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Lagomorph01

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Posts posted by Lagomorph01

    Thimbleweed Park - Replay... WTF?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Whoa! I really didn't expect this! Good for you for trying it again, and great for you that you're able to let loose on something that you dearly believed (and sharing it!)

     

    I'm a bit jealous of you, because you backed the game! I didn't, because back then every aging game developer suddenly went to Kickstarter because of the Double Fine Adventure succes. (I did back Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded though... boy, did I pick the WRONG game to back.)

     

    Anyway, it's great to see you turn around like this! And I'm thankful that you have another great game to add to your library. Kudo's to you!

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    50 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

     

    (Note: I've copy-pasted this quote from Marius' Details of Monkey Island thread, because I'd like to keep that one a thread of full blown positivity)

     

    I guess it's really maddening if you have some inside knowledge and can't share it, especially when people are talking about that exact thing and visibly lack the knowledge that you have. 😞

     

    I'm not clobbering Disney at the moment, they've made a new Monkey Island possible and they have a B rating on the Yale/Russia list after all (I will, however, clobber them if they interfere with the excellent Devolver/gog.com relationship and/or will only sell a PC version of ReMI through a company with an F rating. But enough of the politics stuff).

     

    But Disney is huge, Disney holds innumerable monopolies, every employee has an infinite number of higher-ups with quite different ideas about how things are done. What mere opinion prevails in the end is a game of chance, and some decisions will necessarily feel absurd and damaging to both the individual franchise as well as Disney as a whole.

     

    Somebody, somewhere, at Disney has made the decision to get rid of the original "Adventures in Babysitting" artwork by Drew Struzan by just throwing it out with the trash. Somebody then made the decision to place it lowest in a pile, face down in a puddle of water. But some Disney employee also made the decision to call the artist and bring the ruined artwork back to him, free of charge.

     

    Good guys, bad guys. I don't know, I just hate it when companies get so big that the left hand never knows what the right does. Some will always be there for the money. Others still have dreams, principles and compassion. 🤷‍♂️

     

     

    I think Disney is one of the scariest company's at the moment. The monopoly they hold over media and the hypocrisy with which they treat certain subjects is something that I just cannot get behind, so I rarely endorse them.

    However, in rare circumstances this can be a positive thing, as I doubt the making of a new Monkey Island would have been made possible if it weren't for Disney. Hooray for the person that took that decision.

    However one right does not undo all the wrongs that are done just for the sake of making money.

    • Like 2

    How to play Escape from Monkey Island on Mac

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    48 minutes ago, Thrik said:

    Generally speaking, the nuclear solution is to use Windows. If you have an Intel Mac you can install Windows as a secondary boot drive.

     

    With the newer M1-based Macs you can only run Windows using Parallels, which is also an option for Intel Macs. This runs an entire version of Windows within macOS and is very effective, especially for older games where performance is less of an issue.

     

    There is also Crossover, which uses WINE to translate Windows code to Mac. However this is less reliable and tends to be very game-specific in terms of how well it works.

     

    So far using Parallels I’ve played Broken Sword, the Monkey Island SEs, Planet Coaster, Surviving Mars, and even ran DREAMM to play MI1 EGA.

     

    This is all quite general. For your use case specifically (EMI) you might find a more specific solution. 

     

    Now the bad news. As with all things Mac, these apps are a bit pricey.

    Thanks for the info! Parallels sounds great, it's just a bit pricey for just one game though. (especially for what is in my opinion the worst of the Monkey Island series.)

    I also use my laptop for work, and I'm not much of a programmer, so the easier it is to use, the better.

    How to play Escape from Monkey Island on Mac

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hi everyone! In the wait for Return to Monkey Island, I'm replaying all the previous games in the series.

    Since my last brush with the series, I have switched from PC to Mac for work related purposes, and I'm glad to say that ScummVM has been great for allowing me to run the classics on that platform.

    However, I have now landed on Escape from Monkey Island, but I think it might be the most difficult one yet, as it's not really supported on the system and ScummVM lists it as 'bugged'.

    I've heard ResidualVM does the job, but that it's not particularly flawless and might even be buggy.

     

    My question: What's the best way to enjoy Escape from Monkey Island on mac? Is it ResidualVM? Or are there other ways?

    Will playing the PS2 version with an emulator provide a better experience? And is the PS2 version superior or inferior in any way to the PC version?

     

    Please tell me your experiences, if you have any.

    Details of Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    13 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

     

    The decisions that they make about their IP can be maddening. A few stories I could tell that I can't share online. But it makes zero sense sometimes.

    I think he means that using the old logo is a Disney decision. When Tales was made, Disney hadn't acquired Lucasfilm yet.

    Unpopular opinions

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    19 hours ago, BillyCheers said:

    Totally agree. For me, the biggest cringe in the voice actings. It just sounds like she tried a first simple read and they went "Perfect, we got it, next line, please!". Too bad it's the very beginning of that game... 

    This reminds me of something my mentor in voice acting once said. When he did the dutch dub of Ducktales (1987), he said the director chose not to start with the first episodes of the series, because you only have one chance to make a first impression. He wanted the actors to already feel comfortable in their roles for the first episodes. It's not as bad if the line reading is a little less consistent further on in the production, because the audience will already know the character well enough to look past this.

    I can imagine working on an adventure game can work the same way. Start with the less important lines that aren't in the beginning or ending of the game.

