Official Monkey Island playthrough schedule

[Huz]

Hey all,

 

We're all super excited about Tales of Monkey Island, but is anyone, like me, excited enough to replay all four of the existing Monkey Island games before July 7th?

 

If so, it would be great if we could chart our progress on the forums and discuss each game as we go along. Quite a few of us probably know them like the back of our hands already, but there must be some bits we've forgotten or parts we'll see in a new light now that we're not 12 years old any more, or now that the EFMI-rage has subsided a little.

 

For my own playthroughs, I'm going to try to stick to this schedule:

 

Today - 13th June: Monkey Island 1

14th June - 20th June: Monkey Island 2

21st June - 27th June: Curse of Monkey Island

28th June - 7th July: Escape from Monkey Island

 

Why longer for Escape? Partly as contingency in case we fall behind, but mostly because I've only played that nonsense once and will probably get stuck... unlike the others, for which I could probably write a walkthrough off the top of my head if need be. :|

 

Anyone interested? Join me. JOIN ME.

 

 

If you don't have either of the first two games, drop me a PM so I can, you know, laugh at you and stuff.

[Nickelstein]

I was thinking of doing this today

[Huz]

Awesome. I didn't make it very far last night: the SCUMM Bar to be precise. Oh dear!

 

I'm going to crack on more today. Honest.

[Benny]

I will join you. But I'm saving MI1 for MI1:SE, I already know that game far too well.

 

I reckon EMI will take a while, I seem remember it having some good puzzles (that time paradox thing for one). My tip for enjoying EMI - try and forget its a monkey island game and play it as just any other game.

[Huz]

Yeah, the time paradox puzzle in EMI is great. The fact that it's actually a good puzzle means it shouldn't take too long, because if you enjoy it you have a much better reason to crack on with it. I fear Monkey Kombat and that rolling rock puzzle on Monkey Island, both of which were just tedious and time-consuming.

[Benny]

Oh God I'd forgotten about them, that puts me off again :~

[Sven_Q45]

I played MI 1-3 yesterday.

Nearly every weekend one of them.

 

@bgbennyboy

Dito. I know it well but I play it nevertheless often.

[parabolee]

I'm kinda in. I already started doing this before the announcement like 6 months ago. And have been playing on/off, already at the end of Curse but I'll be onboard for Escape for sure!

[Jenni]

I'm in.

 

I don't have a computer right now, so I don't have any means to play at the moment, and so I can't make a schedule for my play dates.

 

But I'm sure I'll be able to play through all three Monkey Island games before July 7th.

 

If the special edition comes before then, even better since I'll be able to play it on my sister's boyfriend's Xbox 360 and won't have to wait for a computer.

[Snugglecakes]

Just finished MI1. It's telling me to turn my computer off and go to sleep. But I can't. I have a meeting planned with Largo la Grande on a certain bridge.

[parabolee]

I just finished Curse of I and started Escape from MI. Escape is better than a recalled.

[Jeff]

I started MI2 last night. Doubt I will play them all before the SE comes out but I'll try to get this one and maybe Curse done.

[parabolee]

I started MI2 last night. Doubt I will play them all before the SE comes out but I'll try to get this one and maybe Curse done.

 

Curse was longer than I remember. When that game came out I was so excited that I bought it Friday and played it all weekend. I finished it Sunday night (with no guides) and was so disappointed because Monkey 2 took me 8 months to finish.

 

Guess I was getting too good at Lucasarts puzzle logic at the time because it took me a few weeks to get through it this time and I got stumped a few times. Still a great game and so beautiful, although I still feel it pails in comparison to Monkey 2.

[Glokidd]

I just finished MI2 and have moved on to CMI.

 

Ill probably play escape on PS2 next after that, The controls feel so much better on the pad and the polygon bump really helps the character models.

 

I think im going to save Secret for the SE but i might replay the original EGA version if it ends up i cant hold off.

[Sven_Q45]

I just finished MI2

Dito.

[Huz]

Ooh-er, I've been pretty terrible at following my own schedule. Tomorrow I should be moving on to Monkey Island 2, but how far have I got in Secret? Err... I've been fired out of a cannon and got rid of a troll. Whoops.

