As I was only 3/4 at the time the first two games came out I started on CMI.
My friend had just bought it and I had a go. I was instantly won over by the graphics, the humour and those amazing swirly clouds : )
I only got as far as using the diamond ring on the window before my introductory session ended and I had to go home.
The experience stuck with me and I ended up buying CMI second hand. Soon number 4 came out, which I purchased new, and I ended up downloading the first two games. I was so excited to hear the news of not one but two new MI games this summer
A friend of mine had it on his PC (a 386 IBM) and we played it constantly (in GLORIOUS CGA.. )... Been hooked since. (yes, I'm that "old")
When the game was released in VGA-CD I instantly bought it and all the sequels when they came out.
Even bought the "10 adventures"-collection just for MI2, since my original discs started failing over time.
The first time I saw one of this wondermachines called PCs was also the first time I played Secret of Monkey Island. It was back in the early 90s when was visiting a friend of mine. We were sitting in front of his fathers PC for hours, trying to accomplish the tasks of the pirates at the Scumm Bar. It took us quite a while... I can't remember if it took days or even weeks.
My local library let people borrow PC games. One of them was Escape from Monkey Island. I played it when I was about 12 and loved it and discovered there was 3 other games. Hunted them all down on amazon or through Lucasarts (when they still sold some of them), as well as every other adventure game by them.
I think a pal lent his copy to me during the glorious Amiga days. Admittedly the Lucasfilm game that completely knocked me out of my socks was Maniac Mansion though. It was the first. Like that old song goes... the first cut is the deepest. And so on. And so on.
A friend loaned me the disks one day at school (along with a photocopy of the code wheel!) and told me it was "like playing a cartoon!" and it made me realize many things, both about what is actually funny, and what a video game was capable of. My love for that game also started a weird chain of events which ended with me here working on the fifth one. So that's kinda crazy.
If I was writing for a gaming mag, I'd ask you whether I could do a portray of you immediately. That's quite the story! Well it sounds like it from your roundup.
When we (my family) got our very first 2X CD-ROM Drive for our Tandy PC on Christmas of 1994 we also got The Secret of Monkey Island, LOOM, and The Secret Weapons of the Luftwafe (all of course from LA). The spirit of the game captured me (by which I of course mean I have been possessed) and never let go. What can I say? :cool:
This is exactly how I got mine. We got our first computer in 1993, with that we got a new CD drive that came with speakers, it was a Sound Blaster package that came with the CD versions of Secret of Monkey Island, Loom (talkie), Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, a car racing game of some kind, and the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol 1 game.
I played Loom first, and then my I saw my father playing MI1, and he let us play the first part with him. I remember one day before school we played it, with him, and we missed the bus because we were trying to figure out how to get into the kitchen of the SCUMM Bar. Memories.
I still have all of those discs, but MI1 and Loom are the two games I play the most still, thanks to Scumm VM
I was in middle school and we went to visit my cousin and her family and she told me I had to play this game and loaded "The Secret of Monkey Island." I talked about it for weeks until she finally called to tell me she had finished all the games in the box. It was some kind of collection with Loom, SOMI, Maniac Mansion and some Indiana Jones game, and told me that I could borrow it. I played all of them too and it was really fun, although difficult to solve some of the puzzles as I was really young. I remember a couple of times I had my mom call her to see what I had to do next. We had to give an instructional speech for my class so I talked about Grog and what it was and how to make Diet Grog from a recipe that was in a Lucasfilm newsletter in that box set. If anyone still has that recipe I would love a copy.
The next year she called me to tell me that she just got MI2 and wanted to know if I wanted to come over and play it with her. I went, but she ended up not waiting for me to play it and beat it without me and let me borrow it. Time passes and I get a car and drive to Best Buy with some friends one day and see on the shelf a box that says, "The Curse of Monkey Island" and instantly scream like a little girl and was excited to see that for a limited time it came with a Monkey Madness CD with the first two games. Now I had all three monkey island games and just thought CMI was the greatest game ever. I remember calling her to tell her I played the third monkey island game and that it was pretty. She couldn't believe it.
