played Monkey Island, I've been a fan of the games, and stuck with it through thick and thin. My memory of my first encounter of the rest of the games in the series are much clearer. I might write about those later, in this post.

What's your first enouncter with Monkey Island like?

Comments

  • GuruGuru214GuruGuru214
    edited August 2010
    1997. I wouldn't be getting my first computer for another three years. I really only had one good friend in 3rd grade, this kid named Lucas. I don't really remember much about the time we spent hanging out, other than his computer. One day he showed me this really awesome game his dad was borrowing from a friend. It had this pirate who went around picking stuff up and using it in really weird ways. Somehow, I never picked up on the fact that it kept making references to past events. I could've sworn that we never made it past the third part, but when I came back to it later on, I remembered several parts of the second island.

    Three years later, once I had my own computer, I stumbled upon a copy of The Curse of Monkey Island at Target and immediately bought it.
  • OzzieMonkeyOzzieMonkey
    edited August 2010
    GuruGuru214 wrote: »
    1997. I wouldn't be getting my first computer for another three years. I really only had one good friend in 3rd grade, this kid named Lucas. I don't really remember much about the time we spent hanging out, other than his computer. One day he showed me this really awesome game his dad was borrowing from a friend. It had this pirate who went around picking stuff up and using it in really weird ways. Somehow, I never picked up on the fact that it kept making references to past events. I could've sworn that we never made it past the third part, but when I came back to it later on, I remembered several parts of the second island.

    Three years later, once I had my own computer, I stumbled upon a copy of The Curse of Monkey Island at Target and immediately bought it.

    Ironic that the guy's name was Lucas, eh?
  • lord darkstormlord darkstorm
    edited August 2010
    1990, the pc floppy version on my amstrad 8086.

    I got it as a present the same time as Prince of persia.

    both amazing games.

    I got stuck for the longest time on getting the key from lechuck's room. I think I must have used the item too far away or something the first time, and I spent ages trekking through the underground in case I'd missed something.

    best moment for me was the stuff in the governors mansion(the yak et all) and pirates complaining I was using the swordmasters insults on them.
  • coolsomecoolsome
    edited August 2010
    my bf at the time introducied me to CMI and EMI. I managed to get 1 and 2 years later at a car boot sale for £1 and then waited for 5 XD
  • The HighwayThe Highway
    edited August 2010
    2009, Tales of Monkey Island
  • Debbie82Debbie82
    edited August 2010
    1992-1993, when my Uncle Dave once had The Secret of Monkey Island at his home, and sometimes he or my brothers would play it. And I was a little girl back then.
  • Captain MickeyCaptain Mickey
    edited August 2010
    Travelled out of state to visit relatives with the family. One of the days we were there, we went to visit a family friend and me being the curious type (and at the time obsessed with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) walked into the son's room because that was where my brother was, and I saw a blonde haired pirate sword fighting a bunch of other pirates via rhyming insults and canon fights. I thought that it was really cool and was instantly hooked on to said blonde haired pirate because he reminded me of a pirate version of Link (like I said, obsessed at the time). About three years later, the PS2 came out and my cousin came over me and my brother's house to show us the console and to demonstrate the console's capabilities, he brought over EMI and I saw the blonde haired pirate again only I couldn't place my finger why he seemed so familiar to me. Luckily, the beauty of the internet was already around and about and I finally figured who the guy was and from there I discovered the rest of the MI series.
  • PolychromePolychrome
    edited August 2010
    About ten years ago, a friend had mentioned the series as being really good. I'd seen the occasional box art, but had never purchased the game as I was a college student without much cash and preferred to stick to the familiar because of that.