 

I blame the fact that:

a) It's been really sunny recently

b) I've been away for a few days! Really!

 

This is only the second time I've played through with the CD-ROM music tracks - on previous playthroughs it's been the Amiga music all the way. Interesting to hear the differences, especially where there are bits of ambient noise that aren't on the Amiga version, but these tracks still aren't a patch on the Amiga stuff. :~

 

Here's hoping the Special Edition will have the best music yet!

[scabb]

I've just spent the week in Germany doing impressions of George Stobbart with a friend, so I'm going to be playing through Broken Sword. I've neglected the Sam & Max telltale games too, so I'll plough through those too. Definitely in the mood for a bit of adventure gaming, have completely sacked off "people" for them this weekend.

 

*edited for nonsense*

[Huz]

"I can also tell by the Melee Times' sports page that you've only won one fight."

 

Ooh, burn! I didn't know the Sword Master had a minimum entry requirement, probably because I've always boned up on my insults to the max before approaching her.

 

Time to get serious on the mean, identical-looking streets of Melee. >:

 

Edit: Because I forgot that guys say "Wow! You're good enough to fight the Sword Master!" on the third win. True fact.

[playclever]

Hi guys. I was just pointed here from the Telltale forums and thought I'd re-post my thoughts on my recent SOMI playthrough, which coincidentally I did finish today. (I used to be a reasonably regular mixnmojo/scummbar/#monkeyisland visitor back in the day, but I can't even remember my username...) Let me know if I'm in the wrong place and I will withdraw in shame. Pleaseandthankyou.

 

Secret of Monkey Island - playthrough bajillion, probably. But first in about four years. Spent a long time fiddling with scummvm to get the pixels nice and blocky. I don't need no antialaising! Game looks pretty good, seems to survive my widescreen monitor too.

 

I wanna be a pirate. The lookout's fire sounds crackly, I thought my sound was busted for a while... still, when there's only one candidate, there's only one choice. Apt - I started playing on the day of the European Parliament elections. (Actually, the ballot sheet for that election unfolded like a scroll, so maybe not so apt.)

 

Stan's used ship yard felt weird with music blaring and no Stan present. I think that would have been much better if it had kicked in when you first met him - good music though. Wonder what they'll do in the special edition.

 

Finding Carla is oh so much easier when you *know* you've got to follow the shopkeeper. But where the hell was that stump? I didn't find it this time around.

 

The first place I got stuck was on Melee, where you have to give Otis the gopher repellent - I had remembered that you just had to give him the mints, but gopher repellant? I used it directly on the rat, surely Guybrush could have dropped a hint or two. I ran around that damn island for hours! What's worse is, I was anticipating the grog puzzle and couldn't remember where the mugs came from

 

I read Ron's blog about the length of the scene behind the wall in the Governor's mansion. It did seem slightly long to me, but then I was looking for it :/ I remember laughing so much at that originally, doesn't work so well in a replay.

 

Shopkeeper and credit: forgot that "look at safe" would not automatically remember the combination for me. Damn modern adventures and their coddling.

 

Monkey Island was a breeze, a lot of travelling though. I wish there was a beach on the north side of the monkey head peninsula for travel between there and the cannibals. Tempting the monkey with a precise number of bananas is a little obscure and I can remember giving up on that angle early on in my first playthrough.

 

Actually, it did take me a little while to get the gunpowder from the cannon. And I've only just realised that the cannonball didn't get used...

 

Love the brief conversation with the three-headed monkey in the cannibal camp, just when the cannibals exit stage left. The game has a real sense of timing and pace at times.

 

The second place I got stuck was on the ghost ship - I didn't think to use the magnetic compass on the key. AGAIN. This puzzle has stumped me EVERY time I have played this game so far. To begin with it sent me on many trips back to the island to see what I was missing; this time only one, to confirm that the cannibals didn't have anything for oiling a door. Ugh. Disappointing that you have to go through the navigator's head rigmarole again too... did anyone get this first time?

 

I left the crew on MI this time, didn't realise they were locked up - I guess I must have freed them previously since I remember them greeting me when I got off of the ghost ship. This is entirely from memory so I've probably got it all wrong - I don't need no Google.

