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MI:SE Visuals


plamdi

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I still think that part of the criticism towards the SE comes from "raped my childhood" syndrome. Unfortunately, the Lucasians have plenty of experience in that field ;)

You have to admit that the style of the first Monkey Island is less defined than 2 and 3.

Now what should they have done? The exaggerated proportions of some of the backgrounds (as pointed out above) already generate clipping problems when using the original game code. Drawing less exaggerated would've created an even bigger rift between 1 and the other 2,3,4. And tweaking or changing the game code would've opened a whole other can of worms and reason for fan out cry.

 

I wholeheartily agree that some of the background art is sloppy. But the overall style fits nicely I think. I wouldn't have wanted a less or more cartoonified version and that means they pretty much hit their target.

In this day and age, when probably 95% of all the people working at LucasArts are no skilled 2D animators anymore, I think the endresult is completely acceptable. It could've been far, far worse.

 

btw that picture above: Might NOT be the artists' fault. The visible banding lines might be DXT texture artifacts. Those new textures are way above the 256 of the original but still only 65000 colors. Try doing a nice and smooth gradient with that and then come back :)

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Bugs I've seen, apart from the usual clipping problems because of the new layouts.

 

- Music not stopping when switching from classic to SE

- No response when clicking too fast on an item (most common bug in the whole game, also most annoying)

 

Can't think of any other bugs really.

 

Also, a lot of the pictures for the items suck, most are just blurred versions of the originals.

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I've already made my statements plenty of times, 1080p or not, this team was clearly lazy or didn't care. Hiding layers you don't need in Photoshop is Photoshop 101. People do better work than this and they don't even get paid the amount you would at LucasArts. Using the "it raped my childhood" or "reducing the backgrounds toe 320x200 fixes the mistakes" are all straw man arguments. If the team didn't want to appear lazy, they wouldn't have made such lazy mistakes, crappy art style aside.

 

I haven't played the special edition myself, so I can't comment on its merits. But some of the mistakes that have been pointed out do smack of laziness, and "but you wouldn't be able to see them at 800x600!" isn't an excuse.

 

With you all the way.

 

By the way, I can't believe there's black boarders in 1080p??

 

Going on with the laziness theme, there's a reason there are black borders. Doug Tabacco (who used to work for Telltale) said this over at Adventuregamers:

I'm going to guess that's by design as a lazy fix for title safe boundaries. For those who don't know, CRT displays crop some of the edges of the picture because the physical size of the tube is bigger than the viewable area masked off by the tv frame. Usually when doing video work you have to stick to a title safe margin for placing text and important content to keep it from being cropped on older displays. The lazier solution is to just under-scan the picture - render it smaller than the viewable resolution so that the edge of the picture is the title safe boundary, and it looks like that's what's happening here.

 

Apologists seem to just say old fans hate change. That's silly, because tons of us play new games all the time, even in 1080p as well as welcoming **good** iterations of our favorite series. Full Throttle 2 was cancelled because even the fans knew it sucked before it was released, even with people apologizing for the shortcomings of the previews of that game as well. Really the problem here is Monkey Island was a top notch game in it's heyday with impeccable craftsmanship. To put dressing on top of it that is amateurish and subpar is a step backwards, whether you are saving your **** in 1920x1080 pixels in Photoshop or not.

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Lucasarts should release a patch that lets you scale the screen (like the many emulated games on XBLA such as Sonic or Ulitmate Mortal Kombat 3). That being said we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a $10 game. A $10 game that also includes an unblemished original version of Monkey Island. When compared to a game like Ghostbusters which retails for $60 these days, the original Monkey Island alone is more than worth it at $10. The voice acting 1080p version is just a bonus.

 

Perhaps the artists/producers on the project were undiscerning and lazy, or perhaps they had a budget and deadline they didn't want to go over because Adventure games have been a bad position in the gaming world so it was paramount to prove they could make a profit on it. If this made back it's money then they'd green light more projects with bigger budgets. Based on it being the top selling Steam game plus pushing at least 40k on Xbox Live Arcade (Leaderboards for some reason don't show everyone, I've played about 15-20% of the game but I'm not on there so theres the possibility many more people bought the game but aren't showing up on the Leaderboards).

 

I am disappointed that they didn't listen to nearly everyone who thought the guybrush hair was brutal but by the time they revealed the SE (E3) development was probably almost already wrapped up.

 

I'm just hoping that MISE was successful enough for them to green light Maniac Mansion SE/Day of the Tentacle SE. Full Throttle SE might be a good idea with Brutal Legend around the corner.

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A $10 game that also includes an unblemished original version of Monkey Island. When compared to a game like Ghostbusters which retails for $60 these days, the original Monkey Island alone is more than worth it at $10. The voice acting 1080p version is just a bonus.

 

I think that's part of the problem in my eyes. Maybe if they had set their sights on making a $20 there wouldn't be so much carelessness and maybe they could have hired a better art director. It's hard to say.

 

Perhaps the artists/producers on the project were undiscerning and lazy, or perhaps they had a budget and deadline they didn't want to go over because Adventure games have been a bad position in the gaming world so it was paramount to prove they could make a profit on it. If this made back it's money then they'd green light more projects with bigger budgets. Based on it being the top selling Steam game plus pushing at least 40k on Xbox Live Arcade (Leaderboards for some reason don't show everyone, I've played about 15-20% of the game but I'm not on there so theres the possibility many more people bought the game but aren't showing up on the Leaderboards).

 

I am disappointed that they didn't listen to nearly everyone who thought the guybrush hair was brutal but by the time they revealed the SE (E3) development was probably almost already wrapped up.

