ATMcashpoint

I just tested it in the MI2 DOS floppy release. Apparently Shift+F9 lets you record demo files (though you'd have to include the .rec file extension in the names you give them, like the "demo.rec" file used in the MI2 rolling demo), but Shift+10 doesn't allow playback. Still, it's pretty surprising that functionality was left in at all.

It might be a debug feature that somehow got mentioned in the keyboard shortcuts on HOL even after being dummied out of hte published game. SCUMM had the ability to "record" gameplay sessions and write the logs to files for playback on other computers. The only time this was used in anything published was, oddly enough, in the MI2 DOS rolling demo, which is also why ScummVM doesn't play the demo properly and treats it like an interactive game.

That's exactly what it is. It happens on the screens where the "Look at" command is replaced by the "Touch" verb instead. It's a really cool little thing.

Some of the colorization for the various swordfighting pirates may have been broken as well. They have different colors for their shirts, bandannas and trousers in the floppy versions, but they all have the same outfit colors in the CD version. That probably applies to the random pirates walking around Melee Town as well.

Cordoning off the role in the hopes of getting Earl Boen back seems likely as I remember hearing the press builds of Tales episode 1 had a different voice for Elaine that was later replaced with Alexandra Boyd. Adam Harrington's voice might have been similarly intended as a placeholder but made it into the initially published version (and now the version sold online, since Telltale never updated the online downloads and that's what's being sold digitally currently). Also, in Easy mode of MI2, you can just go down the back left passageway in LeChuck's fortress and arrive straight at the office door. No bone pushing required. The original CD release of MI2 dummied out both the copy protection and Lite mode, since the copy protection and the mode choice were both done on same screen. The SE reused this code and dummied out Lite mode, even though the lines for it were recorded and are in the voice files.

I never finished MI2 on hard mode for many years growing up, because our Macintosh computer was so slow that you could bang the trash cans behind Elaine's mansion and leave the screen before the cook ever showed up. We had the hint book, but I didn't realize for years that you had to wait for the cook to appear before walking off the screen. As for easy mode, probably the biggest change, besides Largo's folded dress shirt as Jake mentioned, is that Guybrush escapes the acid pit by asking Wally to pee on the candle.

Personally speaking, MI2 Guybrush always felt like a lot more of a jerk to me than MI1 Guybrush. I do wonder if this was due to the preponderating influence of Tim Schafer, since for much of MI2's development Dave Grossman was off working with Noah Falstein on an early version of The DIG.

Fascinating! That would make sense, though it's certainly strange. Thanks for looking into it!

Scratch that, I checked my Amiga version of MI2 in an emulator and you're absolutely right! Elaine doesn't mention the "voodoo SPELL" line, and the scene just cuts immediately to black. It matches the video pretty well. Interesting! Since the Amiga version also has the fish in the woodcutter's shop that was removed before the PC version shipped, I wonder if Elaine's line being added was a late change to the PC version... perhaps intended to shed light on what the intended interpretation of the ending was?

That's bizarre. I've played the Amiga version and never saw that myself. It honestly looks like a jump cut in the video where some data was maybe lost, rather than a difference in the game itself, because I distinctly remember the scene fading out after Elaine finishes speaking.

It was included in MI2 at the time of the rolling demo, according to demo datafiles. However, at that point, besides the concrete pit with the treasure chest, there was no ending in place - not even the frame story from the intro. So the underground tunnels from the ending hadn't been implemented yet. Once those were added, the giant underground tunnel room beneath Phatt Island might have been an easy and logical cut for disk space reasons. (This also raises the question of whether waiting at the acid pit in MI2 was originally a genuine "kill Guybrush" Easter Egg like drowning in MI1, before the frame story was added and Guybrush naturally couldn't die during it.)