 

The dialogue in the church had me in hysterics, I'd clearly played this less than the rest. Love how LeChuck watches Guybrush and Elaine like he's watching tennis; and then the silly back-and-forth between Guybrush and LeChuck. And the monkeys. Brilliant.

 

Stan getting thwacked by LeChuck got a big laugh from me too

 

Now, turn off your computer and go to sleep.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Stan's used ship yard felt weird with music blaring and no Stan present. I think that would have been much better if it had kicked in when you first met him - good music though. Wonder what they'll do in the special edition.

 

Nice write-up Not sure how you can say that Stan's new tune was "good music", though. It's really odd you should write it, in fact, because I only just listened to it for the first time in years today -- and BOY do I dislike that music! I have no idea why they felt the need to add it to the CD version (or indeed, who "they" are!).

 

I'd be interested to know what others make of it:

http://soundtracks.mixnmojo.com/mi1.htm

 

(Click on "11 - Stan's Previously Used Ships".)

 

To me it just sounds like random notes stung together with a rough beat. It's especially wrong when you've not even met Stan, though, as playclever noted -- I hope they fix that for the SE.

[fizzymitsu]

I dunno... my first version of Monkey Island was the CD version so I've never known Stan's without the theme song playing. To me it always reminded me of what kinda music you'd hear in some movie where this guy is selling crappy used cars to people, so it seemed to fit the scene for me.

 

And again I've never known that scene without it so it'd just be weird to me if it wasn't there.

[ThunderPeel2001]

And again I've never known that scene without it so it'd just be weird to me if it wasn't there.

 

That saddens me Considering the Reggae influence over the rest of the music, I do wonder how that bit was supposed to fit in... I'd love to know the history of it.

[playclever]

That saddens me Considering the Reggae influence over the rest of the music, I do wonder how that bit was supposed to fit in... I'd love to know the history of it.

 

Hmm, I'd like to know too, BUT... for me that's why the song works. It's so totally out of place - you get slapped in the face with Stan's sales pitch and that music.. The only problem is, it plays when Stan isn't there, and in that case it's just out of place for no reason. I hope in the special edition they'll tie it in with Stan's presence.

 

This was the first time I played the CD version incidentally.

[Glokidd]

So i completed CMI on saturday and now im partway into EFMI

 

I decided to play EMI in tandem on PS2 and PC, PC during the day PS2 at home.

 

I saved myself some frustration and used bgbennyboy's EFMI installer and launcher right off the bat, having recently upgraded my system to vista64 this was probably for the best as apparently the original installer doesn't like this environment at all

 

One of the first things i noticed when playing the PC version was how much i missed having ScummVM to run the game from Definitely looking forward to REsidual's development eventually supporting this.

 

The next thing was that arrow keys are the most useless crap ever invented (for anything other than text). I remember back in the day i hadnt gotten used to the WASD layout but these days its pretty much a staple of a lot of PC gaming. Oddly enough while pretty much every other action or option can be changed, the movement is seemingly locked to the arrow and numerical keys.

 

Ultimately i got frustrated, dug out an old generic dualshock style USB controller i had kicking around but didnt have updated drivers for and plugged it in hoping Vista would pick up the slack. Fortunately it worked and it was a short job remapping the keys to a comfortable layout and turning on analog movement.

 

Moments later i was whisked away to a land of piratey adventure... though it should be noted that i had to go though my own three trials to get there

 

Needless to say the PS2 version was pretty much pick it up and go.

 

Ive always been part of the "EFMI gets a bad rap" camp. What can i say, i dig the game despite its glaring flaw of not being point and click. I personally love the interaction between Elaine and Guybrush as a newly married couple, their playful banter sells the relationship despite the fact that the VO actors were most likely never in the same room (which says a lot for the excellent VO talent of Dom and Charity James).

[MusicallyInspired]

Completed MI2 (easy mode) today. Still working with my wife to beat hard mode. I'm probably gonna go ahead and start playing easy mode of CMI, though. Revisting MI2 made me ache with curiosity about what was originally supposed to happen next for MI3.