Now I had a reliable Internet connection and was researching lots about adventure games and actually new about Escape before it came out. I struggled with the controls and made it to the Monkey Kombat part and had no desire to write down everything so quit it and just replayed it like 2 years ago with a Logitech gamepad that looks a lot like a PS2 controller and it was a much better experience. I can't wait for TOMI and should probably call my cousin to see if she knows about it. I'm also very excited about the SOMI remake and can't wait to see how they do the governor's mansion scene without the verb interface at the bottom of the screen.
I bought CMI, played it, loved it. Then bought collectors edition combo which had all 4, gave duplicate of discs to cousins.
MI3 disc stopped working due to wear and tear, bought another copy of it for $10. Game still gets stalling glitch, and now I'm considering getting a rom and playing it through SCUMMVM again.
And I put MI1 and Mi2 on my DS. They're fun to play on a portable system, even though I've already done the puzzles.
I remember this very well. A friend of the family wrote a hint section I think for the magazine Amiga Action under the pseudonym 'The Boggit' and I was round his house one afternoon, and it must have been just after MI2 was released because I remember him showing me the lookout scene from the first game and then the scene with Largo on the bridge in the second.
At that point I didn't know what sort of game it was (I assumed I would have to collect stuff and jump on heads like most of the games I had liked up to that point) but I instantly knew that I had to have it. Something about the combination of music, visuals and funny script spoke to me and I knew I had to have it.
Because my mentality back then was that I should get the latest (and therefore best ) game I asked my dad if we could get Monkey Island 2 because I thought that was the one with Largo and the bridge that I liked - but he confused me and (wrongly) said that scene was from MI1, so I ended up getting MI1 after all. That, of course, was the right thing to do because it meant that eventually I got to play all the games in the right order.
Someone lent me the disks for Monkey Island 2 in the playground at school back in 1992. Can't remember who, which is probably a good thing or I'd hunt them down crazy-eyed to thank them, at which point it's all tears and restraining orders. I think it was pirated, he lent me some copied disks and a photocopied code wheel, and then by the time I got onto the third act I'd coaxed my parents into buying me my own copy - it was the second game I owned.
It wasn't my first encounter with MI though... I can remember poring over the back of a MI1 box in a WH Smiths in Guildford in 1991, and I soooo nearly bought it. I still have flashbacks to this day of the five minutes of deliberation that resulted in me missing out on such brilliance for a whole year. At the time though, looking at the box, I had absolutely no concept of how it would play.
I was about 3 to 4 years old when my father had an illegal copy of that game (who hadn't at that time?). I really loved the atmosphere back then. The night was so clear and the glowing circus tent, the Fettucini brothers in their overalls.... awwww beautiful memories.
Ok, I´ll make it short:
I had my first PC with 8 years. There were much games on it. And for example Dott. And after the years I heard about LucasArts and buy them. And still love them about all other games. Dott ist my favourite. My first MI was MI 2.
This is exactly how I got mine. We got our first computer in 1993, with that we got a new CD drive that came with speakers, it was a Sound Blaster package that came with the CD versions of Secret of Monkey Island, Loom (talkie), Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, a car racing game of some kind, and the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol 1 game.
This must be how I got mine because I was very young and all I can remember is getting LOOM, Monkey Island, and a Sherlock Holmes CD games all at once. I used to play Monkey Island all the time but was somehow never able to figure out how to deal with the stupid Piranha Poodles...I threw so much meat to them too. Eventually I discovered the beauty of walkthroughs and was able to triumph. Years later, a friend of mine was telling me about this game called "Curse of Monkey Island" and how awesome it was but that he didn't really know what was going on at the beginning of the game. I told him about SMI and we then discovered the Lucas Arts Archive pack which was also bundled with a copy of CMI at the time. We ordered it, shared the Monkey Madness CD for LR. Eventually he bought EMI which I also borrowed in order to complete the series (or so I thought;)).
I was looking at PC video games at the store years ago and saw EMI so I picked it up to see what it was about. It was the most hilarious game I had played so I looked for the other MI games so I could play them too and found a Lucasarts archive that had CMI and the monkey madness cd with a few other adventure games.
