Zaxx
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Posts posted by Zaxx
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On 6/10/2022 at 11:27 AM, Scummbuddy said:
@ZaxxHave you considered buying a PlayStation 2 and EMI on disc?
I actually have a copy but to be honest I don't like the PS2 port on a technical level. It reads the disk a lot which results in a lot of stutter so it's not a pleasant experience to play (and because of the way how PS2 emulation works you can't really correct this behavior through emulation). That's part of why ScummVM taking care of EfMI support along with the PS2 version (which runs on ScummVM btw., it just crashes almost instantly) would matter a lot in improving the experience.
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On 6/10/2022 at 11:32 AM, OzzieMonkey said:
For what it's worth, I find that enabling vsync and limiting your framerate helps keep EMI stable.
Well, to add to that and to find a purpose to this thread:
- You pretty much need this to run the game well if you're not using the digital versions:
https://quickandeasysoftware.net/software/emi-launcher
- Vsync should be on and you should lock your fps 60 fps and preferably use 60 Hz (or just use half refresh rate vsync along with a 60 fps lock at 120 Hz, that's what I recommend but I know it might be a bit too technical for the avarage user)
- dgVoodoo2 is a must, it prevents crashes and provides mostly authentic DirectX8 emulation:
http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/
With dgVoodoo2 you can also increase the render resolution and add some antialiasing without messing up the scaling of the 2D elements like fonts, menus etc.
As a result the game stops looking awful on your modern monitor because it's no longer running at 640x480 so the character models actually look like how the artists intended:
The downside is that you have to set shadows to low since dgVoodoo2 has problems rendering them correctly. Hopefully that gets fixed in a later version and then we won't have a reason to care about ScummVM not caring.
Edit: Also Monkey 4 is best played with a controller nowadays. The PS2 controller layout is pretty great so based on that you can set up a nice control scheme in Joy2Key, XPadder or any other "keyboard to controller" mapper program. Just don't use the game's built in joystick support since it doesn't work well with modern controllers. Oh and change the character movement mode to "camera relative", that will get rid of the tank controls and Guybrush will move in the direction you push the analog stick in.
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On 6/10/2022 at 1:27 PM, Jake said:
tl;dr instead of jumping straight to complaining to someone’s face, first you could have just asked about your specific issue, but you felt entitled, and complaining to someone’s face feels way better when you’re worked up, so you decided to be rude instead.
I wasn't rude towards anyone therefore I disregard your analysis. I just voiced an opinion on ScummVM not really caring about Monkey 4, it's my honest "non-frustrated" opinion, I won't dress it up just so that it sounds nicer. Of course I'm grateful that ScummVM exists but there is nothing that explains why Monkey 4 has to be the "bugged" one on the compatibility list for years now. They don't care about it, almost nothing happened to it since ResidualVM got folded into ScummVM, it's clear as daylight that nobody from the current contributors gives a flying frak about it.
And no, this didn't need its own thread, I didn't want this to be a thing to react to but hey, at least you got your Sermon on the Mount even if in a bit misguided way.
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1 hour ago, AndywinXp said:
I had a pretty big rant written here, where I explained once again that everything in ScummVM is *volunteer work* and if you're not okay with the direction it's currently taking you can do what I did and become a team member yourself, but even though I'm sick of the project getting crapped on for seemingly no good reason at all, I'd say this is not the place for this kind of discussions
Keep in mind that I intentionally started my comment with "ScummVM is great", literally the only thing I "don't like" about it is the fact that Escape is not getting the attention it deserves at all. Don't take one comment and turn it into something that it isn't and at the end of the day I'm perfectly fine with using dgVoodoo2 or PCSX2 for the PS2 port.
As for the "volunteer work" thing: I actually hate that argument for any kind of project. The fact that something is available for free and is developed by volunteers sure is a thing to consider but I see people use that as a shield against any kind of criticism which is simply not healthy. Can I run Escape From Monkey Island on ScummVM? I can't. Will me shutting up about that because I'm grateful to the work of volunteers solve that issue? No but complaining about it might.
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Oh come on no RtMI trailer? Well at least Card Shark continues to look awesome.
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5 hours ago, Udvarnoky said:
Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't EMI already still work natively on modern Windows machines?
Well, not on my Windows machine, without using dgVoodoo2 I get lots of crashes.