The FM Towns version of didn't have the copy protection because the copy protection there was CD-based - the other FM Towns games don't have copy protection either, though I don't know of any other cases where the copy protection room was removed entirely. And in Zak McKracken the keypad for the Exit Visa Code was still rendered into VGA in the resource files (it shares a room with the Lotto keypad). The VGA DOS version of Indy Last Crusade not having it is a bit more odd, as that game came on floppy disks. And it wasn't necessarily just a matter of there not being VGA art done for the FM Towns version and usable for the VGA DOS release, as the VGA DOS and FM Towns versions of Last Crusade have different art assets in several minor instances. Plus, we know in some instances there was VGA art based directly on the original EGA art files even when it wasn't necessarily used in the shipped game. In the FM Towns version of LOOM, for instance, the cages in Mandible's tower are closed, based on EGA art that appeared in the pre-release demo but not in the published game, where they're always open. Presumably the cages were all going to be "openable" objects at one point (and then set to "open" when Mandible tears open the Pattern), but they were made always open to save disk space. And then the FM Towns version screwed up by making them always closed, when the Opening Draft should affect them as well. Maybe there was a space issue with squeezing the VGA version of Indy Last Crusade onto three floppy disks and they opted to cut the copy protection?

I should also point out there's no VGA version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that has the copy protection included - the VGA DOS version and the FM Towns version both shipped without the room used for the copy protection in the EGA version (92.LFL).

I will say that, while I generally like the remasters and understand the reasons for changing Bosco's voice actor, I thought rewriting Bosco's dialogue in the Season 1 remaster crossed a line of revisionism that was better left un-crossed. I was glad Skunkape avoided that in the Season 2 remaster.

RIP Kevin Blackton. ☹️ And I'm sad that Earl Boen isn't coming back, but I'm glad they asked him and hopefully they can find somebody to fill his seven-league pirate boots.

Of course, he also mentioned IIRC in that very same interview that his ideas for MI3 involved Guybrush in Hell... I wonder if RtMI will use that or if it's going to be changed due to Tales using that idea in some fashion?

An excellent thread. I commend your painstaking research into these details! Well done.

Neat!

I think some of the motorcycle animations in Full Throttle were 3D models exported as 2D sprites without paintovers. Some of the 3D animations probably did have 2D paintovers, though.

I wasn't talking about using the technique of exporting 3D models to 2D sprites necessarily, just the fact that 3D models were used in the MI2 SE and people didn't complain about that aspect of the art style. People have complained about some of the character designs, but the MI2 SE Guybrush design in particular draws a lot more praise than criticism, and that's probably the most noticeable 3D model.

I think it might be relevant to this discussion that the MI2 SE used 3D models exported as 2D character sprites for a lot of the art - I think Guybrush's sprite was done that way, for instance.

Speaking of CMI, Jonathan Ackley recently joined Twitter and just posted a couple of interesting facts: "Curse of Monkey Island trivia: In our first design, the Hotel on Blood Island was called the "Flamingo." A character called Matchstick McGee was going to set it on fire and the 'O' was going to fall off the sign." "We had difficulty finding the voice for Guybrush in #TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland. Finally, our director came to us and said, "I have one more guy. But he keeps saying, 'You don't understand. I AM Guybrush Threepwood!'" (He's referring to Dominic Armato, naturally. ) He also posted other info, including a mention that he worked on several versions of The DIG, which I still find interesting even though I no longer believe in the Secret Project theories I used to espouse. The history of LucasArts is always fascinating to me.

IIRC all the US versions of the original Dial-A-Pirate codewheels that I have are cut like the ones from the Anthology, with the front layer showing the pirate faces from the nose downwards. I've never seen one with it cut from the chin downwards. Interesting. Is that a UK/US difference? And what do they mean by "the Sol original"?

The two-part boxes were last used for Full Throttle, I believe (in landscape format in that case). The DIG, CMI, Grim Fandango, and EMI didn't have them. However, in the US at least, they went all the way back to Zak McKracken and some of the re-releases of Maniac Mansion. Did the UK releases of those games always use single-part boxes that opened from the top? Interesting.

Interesting! I played through the DVD version of Tales recently and noticed that Alexandra Boyd's dialogue as Elaine in Episode 2 was a lot cleaner and less compressed than I remember it being in the original episodic release. If Limited Run Games is using the original web-based versions of the episodes, I'd expect that Episode 2 would have the original, heavily compressed versions of Elaine's dialogue lines as well.