    Fast forward to 2009. Monkey Island shows up on Xbox Live. Played it, loved it, but didn't have any reasonable way to play the other games. Said friend from before had recommended playing the games in order. Played the second one this summer, then found inexpensive used copies of 3 and 4 on Amazon. Finally tackled Tales when I finished with them. :)
  • zhebricazhebrica
    edited August 2010
    My dad was a very early adopter of home computers and online communication. In the 80s and early 90s he would often download game demos for me that were passed around BBSes in those days, and the EGA demo of SOMI was one of them. I loved it and asked for the full game, and he got it for me. I was about 9.
  • MermaidMermaid
    edited August 2010
    Ah, that was waaaay back in time when people would answer to "Do you sell mice?" with "No, but we have a cat". :D

    Well, not really _that_ long ago. 1991 I guess it was. My father called me from the living room where he had his 386 set up and when I came into the room, the intro of SOMI was playing in that amazing PC speaker sound.
    I was totally sucked into that fictive world and spent hours in front of the monitor. I would have never thought, though, that, 20 years later, I'd still be that Monkey Island fanatic, but here we are.
  • Jen KollicJen Kollic
    edited August 2010
    I think it was 1991 for me too, specifically at Xmas when we were visiting relatives. One of my older cousins had an Amiga 500, and I remember sitting watching him playing SoMI and being quite taken by the fact that the Swordmaster of Melee Island was actually a girl. For a ten year-old tomboy, that was awesome. GIRLS KICK ASS TOO.

    I didn't actually get my own copy of the game until the following Xmas when I got an Amiga 600, as I remember I got both SoMI and LCR at the same time, but I played SoMI much more. Partly because LCR was on 12 disks that had to be swapped in and out constantly while SoMI was only on 4, but mostly because I was shit-scared of Zombie LeChuck. Especially the bit where he corners you in the elevator. *shudders*
  • BubblechanBubblechan
    edited August 2010
    I vaguely remember that my husband got a demo of CMI, about 10 years ago, which probably came with a PC magazine. A few years later, he found the game in a store for NZ$29.90. He bought it and we immediately started playing. We loved it so much that we wanted EMI as well, but our computer didn't have 3D acceelerator, so we bought a new video card and EMI. Again, we loved it so much that we wanted to play SMI and MI LR, so we bought MI complete collection even though we already owned CMI and EMI. Again, we loved them so much, we wanted more, but it never happened. When we found a new MI game(TMI), we couldn't buy it straight away, because it wa a degital download only and we didn't have broadband and our computer didn't meet spec to play it. After we bought a new PC and connected to the broadband, finally we were able to buy TMI. I really hope that we'll have a new MI game in very near future, so we don't have to buy a new PC again.
  • monkey_05_06monkey_05_06
    edited August 2010
    Approximately 1994. Same time as we got our first CD-ROM drive and LOOM™, both on CD. Both amazing, incredible games. :cool:
  • RingmasterJ5RingmasterJ5
    edited August 2010
    2009, TSOMI:SE on Xbox 360.
  • VeronicanPlayVeronicanPlay
    edited August 2010
    My older brother was playing Curse of Monkey Island and I loved to watch, I thought it was like watching a fun cartoon. :)
  • DragekattenDragekatten
    edited September 2010
    2009 (2008?) with Efmi. then I played all the other MI games :D
  • tabstistabstis
    edited September 2010
    It must have been about 2002 or 2003. I rented Escape because I saw it was in my video rental store (they also did games for a while). I rented it a few times and played it on and off. Then, I think it was about a year later, I bought it and finished it. I've kept it ever since so I must have liked it at the time and I was meaning to play it again until I finally did recently. I've played through the entire series at some time or another since I bought it all that time ago...
  • thin029thin029
    edited September 2010
    It had been a full year since I completed Grim Fandango and I wanted more, so I went to store and saw Escape with the LucasArts logo. I'm so glad I bought it.

    I still like Grim Fandango better, though.
  • DragonKazooie89DragonKazooie89
    edited September 2010
    Tales last year :P
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited September 2010
    Early 90s....probably 91. I was probably watching my dad play it.
  • StarEyeStarEye
    edited September 2010
    thin029 wrote: »
    It had been a full year since I completed Grim Fandango and I wanted more, so I went to store and saw Escape with the LucasArts logo. I'm so glad I bought it.

