Udvarnoky

Interesting how the reviewer took exception with the decision to leave Chaikin's voicework in Culture Shock alone. I always thought that artifact made the season reminscient of an actual television show, where it isn't uncommon for recasts to occur after the pilot. I guess I understand where the expectation would come from, as Telltale did set a pattern of retroactively applying recasts (Thorn in Bone, Lechuck in Tales of Monkey Island, Biff in Back to the Future), but I always thought it was cool that they respected that a different guy voiced Max for the first episode by not overwriting it.

I remember when the Maniac Mansion Mania project appeared something like fifteen years ago. I lost track after the first handful, but I admired the plucky ingenuity of the whole thing. The idea of enthusiasts carving out this homegrown framework for making bite-sized adventure games using recycled Maniac Mansion themed assets was so weird and cool...sort of a fan game precursor to Telltale. That it is apparently still going on is something to behold. I wonder if any of these "graduates" of the MMM "academy" went on to work in the industry?

Your words are kind. We're about the same age, so I know what you mean about feeling like you found the LucasArts web scene just in time to be too late. I wouldn't hold out any hope for Sam & Max: The Lost Cases happening in this reality, but I do think that all the cool Sam & Max material that this particular team was generating, only for it all to be thrown in the trash, deserved to have more sunlight thrown on it than prior retrospectives have been able to. The idea that the Freelance Police team just sort of moved over to Telltale and got their Sam & Max redemption in short order has been somewhat overstated, or has maybe been too liberally inferred. It is true that the game's producer and lead programmer founded Telltale, and there were definitely members of the Save the World team who also worked on Freelance Police, but there was almost no overlap in the design, writing, art and animation teams. It was, creatively, nearly a total turnover. Which doesn't make Telltale's Sam & Max success any less of a comeback story or something to be grateful for. It's still kind of amazing to think that shortly after LEC decided that a Sam & Max adventure game wasn't viable, some of its leads turned around and proved otherwise. There is redemption and unlikely closure in that borderline surreal chain of events, which is kind of unprecedented. Plus, I really do believe the long term health of Sam & Max as a video game property was better served by this outcome. But I thought it would be a worthy pursuit to go back and highlight the awesome work of this particular team, since that work was utterly tossed away by people who did not value it. I didn't emphasize this to bum people out or to renew old outrages, but in the hopes of giving those folks their proper due -- or anyway as proper as one can manage with the limited media we have. This is why it was important to me to name names at the end. Hopefully, we can get that team list even more complete and accurate in the future.

While I liked Season 1 from the start, I do think there is something to the idea that the game was trapped under these absolutely brutal restraints in presentation. The fact that the remaster is such a revelation despite changing none of the fundamentals goes to show that those fundamentals - design, writing, environment art, animation, voice work - were always pretty strong. They just needed to be released from the chokehold.

While I believe she's done some directing as well, I think Brown's credits are primary as Voice Editor/Producer.

I thought the voice direction in the Special Editions was good. I think the dodgier results stem from the fundamental awkwardness of performing dialog that was written to be read. The exceptionally capable Darragh O'Farrell (The Dig, CMI, EMI and pretty much every voiced LEC game from 1995 onward) is at least credited as Voice Director on those.