    • Like 2

    Unpopular opinions

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lagomorph01

    2 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

    To everyone: just as an exercise, what actor or performance from tv or film most matches the Elaine you have in your head? Maybe it's just because of the name, but the one that immediately jumped to mind for me is Elaine in Seinfeld!

    Elaine from Seinfeld is a no-no for me, even though I'm a huge fan of the show. She's way too self centered and petty for MI Elaine though.

    Since we're in sitcom territory, how about Jane Leeves in Frasier? She and Niles develop a similar relationship! And she has the accent down!

     

    • Like 1

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I think Elaine's personality can be perfectly clear when you've played MI1 and MI2. She doesn't get a lot of screen time, but that doesn't mean her character isn't fleshed out. The few lines she gets actually really ground her character as a tough, self made woman who can charm a man as well as beat him (no, not literally beat him, EMI) in a battle of wits.

    When you do a study on her, which is the job of any writer, director and actor, it can also be deduced that she has trouble finding a relationship, with maybe a pattern of falling for someone weaker than she is. Maybe the identification with being an authority figure gives her the need to find someone who's less masculine, but after a while she learns that those men are just too sweet (haven't we all been there?), and that's the reason she remained single all those years.

    Of course the second paraphrase isn't canon per se, but for an actor it's important to build a character profile of someone on which to base a performance on. This way the things she says get weight, and that's how an interesting performance developes. Apart from maybe Tales, which I keep saying I definitely need to play again, this has never really rung true for me in Elaine's voice acting. (Although in CMI she didn't really get a chance to do so.)

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    46 minutes ago, Marius said:

    To me her love for Guybrush in Curse doesn't feel like lazy writing though, it just sounds like the game skipped a whole chapter where the two (and we) learn why they like like each other.

    This sums my feelings up perfectly. I'm replaying Curse at the moment, and coming from MI2 it just happens way too soon. The relationship hasn't had time to breathe, evolve... I do however stand by Ron's opinion that they never should've gotten married, but the way they did is not lazily written... (although it is considerably hampered by budgetary reasons, that's gotta be the cheapest wedding ever...)

    • Like 2

    Unpopular opinions

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

    There's never been an Elaine voice I've truly been happy with.

     

    I think Alexandra Boyd does a good job, and I think she suited the version of Elaine in Curse quite well. But the line reans in the first two games just aren't quite how I imagined them in my head. They feel a bit overwrought to me, I always imagined elaine as sorta ... cool? Like, too cool and capable for Guybrush, and I don't think that's come through in any version of Elaine so far.

    It's not Boyd's fault, she played the version of the character that was in CMI, and she did the best she could with what was in 1 and 2, but ultimately I think it's not the voice of the worldly, capable character (with a slightly soft side) that I want Elaine to be.

    I think the line reads in SE1 and SE2 have to do with bad direction really. Although Boyd's Elaine isn't really how I imagined her to sound when I first played MI1 and 2 either. To me she never sounded like she really 'got' the character. Although I'd have to listen to her Tales performance again, I think that might actually be her best work in the part.

    As for EMI, I remember Elaine as being a bit too bossy and snubby, but that might've been because they wanted to make her less damsel-in-distressy in that game. I know Charity James (EMI Elaine) did the voice for Grace Nakimura in Gabriel Knight 3, and she sounded a lot nicer and less 'bitchy'. Maybe she'd perform better with another shot?

    I'd rather have them keep Alexandra at this point though.

     

    All in all, I've never heard an Elaine voice that, to me, completely fits the character.

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

    My prevailing memory of EMI Elaine is that they seemed keen on bringing back a more capable Elaine with a more active role in the story, but mainly that comes over in the dialogue as being really bossy, rather than actually clever and capable. Her main role seems to be telling Guybrush what to do, rather than doing any of it. Mind you I haven't played it lately so this might be me misremembering - but I have watched parts of it recently, and it seems to bear out.

    They wanted to go for a more capable Elaine, and they end up with husband beater Elaine. Why does she beat him relentlessly FOUR times in the intro alone???

    • Sad 1

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

    Or re-recording.

     

    Subversive thought: What if Alexandra spent just an hour in the studio, total, and Elaine's role in Return to Monkey Island is more or less as much as in LeChuck's revenge?

    At least that's more than in CoMi!

    • Like 1

    Return to Monkey Island

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Dmnkly said:

    FWIW, I have no knowledge of whether or not a trailer exists and when said theoretical trailer will or will not be released (as evidenced by my erroneous prediction that we'd see one yesterday!). But that said, I am reasonably certain that the only reason there was no trailer yesterday is because they didn't want to show one yet. Whether it's a timing thing, they prefer a different presentation format, whatever, I have no idea. But speaking broadly, things like the audio mastering definitely wouldn't be an impediment.

    Ha, I just arrived here from my COMI playthrough, (finally arrived at Blood Island), so I actually read this in your voice!

    Oh, how my head likes to play games.

     

    On topic, I kinda love the activity in the forum lately because of the announcement of TOMI, so maybe I don't want it to come out, so we can keep speculating... FOREVER!!

    (That might be one for the unpopular opinions thread though.)

    • Haha 4

    Unpopular opinions

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Just now, Udvarnoky said:

    Wow, multiple people dumping on Fate of Atlantis. This thread delivers.

    I'm both confused and saddened. I played all three paths just last year and I loved every second of it! The voice acting isn't the best, but the story and setting delivered like no other! I absolutely adore it, but maybe that's the unpopular opinion?

     

    I'm replaying CMI at the moment, but it doesn't sweep me away like FOA did last year.

    • Like 2
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