Back around 1997 or so (which would have put me around 9 years old at the time), I had this disc of a bunch of demos, several of which were Lucasarts games (I don't think it was a full Lucasarts disc though; I wish I could find it, because I think it was quite a mish-mash). The main reason I played it was because it had the demo for Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 on it, but one day I noticed a demo for a game called The Curse of Monkey Island. I played through the whole demo, and as soon as I finished it I called my dad into the room to play it, and we both loved it. So he went and bought it the next day, and I've been a fan of the series ever since.
I got DOTT for Christmas. I loved the puzzles and the humor, because the only types of games I'd played before then were like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein. Anyway, a few years later, I went online and looked for more games like it and found a demo version of Curse. I played it about 50 times over before it finally came out, and I got it right away. Curse is still my favorite of the series.
I don't have any idea how we got the game or what kind of computer we ran it on, but I do remember starting SMI, hearing the music for the first time, and just drinking it in. I was hooked from that moment.
Unfortunately, my older brother lost the game before I was able to finish it. He lent it to one of his friends, who claimed he stepped on the CD and broke it, but I think he really just stole it. Yes, fifteen years later, I'm still upset over this.
I learned from a guy in a bar who had a badge saying "Ask me about Monkey Island"... So I asked him. Seriously, my older sister got MI1 and MI2 back in 1992... For me it was love at first click.
I was at a friend's place, we were talking about school and the Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis game... when I saw a weeeeird looking disc. (CD)
Never saw a cover so colored before. I asked: "What's this?"
My friend: "Oh, Curse of Monkey Island... just an adventure game".
(at the time I was not disturbed by the "JUST" word related to the MI series)
Me: I see, can you borrow it to me?
After finishing Curse (which took a couple of months), about a year later I stumbled upon an old CD with various old games, including Loom. It was a big list, and my eyes fell upon two titles written one on top of the other: "Secret of Monkey Island" and "Monkey Island 2".
I was like "oookay, what's this? Haven't I allready played the first one??"
Gave it a go and ....melted in the chair while the music emerged from my speakers. (I'm a musician, so it means a whole lot to me...)
That's it Then I started hunting for MI4, finished it and...waited for 9 years
My parents were at yet another party, as was often the case during my childhood. Anyway, the person who's house it was (my curtosy uncle) had an office downstairs and had a pirated copy of MI2... I think it was the demo version because I remember being able to simply pick up a crisp white shirt and find the bra instead of going through the whole Mad Marty thing. Anyway, it still had copy protection which was a massive stack of photocopied pages of every... single... variation on the mix'n Mojo disk thing.
Anyhoo, I got fairly far on my own that evening, couldn't work out how to get into the weenie hut though lol. But I fell in love with the game (even if lechuck scared the pants off me)
A few years later, after searching in vain for MI2, we went on a trip to America. In Wallmart... or Kmart... i'm not sure, we found a copy of the Lucasarts Adventure collection, which contained the first MI game. It wasn't particularly expensive by USD standards but remember, we were paying NZ dollars which are worth bugger all. Anyway, my parents gave me some money to buy it and I used my own savings (I also picked up a goosebumps handheld game lol. Awesome)
I still have those disks, though the manual was lost years ago thanks to an ex. I bought a new manual off ebay... yes, just the manual lol. So I could play two of the games that still have copy protection on them.
Unfortunately the box was lost to the ether, which is a shame because the whole collection boxed would be worth a pretty penny. Oh well.
So yeah, that's what got me into Monkey Island. I actually didn't get to play MI2 again for many many years, not till the Bounty Pack came out in fact!!??
Oh it brought back such memories for me.
I don't have any idea how we got the game or what kind of computer we ran it on, but I do remember starting SMI, hearing the music for the first time, and just drinking it in. I was hooked from that moment.
Unfortunately, my older brother lost the game before I was able to finish it. He lent it to one of his friends, who claimed he stepped on the CD and broke it, but I think he really just stole it. Yes, fifteen years later, I'm still upset over this.