Personally, I am not sure Elaine's personality has ever been successfully captured in the later sequels, at least if the objective was to evoke her personality from the first two games. I know CMI Elaine is often seen as something of a "damsel," though I think a lot of that is simply story related rather than an execution problem: she spends most of the game as a statue. To be fair to the CMI team, they had plotted a big moment for her in the climax, but it was embedded in ambitious cutscenes that were the primary casualty of a drained budget toward the end of production. Elaine in EMI may have been a bit of an overcorrection. She is supposed to capable and a comic foil for Guybrush, yes, but so much of the humor in that game is really focused on emasculating Guybrush in a way can often be very funny, but that also makes the spousal dynamic regrettably reminiscent of an American sitcom (i.e. the husband as a whipped nincompoop). It's a tricky balance, because of course much of humor in the Monkey Island games is at Guybrush's expense, but I think EMI trades so hard on Guybrush being this Caribbean-wide punchline that he is practically victimized, and it makes certain ancillary characters come off as less likeable than they ought. There is also a kind of whiplash in that game as a result, because Guybrush is at turns the biggest idiot in the world and the most brilliant, as the story requires. To an extent this has always been true (some of it is probably just an adventure game protagonist thing), but in EMI it's particular noticeable. One thing I do like about EMI is that it really doubles down on Guybrush's hubris. We saw that characteristic spike in Monkey 2, which reintroduces him as a kind of blowhard resting on past laurels. And it makes story sense: Guybrush enjoys a status akin to pirate nobility in EMI, and it feels appropriate to his personality that he would be putting on airs and embracing the privileges of that position, even while it conflicts with his baser, undomesticated nature. I don't think this was a sustainable conceit and am glad he returned to being more of a maurader in TMI, but it was fun to get one game of uncut "hoity toity" Guybrush, cloaked in gubernatorial powers.

Spaff's hard-hitting journalism from E3 2001 to the rescue:

The header art has just been updated. From Eaken: It caused me no hassle, because I simply made Remi do it. Enjoy! Also, @Laserschwert, I am happy to confirm that a "naked" version of the art is forthcoming. I look forward to both being inducted into the venerable poster thread.

New gameplay footage will be unveiled tomorrow at 9am PST, per these guys.

Holy hopping Huey P. Long in a Houston whorehouse! What were we thinking publishing this insane thing? Were there no grown-ups in the room to put a stop to it? Well, it happened and must be dealt with, so here's a discussion thread for that feature we put together to give some awesome Will Eaken artwork a context. Sam & Max 2: we just won't let it rest in peace.

Unless they are recasting Jimmy Two-Teeth as well, Joey Camen's work will continue to be heard throughout the game, so this decision doesn't seem to be a repudiation of a voice actor. The reason for recasting Bosco appears to be the reason Skunkape has given.

That's awesome. I wonder how many other noble heists like that occurred. Bill Tiller made off with a CMI standee, which found its way to the Autumn Moon office during the very brief period of time that the studio had one.

This thread is the internet's best work. Also, here are some photos of the LEC lobby from Mojo's 2001 trip: Were all those poster-sized adverts junked, or tucked away in a closet? Imagine: We could be one short bribe to Craig Derrick away from a proper scan of the Herc's Adventures cover.

From an old interview Mojo conducted with Mark Ferrari: It immediately sprung to mind when this alternate angle was shared, but Ferrari seems to be describing yet a third background related to this location.

The new gameplay footage shown during the Escapist Games Showcase is now available on HappyGiant's Youtube channel:

You mean the new Telltale? Because I don't know that anyone on payroll there did have a hand in making the Sam & Max games, while Skunkape consists of a subset of former Telltale folk who did.

Details here, trailer below. Feel the hype.

This already received front page coverage, but I didn't want this totally overshadowed by the admittedly historic stream with Ron last week. A lengthy conversation with Mike Stemmle about all kinds of games you care about:

Just seeing this, but Purcell eBay'd it many years ago. The site elTee shared contains photos taken from the auction.

It's his right and all, but it's too bad Purcell auctioned off the original art back then. What a pleasant surprise that this manual, surely the second best possible source, found its way to Laser's scanner.

That is fantastic, exciting news.

Now with media: Trip to the Barbican Museum: The Art of Star Wars Escape from Monkey Island Demo Review EMI: A Random Rant EMI PS2 Review Super Bombad Racing Review

Mojo's interview with Gary Winnick is another-timer in my book. It was until now missing not only its images but some of its actual content as well.

My assumption is that's the resolution produced by whatever digital camera Mojo used for those trips.