Anyway okay, so this is Chocolate Doom for SCUMM which means I'm not the target audience at all and that's fine, it just you know, would have been great to get a few new features out of this. ScummVM is great but they really don't seem to be interested in supporting high res asset replacement and when it comes to the GRIME games sure, let's wait another decade on that so maybe in 2032 Monkey4 won't instantly crash while you can play low tier games like Elvira Mistress of the Dark just fine on it. You know, I can take a hint, they absolutely do not care about supporting Monkey4 or Grim. It's never happening so there should be an alternative that actually gets shit done.
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7 hours ago, Thrik said:
There is precedence for DREAMM supporting modified versions of games, such as Ultimate Talkie, which Aaron may or may not be willing to extend to other games. I guess the point is that it isn’t DREAMM itself doing or facilitating any sort of enhancement — it’s just running the games.
On that note the only thing I'd like to see being supported is you know, the missing one: EFMI. Nowadays running it got a lot easier thanks to dgVoodoo2 (and you can even increase the game's resolution with it without breaking anything so you get nice, smooth, crisp MI4, the way it's meant to be played) but the shadow rendering is a bit broken with it so it's not a perfect solution.
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It's great that RtMI will most likely have its gameplay debut in one of those crazy Devolver videos. Gotta love the trailer:
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Yeah, I wanted to post a scaling related question too but Groggoccino already did so I have only one thing: are there plans to support high res asset replacement? Some emulators are doing wonders with AI upscaled texture packs.
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Also: the Sea of Thieves Monkey Island theme is pretty great
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40 minutes ago, Niemandswasser said:
He voiced Stan in Tales.
And he was also in Vampyre Story, Bill Tiller's beautiful but ill fated point and click that I love.
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On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 PM, LUAbar said:
Sorry but I have no doubts at this point, Monkey Island 3a never existed and Ron’s been lying to us all along. Let us compare some of his statements through the years.
I'm sorry but I think that you misunderstood something in those quotes if you managed to come to this conclusion. Planning a trilogy doesn't mean that you have a set ending in mind nor that you even have any idea of what the ending will be.
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3 hours ago, Trapezzoid said:
The old games are written to be read, tbh. The delivery and timing in your imagination is better than any voice acting.
I think a lot has to do with the way you first encounter something tbh. As someone who first encountered Monkey Island by playing the demo of CMI on some long lost CD I got from a magazine I always missed the voice acting from the first two games. CMI and Escape affected my experience with the first two games, I always imagined Guybrush having Dominic's voice so I think that it's very important that those performances are in the remaster and I still remember just how good it felt when I first heard that what I only imagined before the remasters was real. That really is a way to reach a new audience, a lot more than just a graphical facelift would be and if the voices meet your expectations then I think they are perfect.
I can imagine how not agreeing with a performance could feel like though. When I was a small child I played a few Humongous games and among those was Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise which I played a lot for some reason (I guess I really liked how everything animates when you click on it in that game). That game had voice acting but I played on a crappy computer that didn't have a sound card in it so I just never heard Fatty Bear speak until seeing that game in some random Youtube video as an adult... and his voice wasn't at all how he sounded like in my head. He doesn't sound like a bear at all, come on!
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Oh, RPS just did a nice little write up on SoMI SE:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rps-time-capsule-the-games-worth-saving-from-2009
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2 hours ago, KestrelPi said:
TOP NOTCH reply to my tweet about this.
All that image is missing is a barely visible, pixelated flying saucer in the background and it's 10/10.
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57 minutes ago, Groggoccino said:
I don't consider Stan an outdated stereotype at all. If anything, I'd argue that he's more current than he's ever been. The world has been completely engulfed by marketing, self-promotion, ever-changing "personal brands" and serial entrepreneurialism.
I've actually lost track of how many real-life Stans I've run into in recent times.
I basically have the same argument for why he's outdated.
That kind of annoying person would be the "influencer", the life style coach or the fitness guru now, not the used car salesman, right? Compared to those people Stan is just a hard working citizen doing the hustle.
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Oh and btw I'd be absolutely fine with Stan not being in the game since I don't believe in the "everyone has to be in every installment for it to be legit" thing and I think that's what hurt him in Escape. If you remember Stan is in Escape, he does absolutely nothing and serves no purpose but he's in Escape... because he has to be in Monkey Island, right? It's part of the IP, right? No, if someone has nothing to do with the story then leave that character out.
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4 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:
There’s no reason Guybrush can’t talk to Stan in his coffin and decide to leave him there. There’s no reason Stan can’t be let out of his coffin only to be trapped again at the end of the game.
When we thought the game might be set in Hell (per the I final MI3 plan) it also would have made sense that Stan was down there, after dying in his coffin. But was rejected by Hell for being too annoying (I like this idea).
