MI:SE Visuals

[Guy.brush]

oh what's that talk about black bars at 1080p resolution? I have none. I only get them at 1920x1200 which is of course understandable as the original art is meant for 1080p.

Would you guys rather have a fullscreen version cutting stuff off at the top and bottom?

I'm usually pissed when 3d games don't offer proper scaling and resolution support, but a game with static images and 2d? I find it totally acceptable when designers go for 16:9 and ditch 4:3 and 16:10 in those cases.

[plamdi]

When pressing F10 frequently a character will say two lines on top of each other at the same time. There are graphical glitches everywhere.

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.

A Strawman Argument is an argument that misrepresents your opponent's view. Therefore "it raped my childhood"/"reducing to 320x200" are not strawman arguments.

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.

That was probably in response to the XBOX version being completely boxed-in. Anyone can tell you that no modern CRT computer monitor (espcially a 1080p one) has built-in overscan (in fact, you'd have to travel back to the 80's to find one that did). TV's - yes (CRT only), but not computer monitors.

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.

We shouldn't loose sight of the fact that they didn't actually MAKE a new game, they simply released a SPECIAL EDITION of an exisiting game. At $20 I'd expect to have it on disc, not have it on a STEAM dl.

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.

Then why did LEC release a bunch of their untouched games on STEAM?

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?

Completely agree. Neither did MI2 nor CMI. EMI did (and still does look sloppy), but the fact of the matter is that most of patrik's backgrounds are much higher quality. Best thing is, if he wants to he could make a top-notch background mod for the game now.

 

Guy.brush this image: http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/1557/mise2009071912444370.jpg is 1080p with black boarders?

[bcrt2000]

Then why did LEC release a bunch of their untouched games on STEAM?

Wasn't it obvious that those games released on Steam are the ones that they have no plans on doing a Special Edition for? They don't need them to be mainstream crossover games.

 

Indy FOA, Indy LC, Loom and The Dig were among those.

 

MI2,MI3, Maniac Mansion and it's sequel DOTT, Sam & Max Hit the Road, and Full Throttle are all wide open to being redone as special editions (and maybe Zak McKracken-- my guess is if future SE's are successful they'll do one for Zak, if not they'll just release the original version). And I would imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult for them to do MI4 or Grim HD versions as all they'd need to do would be to re-render the backgrounds (which they should still have sitting around) in 1080p.

 

I for one want to see new adventure games so I'm all for Lucasarts trying to put adventure games back in the spotlight. They made some mistakes with MISE, but if it was successful they'll have a bigger budget to do better things in the future.

 

Guy.brush this image: http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/155...1912444370.jpg is 1080p with black boarders?

Looks like 16:9 to me. As an avid fan of OAR in movies and on TV I don't mind black bars, especially when they will be that small.

[SyntheticGerbil]

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?

 

Well if they couldn't do a good job with the resources they had, then why do it at all? They've released a game that many old time and new fans are unhappy with and screams laziness, but some are saying we aren't allowed to scream that and making constant excuses. The presentation is going to stay with the SE for years to come whether or not your information is correct, so why are you apologizing? Bringing the coffee machine into this?! Come on!

 

Also, so far I've only confirmed one artist and the art director as living in the US. I'm guessing the other two I can't find may still have been outsourced to Singapore, as the original press release said. If it was farmed out to Singapore, you can bump that salary down to $20,000 or even $15,000 I would bet.

 

Really, I'm betting if you had a team of 3 all around solid artists and a good art director on the same wages you may have gotten a better result.

 

I'm suggesting the $10 release encourages lazy QA, but really only at LucasArts.

 

If you take the Behemoth for example, which released Castle Crashers around that price range, you'll see their QA is good and does not show laziness. Their games are also released in 1080p. I'm sure it all comes down to a labor of love.

 

Is LucasArts currently a company where you labor away with love? I would somehow doubt it.

 

Wasn't it obvious that those games released on Steam are the ones that they have no plans on doing a Special Edition for? They don't need them to be mainstream crossover games.

 

With LucasArts, I don't think you can say anything is obvious.

 

Looks like 16:9 to me. As an avid fan of OAR in movies and on TV I don't mind black bars, especially when they will be that small.

 

Maybe you don't have a HDTV, but those aren't supposed to be there if made for a normal 16:9 display. Any wider, then yes you will have black bars. If they had done it right, it should completely fill your screen. As posted earlier in my quote from Doug Tabacco, they were doing a lazy fix to get around edges that would normally cut off in a CRT display.

 

A Strawman Argument is an argument that misrepresents your opponent's view. Therefore "it raped my childhood"/"reducing to 320x200" are not strawman arguments.

 

Well he was referring to people like me with the "raped my childhood" bit, even though that's not what I was getting at. But you're right on reducing to 320x200. It was easier to just lump everything.