    I still like Grim Fandango better, though.

    Well, DUH! Who doesn't? It's one of the greatest adventure games of all time (even though the puzzles sometimes stink - mainly due to controls).
  • NeeloNeelo
    edited September 2010
    A few years ago I was bored and decided to play some old games that belonged to my mother. One of those games was called Curse of Monkey Island. I installed it, played it, and loved it! Then I bought and played Escape, which I also loved. Since I had no idea who Herman Toothrot was, or what that giant monkey head was, I didn't care about what happened to them. Then Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Tales of Monkey Island were released. After Tales of Monkey Island, I hoped that Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge - Special Edition would be released, but I heard so much about its cliffhanger ending that I couldn't wait and downloaded its classic version, which is abandonware. I loved it and since there were no character voices, I was able to pay attention to the music, which I loved. Then MI2:LCR-SE was released and I bought it and loved it.
  • OzzieMonkeyOzzieMonkey
    edited September 2010
    Pretty simple for me. My Mum had a friend who brought some games over for me to have a go at. 3 of those games were The Dig, Full Throttle and The Curse of Monkey Island. Curse stood out among all 3, and I loved playing through it. Eventually found 1,2 and 4, then got Tales, and the special editions. Simple story, but made an epic impact.
  • StarEyeStarEye
    edited September 2010
    Neelo wrote: »
    I couldn't wait and downloaded its classic version, which is abandonware.

    There's no such thing as abandonware, when it comes to legality. It's just a term made up by some random website at some point, to make it sound legal. It's still pirated games, it's just old. Unfortunately, it's become more and more normal to think this terms is actually a legal term, which it's not. A game's not been abandoned until the copyright holders decides to release it for free... in which case it won't be called abandonware, but freeware, most likely.

    Nobody's going to complaint about you downloading a really old game - but don't think for a second it's legal just because some random website calls it abandonware. If you want to make sure something's legal, look around on the web for information - most likely the developer's website if they're still active. In most cases, if a game is freeware, it's available on the developers website - or at least linked to it from there. Cinemaware did this with their classic games which have become freeware. Take 2 have done this with GTA 1 and 2. EA has done this with Command and Conquer.

    I don't mean this as an attack or anything, just thought I'd share the information. I think it's a shame that so many people think stuff is automatically legal to download just because it's called abandonware by some website - when it's not even a legal term.
  • BubblechanBubblechan
    edited September 2010
    thin029 wrote: »
    It had been a full year since I completed Grim Fandango and I wanted more, so I went to store and saw Escape with the LucasArts logo. I'm so glad I bought it.

    I still like Grim Fandango better, though.

    Wow. The other way around for me. I completed all MI games and I wanted more, so I bought Grim Fandango and I really loved it. I still like MI better, though.:)
  • Papa PishuPapa Pishu
    edited September 2010
    Back in the early `90s, when the first ads started appearing in PC magazines. For some reason the Grog machine in one of the screenshots of Stan's shipyard caught my attention most of all.

    I was already a fan of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken from the good ol' Commodore 64 days though, so I was looking forward to something similar on the PC at last.
  • Psychotron7x2Psychotron7x2
    edited September 2010
    It would have been around 1990 when I was 7 years old. I went to my dad's friends house and he had an IBM and I think the only game he had was SOMI. I liked the look of the box art and he put it on for me. I thought it looked amazing and the was immediately sucked in by the atmosphere of it. I like the fact that there was dialogue and humour when the only video games I had been exposed to were NES games like Mario Bros.

