why does eweryone hate mi 4?

[frankenstein]

i personaly like it alot..it may be the fact that it was one of the first games i ewer played and just the memories of those long nights on melee island..explain to me..why to you think mi was bad?...the fact that i like it may come from the fact that i havent played all the other monkey island games

[leath laobhair]

I'm fairly ambivalent towards it. I think that on its own it's a passable adventure game, but I don't think that it fits very well at all with Monkey Island's theme. I don't care for much of the animation or character design, nor do I like the 3D engine it's built on. It was good for Grim Fandango, but not MI..

[Joshi]

Ditto, the style of the first 2 games was completely lost here. CMI didn't quite grasp it either, but it managed to develop it's own style whereas EMI seemed to try to copy the style of CMI whilst attempting to encapsulate the humour of the first two and failed on both accounts.

[leath laobhair]

Well... I think that sometimes the MI community can be very critical of EMI. I think it was a response to try to jazz up the adventure genre and to accomodate MI to the new trends in the adventure genre (3D). It reminds me a lot of how Fallout fans react to new Fallout games

[Alien426]

in my opinion it wasn't the fact that it was 3d, but firstly the art itself was much worse than in Grim. also the humor and settings tried too hard. i always liken it to later Simpsons episodes: they feel as though a bunch of jerks looked at the early stuff, didn't really get it and just based everything on what poor understanding they thought they acquired. too many and blatant references to modern life for example. just not as unobtrusive as the early games. at the Simpsons homer is now stupid and coarse, while he used to be naive and slow...

i'm back to watching season 4 on dvd. brilliant!

[Udvarnoky]

the fact that i like it may come from the fact that i havent played all the other monkey island games

 

Probably so. You've got nothing to compare it to so you can appreciate it based on its own merits.

[Mooman1014]

MI4 wasn't necesarrily a failure... it just wasn't a success. MI4 is still Monkey Island, but the new graphic style (its just plain not good, the character models are really ugly) and awkward control scheme (kinda reminds me of Tomb Raider, only weirder) really didn't do it for me. i think they should have just stuck to the CMI style.

[Thrik]

Yeah, although we as a community do tend to be extremely "critical" (to put it mildly), most of us do accept that EMI was a fairly good game in its own right, and certainly one that a lot of people who experienced it seperately from the originals are likely to remember fondly.

 

It's just that it felt very different to the originals, and as such it imposes on the nostalgic memories of happy long nights and whatnot that *we* have. I think the transition to 3D was also fairly painful for most people, many of which who pretty much associated point and click with Monkey Island.

[Alien426]

most of us do accept that EMI was a fairly good game in its own right

hold it right there, bucko!

 

most of us oldies can put nostalgia away and enjoy a good game. i know i was very happy with Grim regardless of its 3d engine. CMI was quite different from previous MIs and i recognized it as the great game it is...

[Joshi]

I can't say I hated EMI with a passion, it had a certain charm about it and I have to say, i didn't deteste Monkey Kombat as much as most people. I can also totally see it's appeal to those who haven't played the other games, the humour in it seems fresh and some of the dialogue is quite funny. But, as others have said, the transition to 3d wasn't particularily great, the character models were very blocky and somewhat annoying to look at.

[Thrik]

I didn't say everybody, Alien. ;

 

EMI really isn't that bad as an actual game in its own right. The gameplay is solid, the development works, and the characters are largely interesting. It's not a classic, but it's an entertaining game. This *is* me putting my nostalgia aside and looking at it objectively. As much as I do have disdain for the game, I can appreciate that it was put well together as far as games in general go and certainly doesn't deserve the title of "a bad game". You'll find that a lot of objective reviewers also stand by similar statements.

 

For the most part EMI just tried to redo or evolve what was achieved with the previous games, except it kind of fell short. It tried to enhance the slapstick humour from CMI and didn't. It tried to enhance the graphical style and didn't. It tried to introduce innovative puzzles and just ended up frustrating the hell out of people. The prosthetics ticket thing? God. The marsh? God.

 

This is why EMI isn't remembered by that many people as an all-time classic with the exception of those who've never experienced anything better, which is going to pretty much be anyone who began their gaming career in EMI's era. Those people are going to remember EMI as the biggie, as to them it's as good as the genre has gotten. In comparison to the trash that has come out since, EMI must seem like the holy pinnacle of adventure gaming.

[Udvarnoky]

It's my opinion that EMI took one too many liberties for most MI fans. I still believe that if a Monkey Island 5 were ever to be made, people would cool on EMI because it will exist as a middle chapter and wouldn't have to represent the series as "the final game." The decidedly non-MI themes of land developers/hostile takeovers/corporate tourist industry were just fun ideas that Clark and Stemmle came up with for the fourth game specifically, and I'm sure it was never meant to be a new direction for the series or anything. If we can get one more game that returns to the more truly swashbuckling atmosphere of the first three games and brings its own new ideas to the table that would go a long way in kind of allowing EMI to exist by itself and be better appreciated.

