Jenni

I finally finished Legend of Monkey Island. I liked it, mostly. I really like how it fits snugly in between Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island. I also love the idea of a curse that makes Guybrush, and presumably Elaine in future chapters, relive memories of past adventures that create a skewed version of whatever island is being remembered. That accounts for the appearance of Murray. I really loved Murray in this one, especially after he gets a body. The animators deserve a raise for Murray's walking animation alone. As for the cursed captain, I hope it's not just a way to mash franchises up that is forgotten next chapter. If you talk to him after you pick up Murray, he remembers the Sea of Thieves and complains that no one believes him. That would mean he's real and somehow made it to Melee Island but got stuck up on the wall by the three pirates. There's a lot of potential for story there and I hope Rare doesn't squander it. The Pirate Lord invited Guybrush and Elaine to honeymoon in the Sea of Thieves but at the end of the chapter, it's revealed LeChuck seeks his power and impersonates him to dupe the pirates in the Sea of Thieves. Presumably, it's LeChuck that invited them there, which would make perfect sense for him. But if he's real, then hopefully they explain how he's there and not stuck in ice, considering the timeline. I also thought the puzzles were fun. I liked how they integrated the Sea of Thieves mechanics into the puzzles too. The sword, tankard, and lantern all were used fantastically. The crane puzzle, especially, was great. It was a head-scratcher, especially when the crane wouldn't lift it. I was stuck for a while before I jumped into the water to see what was going on and saw the frayed ropes. That puzzle was something that felt like it could have been in the series proper. The music was also used well, with the Monkey Island theme popping up as you approached Melee, the familiar SCUMM Bar music that faded out in volume as you got further away from the bar, and Walt playing the skeleton ship theme on his violin. Bonus points for the name Walt, too. But there were things I really didn't like. Hunting for pieces of eight was tedious and not fun at all. At the end of the chapter, I searched all around for 200 pieces of eight so I could buy the history book. Corina the Voodoo Lady kept saying I still had to do more on Melee Island, but eventually, I just gave up and told her I wanted to leave with only 196 pieces of eight collected. The walk up and down the hill to get to the lookout and back wasn't fun, and he didn't have enough pieces of eight for the trouble. I kept jumping off early on the path down and losing health. Jumping down and getting hurt was worth it though, because it cut down on all the tedious walking. I really hope the next chapter ditches the money collecting and long walks because it felt like artificially extending the time required to finish the chapter. I like the idea, but the execution is somewhat lacking so far.

I'd definitely be willing to buy some of these for the games I own without big boxes. Do you know a good printing company that can manufacture these big boxes? I'd love to get some made for older consoles I own like the CoCo. There are so few good boxes left in the wild since the originals were extremely flimsy and poorly made.

couple fun facts, just for the heck of it: All versions of Maniac Mansion past the first Apple II/C64 version are technically censored. At the ending where Fred tells Dave "don't be a tuna head", in the first version Fred tells Dave "don't be an ****." (IIRC the swear in question was 'asshole'). That surprised the crap out of me when I first played it. The keypad for the steel door looks like it was removed in the NES versions but it was actually made small and transparent. It's hard to find, but possible - and, yes - entering the wrong key code does blow the house up. In the NES versions you can enter 0000 for the code on the lab door, skipping the arcade section. I use that when I feel like playing Maniac Mansion so I can do a play through of around 5 minutes - making the game a fun diversion at times when I get bored.

At least the 256 color DOS versions of the Monkey Island games are able to be extracted from the special editions. I don't really care one way or the other about the Star Wars Special Editions, but it is a shame that the original theatrical cut isn't available for those who do care . Is not having any opinion about the Star Wars Special Editions an unpopular opinion? 😛

I'm not sure why you think ScummVM isn't interested in supporting high res asset replacement. The Grim Fandango Deluxe forum is even hosted by ScummVM. Edit: Just noticed you were mentioning the PS2 port, which is unsupported. It's not a matter of plugging the PS2 version files into the code to get the game working (which IIRC is what ScummVM does, hence the crash), as it is completely unsupported. There's a bunch of differences specific to the PS2 version which would require a coder who owns the game, has enough free time, and who knows PlayStation 2 disassembly to work on it. That's a tall order. Without that coder, it's not possible to support the PS2 version, and no amount of complaining is going to help. There's a lot of alternate platforms of games that aren't supported. It's not because we don't want to, but because it has code that requires someone with knowledge of the platform and free time to do it. That being said, the Windows version works great. I played through the Windows version on three different systems with three different operating systems (Mac Mini running macOS, MacBook running Windows with Bootcamp, and a Chromebook running Chrome OS) and I was able to play through the whole game without problems. If you have problems, make sure you have all the files listed on our Wiki, including renaming the files to the proper names, etc. Make sure you have the latest stable version of ScummVM. Try running the game with all three of the different display settings (OpenGL, OpenGL with shaders, or software). If all of these didn't help, make sure you have all of the most recent drivers for your video card. If you tried all of that and it still crashes, leave a report on our issue tracker.