I know your pain! A neighbour nicked my copy of Sam and Max when I was a kid! I was so annoyed. Especially given back then in NZ, there was NO second hand game market and no internet shops, so I couldn't just pop out and buy a new copy. The copy I did have had taken months to track down as it was! We'd missed the launch of the game and I really wanted it because some other game I had contained a demo of it (I honestly can't remember which game though, probably DOTT) and i'd fallen in love. Now, back then, you had about a month to buy a video game before they took it off the shelves and that was that. So we SCOURED the Trade and Exchange (A magazine for people trying to sell their old crud, it had a gaming section which usually contained people trying to offload demo disks hahaha) and after months and months, Sam and Max showed up for sale! We drove across the city to pick it up, I remember that. Dad took me with him.
So yeah, I was pretty gutted to have my game stolen after that. I bought a new copy a few years back when the double pack with DOTT came out. So I have two copies of DOTT, oh well.
My dad would take me down to CompUSA about once a month to look at all of the computers and games. One time they had the demo version of Secret of Monkey Island playable on the floor. Within 2 minutes I was hooked and we bought the game that same day.
1991, a friend of mine and me played SMI in his Amiga 500.
1999, with a lot of effort i've bought a PC and CMI. Later, i've got Monkey 2 and at last, EMI at the day of launch here in Argentina
Around 1995 I had my first PC and it was all DOS. We had there a lot of games, but I remember two: Day of the Tentacle, which is my favorite game of all time, and I remember how I kept playing it over and over, and I even beat it (without a walkthrogh!), and LeChuck's revenge. I didn't played it a lot, and I remember that I was stuck on Scabb Island and never got out of it, probably because my sister didn't play with me like she did with DotT ( english is not my first language, so I didn't understand a word back then).
Then after some years I got a lot of Lucasarts adventure and I played DotT, SMI and LR. I bought CMI a few years ago, and I played EMI too. Since then I played all the games but EMI repeatedly, and now TMI will be added to the list
Back in the late 90's, I went over to my best friend's house one day, and he showed me this game he'd been playing recently, The Curse of Monkey Island. We sat down and tackled some puzzles together, and I never could forget that game afterwards. It was just too unique and funny to be forgotten.
My dad had an Amiga which he played the demo on, he bought a PC Gamer magazine which came with a bunch of old games including the "Shareware" (Oh it was totally a mistake that it was the full game) Duke Nukem 2 and the "Demo" Monkey Island.
One of my friends had Curse, and we played for a while, until we got stuck somewhere on part 2, i think it was getting into the chicken shop (I was about 6 at the time) A few years later, i got a copy of my own from a mate. I played to death, and from then on loved it. i didnt know there were any other MIs at the time, until a kid at school said he had Escape From Monkey Island. I looked it up, and naturally i wanted to get my hands on it. While i was looking for Escape at my local GameTraders, i found the monkey island madness cd, as well as escape. It was the best day of my life! Apart from finding out about TMI.
I was a teen when my dad randomly bought me LucasArts Archives I, with Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam and Max in it. I played through all of them and loved every one, but it didn't occur to me until years later that LucasArts had other games like them. By the time I did and started looking for them, most of them were hard to find and/or out of print. I managed to snag CMI at a discount electronics store at some point, and eventually got copies of the first to Monkey Island games from some friends. I had to trade a Sherlock Holmes game away for Grim Fandango, but I think it was worth it. And until Telltale came along, I was despairing of ever getting new comedy adventure games to play.
Funny story kinda. My mom subscribed to some Top 10 Games magazine shortly after we received our first PC. After 10 shitty games, we cancelled the subscription - though they managed to send us an 11th game: The Curse of Monkey Island.
My family had a lc575 macintosh and there were only about 2 games at the computer store for mac. I got the 3 in 1 mk1 mk2 and fate of atlantis by blowing out my savings for about half a year. I think it cost like $50.
But it last me about 5 years of play because there was no internet to help me out when I got stuck. So I liked to wander around the islands alot and just talk to people for months at a time with out really acomplishing anything.
How was I supposed to know to use a monkey like a wrench on the water fall valve?
