Monkey Island Remakes - Curse and Escape

Personally, I'm thrilled we're getting Monkey Island sequels. It's one of the best things and happiest moments of my life - it's like a nostalgia trip for me. I think the first remake will do well considering it coincides with the "Tales of Monkey Island" release - I could see both helping fuel the other. And I think Monkey Island 2: Special Edition is a foregone conclusion.

And I think this'll be highly profitable for LucasArts and Telltale.

But what about Curse and Escape? Curse has some of the most beautiful graphics due to its hand drawn style. Escape is...well, Escape is Escape - it has those nasty clunky 3d graphics but the voice overs and funny content.

There's less to update for Curse and Escape. Would you bother changing much beyond graphics? Many would argue the graphics for Curse shouldn't be altered.

Personally I think the best way to handle this situation would be to do both Curse and Escape as a package. It requires the least amount of work - there's no need for voice overs or major score updates. Due to Curse's amazing hand drawn style, you would want to keep the switch functionality.

It'd also be handy to have remakes as older PC games become less and less usable on newer computers - it makes it more accessible for people who don't know stuff like ScummVM is.
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Comments

  • edited June 2009
    meh

    i reckon lets just move on to MI5
  • edited June 2009
    You cant remake Curse....
    And nobody really cares about Escape

    Im with Hamzie, lets just move on

    I do hope they make Lechucks Revenge special edition though
  • edited June 2009
    I do not think the third and fourth games requires an update from scratch

    I can see them probably updating the graphics a bit but it has to be profitable
  • edited June 2009
    Well I don't think Curse really needs an update, but if the first two net them profits you'd know they want to monetize it. And it seems rather odd to skip 3 to 4.

    I don't like the idea of new voice acting over the old.

    Basically the existence of 4's ugly graphics offends me and I wish they'd update it to be bearable.
  • edited June 2009
    How about The Curse of Monkey Island: Special Edition with Steve Purcell as the artist? :)
  • edited June 2009
    There was never any voice acting in the first 2...
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    There was never any voice acting in the first 2...
    I think he meant instead of having no voices they're adding them. Which I see nothing wrong with. Their goal was to update the game for a new audience. Voices are just an obvious enhancement. Plus they've got all the right people doing the voices as far as I can tell from the gameplay videos.
  • edited June 2009
    I think he meant instead of having no voices they're adding them. Which I see nothing wrong with. Their goal was to update the game for a new audience. Voices are just an obvious enhancement. Plus they've got all the right people doing the voices as far as I can tell from the gameplay videos.
    Yeah. Thanks.
    How about The Curse of Monkey Island: Special Edition with Steve Purcell as the artist? :)
    That would actually be really cool.
  • edited June 2009
    ahh

    And i HATE Elaines voice, she sounds like something off them old Harry Potter PS1 Games
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    ahh

    And i HATE Elaines voice, she sounds like something off them old Harry Potter PS1 Games
    Fortunately she doesn't have a whole lot of lines in SOMI. Not nearly as much as Guybrush at least.. and since we hear his voice the most, he's the most important to get right, which they did by getting Dominic Armato back.
  • edited June 2009
    It wouldnt be a MI game without Dominic Armato as Guybrush
  • edited June 2009
    I think the whole reason behind SMI:SE (and of course the supposed LCR:SE) is (are) to help bring the canonical universe of MI to a wider audience. A lot of us (myself included) grew up from a very young age playing the original games. Some here didn't "grow up" playing them, but are still capable of appreciating the original games in-tact, as-is, the way they were designed nearly 20 years ago.

    Times have changed though. For many, the low-resolution, pixelated graphics, MIDI music...it's just too much for some people. Sure, some will look and say, "Hey, it's retro!", but others will look and say "Hey, I barfed! Can WoW now?"

    Not to say I have anything against WoW (which I do :p) but we live now in a time of high-resolution, 3D graphics, voice-acted character speech, full musical scores...things that weren't possible when SMI and LCR came out. It's not to say that there's something wrong with that, it's simply something we have to come to accept.

    So when you ask if there will be a CMI:SE or EFMI:SE, I'd say the answer is no, and frankly I don't see why there should be one. The graphics in CMI were of high enough quality that the graphics alone are not going to turn away a significant portion of potential players. The pixelated graphics of SMI/LCR would. Hmm...actually the minimalistic, "let's-use-as-few-polygons-as-possible" EFMI models might too...:rolleyes:...