Skunkape posted on Twitter that there is a retail Switch version of Save the World remastered at Best Buy with a retail-exclusive cover (and Jason posted it as Mojo news, which is where I found out about it). I had to dust off my Best Buy credit card as the completionist in me needed to get one. '

Seeing as this is Japan, they might have just changed it for cultural reasons. The Japanese have always viewed themselves as a homogeneous country, with very little ethnic diversity. It's not true, but most of the immigrants in Japan are Asian, so the myth has always permeated. Because of that, some of the immigrants from other Asian countries still do pretend to be completely Japanese to avoid bullying. There's a xenophobic atmosphere, especially for African-descended people, where they actually face fear similar to Western nations prior to the mid to end of the 20th century. A lot of Japanese people there actually think that they are lesser, or even dirty because of the color of their skin. In addition, there has always been a view that ivory white skin is a goal to achieve, especially for women. So, even now, you have a huge market for skin bleach and you still can see women cover up on beaches because they don't want to get a tan. This too is improving somewhat, but the Japanese media and culture in general still enforce the toxic notion that only the women with an ivory complexion are desirable. It's getting better this century, as the first Japanese and African-American-descended woman won a beauty contest for the first time in 2015. Although, she still faces discrimination where even though she was born in Japan and speaks Japanese fluently with a Kansai accent, she still has to deal with reporters asking her what she feels about the Japanese, as though she isn't Japanese herself.

Ooh, I like the look of that Sam & Max VR big box! I actually already have Sam & Max This Time It's Virtual digitally for PlayStation 4 but I haven't played it yet because all of my cables for my PSVR headset are scattered around. That big box looks awesome, but with Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space coming out on Limited Run this month too I don't know if I can afford to buy all of this awesomeness. Sam & Max VR is a four-week pre-order though, which will bring it into June before it closes. I might be able to squeeze my bankbook a bit to get both. I'm mad I missed out on the Monkey Island Anthology (which is listed on eBay for $500 or more), so I really don't want to feel the same way about these.

I picked up the first season for PC and Switch, and it was glorious. I'll be picking up the second season too - probably on both platforms, but definitely on the Switch. The thing I liked about the original mini CD was that not only was it shaped like a record, but it had a record groove noise on the music as well. I thought that was a fun touch.

Skunkape does exactly this. It offers the original version as free DLC.

I got the PC Big Box, the Switch Big Box, the Switch 3-game case holder and a regular Switch version of the game to go in the holder. I noticed that the PC Big Box and the Switch Big Box were different as the Switch one had the Nintendo Switch logo on it. I only opened the PC Big Box, so I hadn't seen that it was a slipcase. That's a great compromise. I also have the Thimbleweed Park Big Box from Limited Run and that one doesn't have the Switch logo on it and doesn't have a Switch logo on the top either. I wonder if Nintendo made a fuss about the Thimbleweed Park box causing them to be sticklers with this one. I actually like the 'feelies' in the case file better than the original Telltale ones. They are made with sturdier material yet look the same. I might do a video comparing the two at some point (although I'll have to do a bit of improvisation on two of them as I lost the original Bosco Tech napkin and my sister's puppy ate my original Ted E Bear magnet).

I recently picked up something that I highly doubt anyone else here has, as I'm probably the only person crazy enough to do so. They are Pogo (bootleg Lego) figures of the Telltale versions of Bane, Batman, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, The Joker (and John Doe), Mr. Freeze, and The Riddler. I ordered them back in November, and they finally arrived this month (since they shipped from China). I wasn't sure what to expect, since I read that Lego bootlegs by Pogo can vary hugely in quality from awful to just as good as the Lego figures. Now that they've arrived, I can happily report that the Telltale figures are firmly in the latter camp. Surprisingly, Pogo Batman's cape is actually of sturdier material than that of the official Lego Batman figure in the Lego Dimensions starter pack. I plopped down $1-$2 a pop on these bootleg figures, but I feel I got my money's worth. I mean, they came in plastic bags and likely won't gain anything in value since they're bootlegs, but the figures are actually really well made.

I created a Monkey Island page in 1997 (the Monkey Island Mega Monkey page) that was on the webring, The first iteration had a blue sky background and swinging Monkey gifs from Monkey Island 2. It was hosted on my computer through the dyn.dns service. I was lucky to live in the Time Warner Road Runner (then called Line Runner) testing area so my parents got high speed cable internet way back in 1995.

I loved the webrings. My favorite was a site called SCUMM, which simply had a Monkey Island parody of the Cheers theme song. I've thought about doing a video parody of that song, but I don't know who I would credit.

The Double Fine Discord invite is here.