I had a box set for the Amiga 1200 that included Secret and Le Chuck's Revenge plus Maniac Mansion and two others, but I forget which ones now... possibly Zak McKracken
It was Curse that I really fell in love with though. It was absolutely perfect - the dialogue, design, animation, story. Faultless.
Comments
My friend had just bought it and I had a go. I was instantly won over by the graphics, the humour and those amazing swirly clouds : )
I only got as far as using the diamond ring on the window before my introductory session ended and I had to go home.
The experience stuck with me and I ended up buying CMI second hand. Soon number 4 came out, which I purchased new, and I ended up downloading the first two games. I was so excited to hear the news of not one but two new MI games this summer
When the game was released in VGA-CD I instantly bought it and all the sequels when they came out.
Even bought the "10 adventures"-collection just for MI2, since my original discs started failing over time.
But I still have the disks and can play the game with an Atari ST emulator
If I was writing for a gaming mag, I'd ask you whether I could do a portray of you immediately. That's quite the story! Well it sounds like it from your roundup.
This is exactly how I got mine. We got our first computer in 1993, with that we got a new CD drive that came with speakers, it was a Sound Blaster package that came with the CD versions of Secret of Monkey Island, Loom (talkie), Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, a car racing game of some kind, and the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol 1 game.
I played Loom first, and then my I saw my father playing MI1, and he let us play the first part with him. I remember one day before school we played it, with him, and we missed the bus because we were trying to figure out how to get into the kitchen of the SCUMM Bar. Memories.
I still have all of those discs, but MI1 and Loom are the two games I play the most still, thanks to Scumm VM
The next year she called me to tell me that she just got MI2 and wanted to know if I wanted to come over and play it with her. I went, but she ended up not waiting for me to play it and beat it without me and let me borrow it. Time passes and I get a car and drive to Best Buy with some friends one day and see on the shelf a box that says, "The Curse of Monkey Island" and instantly scream like a little girl and was excited to see that for a limited time it came with a Monkey Madness CD with the first two games. Now I had all three monkey island games and just thought CMI was the greatest game ever. I remember calling her to tell her I played the third monkey island game and that it was pretty. She couldn't believe it.
Now I had a reliable Internet connection and was researching lots about adventure games and actually new about Escape before it came out. I struggled with the controls and made it to the Monkey Kombat part and had no desire to write down everything so quit it and just replayed it like 2 years ago with a Logitech gamepad that looks a lot like a PS2 controller and it was a much better experience. I can't wait for TOMI and should probably call my cousin to see if she knows about it. I'm also very excited about the SOMI remake and can't wait to see how they do the governor's mansion scene without the verb interface at the bottom of the screen.
MI3 disc stopped working due to wear and tear, bought another copy of it for $10. Game still gets stalling glitch, and now I'm considering getting a rom and playing it through SCUMMVM again.
And I put MI1 and Mi2 on my DS. They're fun to play on a portable system, even though I've already done the puzzles.
At that point I didn't know what sort of game it was (I assumed I would have to collect stuff and jump on heads like most of the games I had liked up to that point) but I instantly knew that I had to have it. Something about the combination of music, visuals and funny script spoke to me and I knew I had to have it.
Because my mentality back then was that I should get the latest (and therefore best
It wasn't my first encounter with MI though... I can remember poring over the back of a MI1 box in a WH Smiths in Guildford in 1991, and I soooo nearly bought it. I still have flashbacks to this day of the five minutes of deliberation that resulted in me missing out on such brilliance for a whole year. At the time though, looking at the box, I had absolutely no concept of how it would play.
I had my first PC with 8 years. There were much games on it. And for example Dott. And after the years I heard about LucasArts and buy them. And still love them about all other games. Dott ist my favourite. My first MI was MI 2.