    But I think you get what I'm saying. If LA thinks it would be a profitable endeavour, sure, I'll bite. I'll go ahead and buy a copy. Realistically speaking though, even in light that they are now bringing the MI series back after 9 years (noting that the entire series ran in a course of 10 years prior to that), I don't think CMI or EFMI will be getting SEs. Of course it wasn't all that long ago that I was telling some MI fans that "it simply won't happen" for LA to release SMI just to update the graphics and do voice-overs. Shows how much I know! :o
  • edited June 2009
    CMI would be great in HD.
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    ahh

    And i HATE Elaines voice, she sounds like something off them old Harry Potter PS1 Games
    You'll love Tales. shifty.gif
  • edited June 2009
    I grew up playing the MI games, but i didnt grow up WITH them :P
  • edited June 2009
    I grew up playing The Secret of Monkey Island and I'm excited about the Special Edition too. I love the old, but I also love the idea of enhancing old things and making them new again.
  • edited June 2009
    CMI doesn't need a remake - it's wonderful just the way it is and the art has a timeless quality to it.

    EMI? True, it looks extremely ugly, but this is only partly due to technological limitations. In my opinion, although the art direction is atrocious and the pre-rendered backgrounds are overly simplistic, sterile and lacking in atmosphere, the visuals are the very least of its problems. The plot and story are ill-conceived and the balance between the "historical" setting and contemporary references was off kilter.

    The game felt like a product that had been forced upon writers/artists who had no real interest in or understanding of Monkey Island. When I played it, I couldn't help thinking that the Lucasarts suits at the time must have forced their last remaining adventure game development team to make the game, regardless of whether the staff actually wanted to - or were suited to - do so. This is not a criticism of the developers, of course - they were/are obviously a talented bunch - but perhaps they should have created something of their own choosing rather than being burdened with creating EMI.

    No, to adequately remake EMI, you'd need to completely rethink the art style, theme, plot, and characterisation to make it work. You'd be better off making a new game!
  • edited June 2009
    What i wanna know is, do the voices carry over when you switch from Original to remake?
  • edited June 2009
    Only thing I want from Lucasarts is for them to record Dialogue for MI2 SE.
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    What i wanna know is, do the voices carry over when you switch from Original to remake?
    Yeah. I'm not saying strip the voices. As is, they're perfect.

    Hell. You could do Escape from Monkey Island: Director's Cut and not include a switch feature. Have people who know the series better fix up part, bring back the voice actors to do a few lines while you're doing these new ones and spruce up the game a bit.

    And you could improve CMI with HD and improved rending - that outline on Guybrush is kinda iffy.

    It'd be cheap and easy because you're not really writing up a new game or programming brand new material. You're slapping on new graphics and art.
  • edited June 2009
    To answer you Shiversul, no.

    And Luke, I can definitely understand and respect your points, but I think trying to replace the plot of EFMI with a new MI4 would be a bad idea. Although we may not feel that EFMI really filled the shoes provided to it, I still think it did a good enough job that just trying to pretend it didn't happen would only cause more problems...IMO anyway. ;)
  • edited June 2009
    To answer you Shiversul, no.

    And Luke, I can definitely understand and respect your points, but I think trying to replace the plot of EFMI with a new MI4 would be a bad idea. Although we may not feel that EFMI really filled the shoes provided to it, I still think it did a good enough job that just trying to pretend it didn't happen would only cause more problems...IMO anyway. ;)

    Thats awesome news, ill just switch to old graphics for every Elaine scene :P
  • edited June 2009
    To answer you Shiversul, no.

    And Luke, I can definitely understand and respect your points, but I think trying to replace the plot of EFMI with a new MI4 would be a bad idea. Although we may not feel that EFMI really filled the shoes provided to it, I still think it did a good enough job that just trying to pretend it didn't happen would only cause more problems...IMO anyway. ;)

    That's kind of my point, although we perhaps disagree about how effective EMI was. What we both agree on is that EMI should be left as it is. It's - regrettably, in my opinion - a part of the series, and we should accept this and move on rather than hope for it to be improved or fixed.
  • edited June 2009
    Mr. Stemmle must be quite disappointed that whilst the critics liked his game, a good number of fans don't. Lets be honest, EMI isn't as bad as its made out to be; its like those Star Wars prequels, everyone says they're bad, but while they diminish in the face of the originals, they're not really so awful as people say. Except for that crappy animated one. Spend some time looking around these forums and you'd get the impression EMI is the anti-Christ of the gaming industry.

    Yes, its graphics have aged atrociously, there were some bizarre designs such as Monkey Kombat, the control system was awkward, it has plot holes and the ending was rather rubbish, but these aren't reasons to dismiss the game in its entirety. The majority of the puzzle design was good, the voice acting and delivery of the characters was still first-rate, the art direction for the most part was well thought out for what they were trying to convey (with a few exceptions) with visual backgrounds of a similar quality to Grim Fandango. The story itself is also more indepth than the one in CoMI, although the commentary on the spread of commercialism understandably got varied results.

    Do we have a top-notch Monkey Island adventure game? No. Do we have one that meets up to a similar standard as the other games? No. But we still do have a reasonable and fun Monkey Island game.
  • edited June 2009
    I don't think COMI and EMI need remaking there fine as they are. However they should re-tool Monkey Kombat on EMI to make it easier as apparently they did do that on the PS2 version but not on the PC version
  • edited June 2009
    EMI is a good game.