    I didn't get to play very far since I was young and it would have taken me forever to finish it. We eventually got an IBM about a year later. I asked for my parents to pick me up a copy when they went on vacation. They almost bought me MI2 but choose SOMI since it was cheaper. I played SOMI for as long as I could. One of my proudest childhood moments was figuring out to follow the shop keeper to find Carla. Unfortunately I hit a wall. I got to the infamous stump joke and thought it was serious and that I needed to order the rest of the game. I was pretty young but even then I thought to myself "this is bull****" and gave up on the game. It wasn't until years later that I picked up the Monkey Madness CD and played through again and was a bit less naive so I knew it was just a joke.

    Ahhhh, memories
  • petethepandapetethepanda
    edited September 2010
    4 or 5 years old, 1990. My dad was on some sort of Lucasfilm Games mailing list and got a demo of SoMI in the mail.
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited September 2010
    In some magazine naming the funniest games of all time. Sam and Max Hit the Road was first, DOTT was second, and MI was sixth, but the line saying it was Naked Gun with pirates really attracted me to it. I played the first one some years later and the theme music hooked me in; I adored it.
  • Gman5852Gman5852
    edited September 2010
    Telltale. They introduced me to sam and max as well. And well technicaly tf2(since i heard how good it was) and portal(during that one thread about portal being free for a while)
  • MermaidMermaid
    edited September 2010
    petethepanda wrote: »
    4 or 5 years old, 1990. My dad was on some sort of Lucasfilm Games mailing list and got a demo of SoMI in the mail.

    Wow! I didn't know mailing lists already existed back then! :eek:
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited September 2010
    image.jpg
  • StarEyeStarEye
    edited September 2010
    guitarsareboring wrote: »
    image.jpg

    Ah, yes I remember that collection. Did you get the Amiga version or PC version?
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited September 2010
    StarEye wrote: »
    Ah, yes I remember that collection. Did you get the Amiga version or PC version?

    Mine was the Amiga version.
  • MightyThirstyPirateMightyThirstyPirate
    edited September 2010
    Around 2000, I got my first computer. Being a huge fan of Star Wars, it was my first search on a search engine. The first result was starwars.com which was pretty boring, but I found the website for LucasArts while looking for Star Wars video games. Clicked on a banner advertising something called "Escape from Monkey Island" which was, apparently something called an adventure game. Sounded fun. The official site was done in Flash which really wowed me. Downloaded the demo, played the hell out of it. Found the LucasArts Archive editions of the Curse (which included Monkey1 and 2 as a bonus) and EMI a while later. Lifelong fan forever and ever.
  • thealmightyrobthealmightyrob
    edited September 2010
    the very, very first time I ever heard of monkey island was sometime in the early nineties. A friend of mine was talking about this game he was playing, "monkey island." Unfortunately, his description was a little lackluster; if I recall, he described it as "this game where you play a pirate, and use items, and do funny stuff." Yeah, I wasn't all that interested.

    Flash forward to 2001, and I'm hanging out in a blockbuster looking for something to rent on my fancy Playstation 2. I see "Escape from Monkey Island," and recall the unbelievably bad description from years ago. "Eh, I like pirates, how bad can it be?" Suddenly I'm entranced. "Ha! Brass Monkey! Oh my gosh, insult arm wrestling? Did he just do a title drop complete with tm?" I was hooked, and after that, I started hunting down the other games. I've been a huge fan ever since.
  • mgrantmgrant
    edited September 2010
    I'd heard of Monkey Island a few times from a cousin during my childhood, but never paid that much attention since I was mainly a console kid, and the only computer games we saw at my house were the edutainment ones my mom got for me and my sister.

    It wasn't until my first year at UCSB (2008) that my interest was piqued, and the cause of that was accidentally stumbling over a Curse of Monkey Island walkthrough. I was hooked in the minute Elaine started warding off LeChuck's advances over canonfire and have been ever since. I had to mooch the games off of friends I knew were into the series (Except for Tales which I just managed to buy a few weeks ago), but it's been well worth it.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.