There’s so many ways a character and start in a location and end in the same location.
Yeah when Ron posted the "Guybrush is in hell chashing demon LeChuck and Stan's there too" thing that really read like he's supposed to die in the coffin but I dunno, that may be too dark even for MI2 Guybrush.
Him getting let out of the coffin only to be trapped again at the end on the other hand feels really forced. The way I see it Stan is kind of an old, outdated archetype, the character that's the most likely to get cut from a modern game that's supposed to be full of new characters.
Or it's the monkey.
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Well Stan should be in the coffin, right?
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3 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:
Honestly, right now as a grown man I can't understand how I found that bit even remotely disappointing, but I understand that there's a subtle difference between impersonating someone who doesn't know what they're going through or whether they'll survive, and someone who's telling someone else what they went through (thus definitely survived to tell).
Which is why the fact that you can die in LeChuck's fortress only for the death scene to be followed by Elaine voicing her disbelief is genius.
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1 hour ago, Spiketheclown said:
Regarding the MI2 ending, I've always felt like it was some combo between "child's fantasy" and "magic spell". My own theory is that Guybrush is really a kid in the Big Whoop amusement park, but the park is a magical place which made Guybrush's pirate fantasy a reality, and turned his bully elder brother into his archenemy because this is how Guybrush viewed him.
So Big Whoop is like Silent Hll, got it.
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7 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:
Thinking about it, while it could be that the Secret of Monkey Island is barely mentioned in MI2 because it's trivial and unimportant, it could also be that either:
- The revelations of MI2 so thoroughly trump it that it kinda seems pointless to address it at that stage
- The Secret of Monkey Island over the course of development morphed into something much bigger than just Monkey Island, and is related to the whole layers of reality stuff in a way that means it just doesn't quite make sense to refer to it as 'the secret of monkey island' so they stopped using those words for it. Essentially, Big Whoop is an expanded version of the secret, perhaps.
- Since Monkey Island ostensibly isn't featured in MI2, it just didn't make any sense to talk about its secret much in that game.
I always thought that the reason why MI2 doesn't care about the secret is because - contrary to all the other games in the franchise - in MI2 the characters have clearly moved on. Guybrush became a pirate and is looking for other adventures (like growing a beard!), he's no longer with Elaine though he's still in love with her, Elaine governs a different island etc. Apart from the first game (because there everything was new) it's the only story where the characters aren't treated as they were frozen in time, they can change, have new backstories that are revealed etc.
Big Whoop is the reason why the secret comes back into the story, the revelation that Dinky Island and Big Whoop are related to Monkey Island is kind of the thing that brings back that whole thing.
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8 hours ago, KestrelPi said:
So why is it there? Was it from some leftover plot point that got dropped and they forgot to get rid of the line? Was it hinting at some direction they already wanted to take the story in in 2? Was it there for no apparent reason?
I have two guesses:
- Considering that Monkey Island 2 was made right after the first one without anyone looking at or even waiting for SoMI's sales figures it's very possible that Ron had a vague idea of where to take this whole thing.
- It was the early 90s when the idea of "something dark is lurking beneath the pleasant surface" was a very popular concept. It's the Blue Velvet opening scene:
And really Twin Peaks was the biggest thing ever in television when MI2 was made, for example it's kind of hard not to notice at least signs of inspiration when comparing Cooper's dreams with MI2's bone dance scene. It was a thing people did back then so why not have it an adventure game?
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I somehow still hope that RMI explores the idea that Hell is under Monkey Island simply because that would mean that PIrate Doom is canon.
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Unpopular opinions
in General Discussion
Posted
I think that Curse is a great game in a vacuum and it also might be the best MI when it comes to puzzle design... but it's a cluelessly terrible sequel to the first two games. It was always fascinating to me how CoMI rids MI of a few layers when it comes to its story (by mainly how it deals with MI2's ending) and how it tries to revert the characters to a "favorable from a marketing point of view" default state.
For example Guybrush and Elaine are just together now again even though the problems of their relationship weren't resolved in the last game. But it's a Disney movie now, you can't have relationship issues in a Disney movie. And then you get all the returning characters, the unapologetic callbacks to the previous games, it just feels like the safe Hollywood sequel where everyone just acts very "marketable"... and that's the worst direction imaginable if you want to make something interesting.
On the other hand it's a testament to the puzzle design, the art direction and the voice acting work that everything I just talked about kinda never bothered me.