 

I'm just hoping that MISE was successful enough for them to green light Maniac Mansion SE/Day of the Tentacle SE. Full Throttle SE might

 

If it's going to be the same team, I'd just rather LucasArts not touch their old games ever again like this. Just release them all on Steam or XBLA as they originally were for $5-10 each and everyone will still be happy, I'm sure. This was really a project that should not have appeared rushed or sloppy. Wanting the same team to make more in the hope that they do better next time is asking for trouble, I'd say.

 

I really won't be surprised if one of the team comes out one day and explains the unevenness of the remake much like the way someone spoke up about why Gabriel Knight 3 came out so ugly and disjointed.

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I'm only about 20% into the game so far but I'm sorry to say but I have to agree with a lot of you here, the backgrounds are very sloppily done, save a for a couple perhaps. Even in the best ones (the town overview with the church and shop) there are still mistakes where parts are missing and the old background shines trough in an odd way. I'm simply baffled this ever made it through QA in this state. Clearly nobody really cared.

 

Not only that but you can clearly tell by the style of the painting that most of the backgrounds were painted as quickly as possible over the old ones in photoshop. I've seen much, much better speed paintings by non-professional artists that were done in an hour or two and they are made from scratch. This is done by painting over existing stuff, so it should be even easier and quicker. Also way too obvious use of a foilage brush in the forest backgrounds and Melee Island map. With all due respect for the artist that contributed to this game, all in all the art looks very rushed and amateurish and the art style is poor.

 

I have to agree with SyntheticGerbil, if the same people behind this will be responsible for further special editions I'd rather they didn't bother. I was excited for this and was gonna encourage as many people as I possibly could to buy this game to show support in hopes of more games or special editions, but after playing it for myself I can't recommend this version of the game at all. That's not just due to the visuals though but it certainly is a factor.

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I think that's part of the problem in my eyes. Maybe if they had set their sights on making a $20 there wouldn't be so much carelessness and maybe they could have hired a better art director. It's hard to say.

 

 

 

If it's going to be the same team, I'd just rather LucasArts not touch their old games ever again like this. Just release them all on Steam or XBLA as they originally were for $5-10 each and everyone will still be happy, I'm sure. This was really a project that should not have appeared rushed or sloppy. Wanting the same team to make more in the hope that they do better next time is asking for trouble, I'd say.

 

I really won't be surprised if one of the team comes out one day and explains the unevenness of the remake much like the way someone spoke up about why Gabriel Knight 3 came out so ugly and disjointed.

 

It would be great if they could make a $20 remake that was perfect or just re-released the original game for $5-10 but the reality is it wouldn't sell. Market research on XBLA/PSN seems to be showing that $10 is the sweet spot for a good game and $15 is pushing it unless its a great game AND a known genre (like Battlefield 1943). People who already have the original MI (casuals, not hardcore people like the ones here) would be hard pressed to justify paying $20 for a game they've already played and beat, and the gamers who are unfamiliar with adventure games are definitely going to stay away at that price.

 

And if they released it for $5-10 without remaking the graphics, then even less of the mainstream audience would be interested. Trust me, I've suggested so many great classics to people who are 5 years younger than me and they won't touch it because they aren't used to 320x240 graphics. But I was able to convince them to grab MISE.

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It would be great if they could make a $20 remake that was perfect or just re-released the original game for $5-10 but the reality is it wouldn't sell. Market research on XBLA/PSN seems to be showing that $10 is the sweet spot for a good game and $15 is pushing it unless its a great game AND a known genre (like Battlefield 1943). People who already have the original MI (casuals, not hardcore people like the ones here) would be hard pressed to justify paying $20 for a game they've already played and beat, and the gamers who are unfamiliar with adventure games are definitely going to stay away at that price.

 

And if they released it for $5-10 without remaking the graphics, then even less of the mainstream audience would be interested. Trust me, I've suggested so many great classics to people who are 5 years younger than me and they won't touch it because they aren't used to 320x240 graphics. But I was able to convince them to grab MISE.

 

I'm not sure what you are suggesting, but the subpar graphics version we have now for $10 is not a good compromise. There's no middle ground on this. The original Secret of Monkey Island did not look sloppy and unprofessional, so why is that okay now?

 

And they just released like 5 of their other adventures for $5 each un-special editioned, so why can't they do that here? Lots of people pay for and play retro games, it doesn't mean you have to have mainstream audience. The cool thing about companies rereleasing retrogames is the game is already made, so no sweat off their back. Release and cash out, just like they did with Loom, Last Crusade, and The Dig. It's better they stay available than not.

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I'm still working on a MI2 SE screen that will blow you away :)

Completely using the original art but using an Uber-tech method to make it 3D and high detail...

 

The following is no excuse for the lazy work, just some hard number crunching:

 

3 artists paid for 9 months work ~ 40.000 $ x 3 = 120.000 Dollar

20.000 games â 10 $ sold on XBOX live = 200.000 $

 

- Micro$oft (probably a share for each download)

- LucasArts management, art director, coffee machine etc...

 

That means that you really have to choose wisely. Putting 6-8 artists on the job might've been too costly.

Any updated figures available of how many units they shipped?

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I'm not sure what you are suggesting, but the subpar graphics version we have now for $10 is not a good compromise. There's no middle ground on this. The original Secret of Monkey Island did not look sloppy and unprofessional, so why is that okay now?

 

And they just released like 5 of their other adventures for $5 each un-special editioned, so why can't they do that here? Lots of people pay for and play retro games, it doesn't mean you have to have mainstream audience. The cool thing about companies rereleasing retrogames is the game is already made, so no sweat off their back. Release and cash out, just like they did with Loom, Last Crusade, and The Dig. It's better they stay available than not.

 

I'm suggesting there was no alternative if the goal was to prove adventure games can be profitable and to expose those unfamiliar to the genre to it.

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