    It's not a good Monkey Island game.
  • edited June 2009
    LukeSW wrote: »
    CMI doesn't need a remake - it's wonderful just the way it is and the art has a timeless quality to it.

    EMI? True, it looks extremely ugly, but this is only partly due to technological limitations. In my opinion, although the art direction is atrocious and the pre-rendered backgrounds are overly simplistic, sterile and lacking in atmosphere, the visuals are the very least of its problems. The plot and story are ill-conceived and the balance between the "historical" setting and contemporary references was off kilter.

    The game felt like a product that had been forced upon writers/artists who had no real interest in or understanding of Monkey Island. When I played it, I couldn't help thinking that the Lucasarts suits at the time must have forced their last remaining adventure game development team to make the game, regardless of whether the staff actually wanted to - or were suited to - do so. This is not a criticism of the developers, of course - they were/are obviously a talented bunch - but perhaps they should have created something of their own choosing rather than being burdened with creating EMI.

    No, to adequately remake EMI, you'd need to completely rethink the art style, theme, plot, and characterisation to make it work. You'd be better off making a new game!


    I just have to say...am i the ONLY person in existance who actually LIKED EMI? :confused:
  • edited June 2009
    No....
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    No....

    There were two of you :p
  • edited June 2009
    Nah, i didnt like it...
  • edited June 2009
    As much as I doubt there'd be remakes of MI3 and MI4 (MI2 is much more probable, as it's using the same Scumm Engine as MI1), I really wish they did remake CMI. But not in the sense of repainting the characters and backgrounds, BUT if all the original background paintings are still available, simply replace the 640x480/256-color backgrounds with higher-res versions of them (I don't know what size they were drawn/scanned/colorized at, but it's probably more than 640x480). The same goes for the sprites.

    In MI1 they're simply replacing all the assets with the new stuff (at higher resolution), but they don't change the number of animation frames on the sprites or anything, which makes things a lot easier, I guess. And if that's possible with all Scumm-games, I'd love to see CMI get that treatment as well.
  • edited June 2009
    Only way they could enhance CMI is by increasing the resolution of the characters
  • edited June 2009
    As much as I doubt there'd be remakes of MI3 and MI4 (MI2 is much more probable, as it's using the same Scumm Engine as MI1), I really wish they did remake CMI. But not in the sense of repainting the characters and backgrounds, BUT if all the original background paintings are still available, simply replace the 640x480/256-color backgrounds with higher-res versions of them (I don't know what size they were drawn/scanned/colorized at, but it's probably more than 640x480). The same goes for the sprites.

    That's what I was thinking. Just an upgrade would be awesome.
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    What i wanna know is, do the voices carry over when you switch from Original to remake?

    Nope, it reverts to pure original coloured text a nd no speach.
  • edited June 2009
    Only thing I would touch of CMI is upping the display quality of the movies, maybe adding that cut cutscene with the rollercoaster, and well, I always thought that Guybrush looks too stiff when riding the cart.

    But leave CMI and EMI as they are.
  • edited June 2009
    The only upgrade CoMI needs is for it to be in a higher resolution, more colours (Imagine it with over 16bit of colour) and the possibility of a widescreen option. And to possibly clear up some cutscene errors, bloody put back that missing cutscene between Act 5 and 6 since Dom already said it was finished and the voices were recorded and possibly up the audio quality, CoMI was mainly 22.05Khz, would be good to hear Music upped to 32Khz at least and Sound FX and Voices up to 48Khz if the master recordings still exist. Sadly it can't be re-recorded as certain voice acors in the cast have died since the game came out.
  • edited June 2009
    Eventually enough excuses will be found for a CMI remake to be necessary and the people who downloaded MI and MI2 off of Wiiware or Xbox and get it if the first two are profitable. Now that I think about EMI they'll spread it over two releases for more $. Makes sense, especially if Tales is popular.

    Remake status'll make us all buy it again too...
  • edited June 2009
    And I must admit that I'll HAPPILY spend my money on the remakes... that is, if they're as well done as the MI1:SE.

    Just imagining the MI2- and MI3-background paintings at high-res makes my mouth watery...
  • edited June 2009
    Shiversul wrote: »
    You cant remake Curse....
    And nobody really cares about Escape

    Im with Hamzie, lets just move on

    I do hope they make Lechucks Revenge special edition though
    I second that :)
  • edited June 2009
    And I must admit that I'll HAPPILY spend my money on the remakes... that is, if they're as well done as the MI1:SE.

    Just imagining the MI2- and MI3-background paintings at high-res makes my mouth watery...


    Yeah, high resolution scans of the original MI2 background drawings would be fantastic.

    http://www.scummbar.com/imageviewer/imageviewer.php?useimage=/games/screenshots/mi2/concept/5.jpg

    http://www.scummbar.com/imageviewer/imageviewer.php?useimage=/games/screenshots/mi2/concept/4.jpg
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