 

The summary of my feelings on the art style is basically that I think EMI did a really good job with the 3D transition but the technological limitations made it look kind of bad. I mean yeah, the art direction was nowhere near CMI but I blame most poor aspects of the graphics on the resolution and the bland character models.

[Mr Cheese]

What I didn't like was how they changed what had already been established. The most obvious being the changing from a real giant monkey to stone, then to a robot. Also, Jojo was the name of the monkey that played the piano in MI2, not the one that hung on the switch. Guybrush's character changes too, although that happens in the other games too. MI1, mild mannered, slightly geeky, and funny. MI2, definately not mild mannered, less wimpy, and funny. MI3, the perfect blend of both. Not too mean, kinda wimpy, but strong mannered, and just a funny. But in EMI, he is a complete wimp, really stupid, and everything he says is meant to be funny, but just comes accross as annoying. The game also had too much of modern day things in it. I HATED the line "Nobody likes real pirates anymore" That doesn't belong in a Monkey Island game.

[Udvarnoky]

Why the hell do so many people point out the name "Jojo?" It's not ever implied that it was supposed to be same monkey from Monkey Island 2, so I don't understand what the error is.

[Scummbuddy]

They call him Jojo Jr. and then reference him as the son of the monkey wrench (or someother monkey from the series) and then they were mistaken, as Jojo is the musician. We're just upset that they made that mistake.

 

I just couldn't forgive the lame side stories of the real estate campaign, non-existant LeChuck, and I just don't know what they were thinking by having a robo-motronic Monkey (ran by monkeys ala Power Rangers or RoboTron) that took away the original stone Monkey Head.

--------

I am sure that you liked EfMI because MI wasn't your first adventure game back in 1990 and that you played EfMI first.

[Udvarnoky]

Just 'cause they call the MI1 monkey Jojo doesn't mean they were referencing the piano player. No mistake.

[Remi]

I am sure that you liked EfMI because MI wasn't your first adventure game back in 1990 and that you played EfMI first.

 

That's just silly. I enjoyed EMI and I've been playing adventure games since the late 80s, and played the MI games as they were released.

[Mr Cheese]

If they weren't talking about Jojo from MI2, then that's quite a lack of originality. I just assumed they'd mixed the two up because it would be worse to name both monkeys with the same name.

[Alien426]

They call him Jojo Jr. and then reference him as the son of the monkey wrench and then they were mistaken, as Jojo is the musician.

The piano player and the monkey wrench are the same.

Remember how you stuck the banana on the metronome to hypnotize him?

 

 

Mr Cheese, that was spot-on.

[Joshi]

Wasn't Jojo Jr meant to be the son of the monkey from MI1 that you left swinging on the nose of the totem pole to open the gate to the giant monkey head?

 

Now I rememeber why I loved MI1.

[Udvarnoky]

Yes, they were calling him the son of the hanging Monkey from MI1.

[Gabez]

Yeah, I realled liked EMI too. I thought the plot was good (though I guess it got too "wacky" for some peoples tastes) the music the puzzles and, most of all, the characters and the dialouge.

 

Seeing as genuinely funny, inventive and intelligent games are a little thin on the ground, I regard EMI as a flawed modern classic, at least in the adventure game genre.

 

Sure, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts are way better (or so I'm told regarding the latter!) but there's not that much else out there, and as far as 3D adventure game recomendations are concerned, you could do a lot lot worse.

 

One thing does annoy me looking back, though: even though the graphics and the music were pretty decent, I still get the sense that they were both... I dunno... washed out. The colour seemed faded and the music never sounded that "real". Is that just my failing memory or do other people get that impression?

[Mr Cheese]

The piano player and the monkey wrench are the same.

 

Remember how you stuck the banana on the metronome to hypnotize him?

 

Mr Cheese, that was spot-on.

 

 

 

Jojo and the hanging monkey couldn't have been the same. Jojo Jr says his father was left hanging and didn't know how to let go. He couldn't have gone and played at the Woodtick. You just do the same thing to lure him. Monkeys like bananas.

[Udvarnoky]

Yes.

[Thrik]

No, I definitely agree on the music; EMI's was not as good as CMI's. I'm not sure if it was down to the actual quality since both used very good synths (although EMI did use more I think), but more the actual composition.

 

That is, EMI's was boring. The tunes were fairly uncreative, there was too much ambience in place of actual instrumental backing, the same theme was used time and time again even in different circumstances completely, and a lot of it was simply ripped from the previous games. The majority of EMI's original cues were completely unmemorable. It did have a lot to beat though considering that the CMI soundtrack is a classic on pretty much every front.

 

As for the graphics being washed out, I think it was again down to bad art direction rather than actual bad technology for the most part. I mean, EMI did have some cracking 3D in parts so it's obvious that the skill was there; it was simply applied badly.