This must be how I got mine because I was very young and all I can remember is getting LOOM, Monkey Island, and a Sherlock Holmes CD games all at once. I used to play Monkey Island all the time but was somehow never able to figure out how to deal with the stupid Piranha Poodles...I threw so much meat to them too. Eventually I discovered the beauty of walkthroughs and was able to triumph. Years later, a friend of mine was telling me about this game called "Curse of Monkey Island" and how awesome it was but that he didn't really know what was going on at the beginning of the game. I told him about SMI and we then discovered the Lucas Arts Archive pack which was also bundled with a copy of CMI at the time. We ordered it, shared the Monkey Madness CD for LR. Eventually he bought EMI which I also borrowed in order to complete the series (or so I thought;)).
Unfortunately, my older brother lost the game before I was able to finish it. He lent it to one of his friends, who claimed he stepped on the CD and broke it, but I think he really just stole it. Yes, fifteen years later, I'm still upset over this.
Never saw a cover so colored before. I asked: "What's this?"
My friend: "Oh, Curse of Monkey Island... just an adventure game".
(at the time I was not disturbed by the "JUST" word related to the MI series)
Me: I see, can you borrow it to me?
After finishing Curse (which took a couple of months), about a year later I stumbled upon an old CD with various old games, including Loom. It was a big list, and my eyes fell upon two titles written one on top of the other: "Secret of Monkey Island" and "Monkey Island 2".
I was like "oookay, what's this? Haven't I allready played the first one??"
Gave it a go and ....melted in the chair while the music emerged from my speakers. (I'm a musician, so it means a whole lot to me...)
That's it
Anyhoo, I got fairly far on my own that evening, couldn't work out how to get into the weenie hut though lol. But I fell in love with the game (even if lechuck scared the pants off me)
A few years later, after searching in vain for MI2, we went on a trip to America. In Wallmart... or Kmart... i'm not sure, we found a copy of the Lucasarts Adventure collection, which contained the first MI game. It wasn't particularly expensive by USD standards but remember, we were paying NZ dollars which are worth bugger all. Anyway, my parents gave me some money to buy it and I used my own savings (I also picked up a goosebumps handheld game lol. Awesome)
I still have those disks, though the manual was lost years ago thanks to an ex. I bought a new manual off ebay... yes, just the manual lol. So I could play two of the games that still have copy protection on them.
Unfortunately the box was lost to the ether, which is a shame because the whole collection boxed would be worth a pretty penny. Oh well.
So yeah, that's what got me into Monkey Island. I actually didn't get to play MI2 again for many many years, not till the Bounty Pack came out in fact!!??
Oh it brought back such memories for me.
I know your pain! A neighbour nicked my copy of Sam and Max when I was a kid! I was so annoyed. Especially given back then in NZ, there was NO second hand game market and no internet shops, so I couldn't just pop out and buy a new copy. The copy I did have had taken months to track down as it was! We'd missed the launch of the game and I really wanted it because some other game I had contained a demo of it (I honestly can't remember which game though, probably DOTT) and i'd fallen in love. Now, back then, you had about a month to buy a video game before they took it off the shelves and that was that. So we SCOURED the Trade and Exchange (A magazine for people trying to sell their old crud, it had a gaming section which usually contained people trying to offload demo disks hahaha) and after months and months, Sam and Max showed up for sale! We drove across the city to pick it up, I remember that. Dad took me with him.
So yeah, I was pretty gutted to have my game stolen after that. I bought a new copy a few years back when the double pack with DOTT came out. So I have two copies of DOTT, oh well.
1999, with a lot of effort i've bought a PC and CMI. Later, i've got Monkey 2 and at last, EMI at the day of launch here in Argentina
Then after some years I got a lot of Lucasarts adventure and I played DotT, SMI and LR. I bought CMI a few years ago, and I played EMI too. Since then I played all the games but EMI repeatedly, and now TMI will be added to the list
He showed it to me and I was thrilled with it.
I still have that CD, to this day.
I fell in love 17seconds into the game.
But it last me about 5 years of play because there was no internet to help me out when I got stuck. So I liked to wander around the islands alot and just talk to people for months at a time with out really acomplishing anything.
How was I supposed to know to use a monkey like a wrench on the water fall valve?
It was Curse that I really fell in love with though. It was absolutely perfect - the dialogue, design, animation, story. Faultless.
I know, especially when they're called 'spanners' in the UK!
Because it is shaped like a spanner / wrench?