 

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.

 

That's silly, Telltale has been around for 3-4 years now, they are making more and more money with each release.

 

You can also count many modern adventure games released and made on a budget like Journey to Atlantis, Still Life, Runaway, and Benoit Sokal affairs which suck but still make money either way. Otherwise they wouldn't be constantly making them.

 

But I'm not asking for more of those games. I want well crafted games with great art direction like Lucas Arts did have for most of the 90s. The SE is not that. It reeks like the budget games I just listed in the last paragraph.

 

... but the fact of the matter is that most of patrik's backgrounds are much higher quality.

 

Did I miss something? Who's Patrik?

[Radogol]

Did I miss something? Who's Patrik?

 

http://patrikspacek.blogspot.com/2008/11/secret-of-monkey-island-remake.html

[SyntheticGerbil]

http://patrikspacek.blogspot.com/2008/11/secret-of-monkey-island-remake.html

 

Ah thank you, I've seen this stuff before! It's great! I especially like his rendition of the governer's mansion!

[Guy.brush]

Well, again I don't want to excuse their lazyness.

But sometimes it's good to remind ourselves of how this works in business.

You needed 3-4 guys back in 1990, working for 9 months at least to churn out a game with no speech, 320x200 gfx and sprites.

We have better technology now but it still takes 3-4 guys on the core team when they are using the same art style plus the guys doing sound, etc. If they are doing 1920x1080 you might end up adding a month or two. (it's 64000 pixel vs. 2073600 pixel but thank God it's not the 32x workload)

 

With this genre you couldn't sell copies through the roof back then and you surely can't do it now.

Telltale has a simple 3d engine that allows for rapid content creation and recycling between episodes and games. Still they have a team of 12 and need to sell lot's of copies to make their living.

 

So why didn't LucasArts say: "To hell with it, MONKEY is a prestige project and if we lose money on it, we still do it thorough, slow and uber-costly expensive way!"?

 

Well maybe they really want to make new renditions of ZAK or MANIAC, properties that are even less mainstream than MONKEY. For a ZAK:SE you definitely need to have a workflow that gives results without costing too much.

And they probably needed to proof to the managment, that MI:SE was profitable. For the managment this was a side project, and businesses hate it when their side projects burn up money, rather than generate it.

I'd love to see a costs chart for the SE, with all the speech sessions, music production, etc... I bet it was at least 300.000 Dollars to make it. I, am glad LucasArts did it, even if the result is not the holy grail of art we wanted it to be.

 

Regarding the black borders: Seems the game is not fully displaying 1080p art, but rather 1920x1036. I could be completely wrong here, but maybe the SE is an exact 32x upscaling of the original art and rooms, so that's where the weird vertical resolution comes from. I dunno. Still: It's basically 16:9 so who cares about the black borders? I never understood it with movies either, but especially in the US people bought FULLSCREEN versions cause they didn't want the black bars. Black bars are an indicator that you are watching something as intended by the creator.

[Glokidd]

Well if they couldn't do a good job with the resources they had, then why do it at all? They've released a game that many old time and new fans are unhappy with and screams laziness, but some are saying we aren't allowed to scream that and making constant excuses.

 

Perhaps its because we don't want the complainers to continue to act as though their opinion represents the entire community. You guys can complain, we can defend. The fact that almost every thread gets hijacked into these arguments is a major turn off when it comes to joining in. I cant speak for everyone but i know 99% of the time I end up passing on a topic due to not wanting to feed the haters. By the time i actually feel the need to post i tend to be pretty defensive. For example I had to edit my original post heavily as it featured such colorful language as "self-important asshat" probably due to the many weeks where i have opted to say nothing.

 

This thread seems to forget that the EGA version IS the original vision. The VGA is an upgrade that was done after the fact and a lot of the art wasnt 100% upped to 256 color in that process either. Much of the original EGA art leaks through in pretty much exactly the same way that you guys are complaining about now.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Perhaps its because we don't want the complainers to continue to act as though their opinion represents the entire community. You guys can complain, we can defend. The fact that almost every thread gets hijacked into these arguments is a major turn off when it comes to joining in. I cant speak for everyone but i know 99% of the time I end up passing on a topic due to not wanting to feed the haters. By the time i actually feel the need to post i tend to be pretty defensive. For example I had to edit my original post heavily as it featured such colorful language as "self-important asshat" probably due to the many weeks where i have opted to say nothing.

 

Well I would hope the "entire community" is not content with this job overall. The Special Edition has gotten an average 9/10 from every "real" review, even though many complaints are made about the new graphics inside the review, simply because it's a Monkey Island game. I don't want any more of these remakes if this is the way they are going to do them, and I will be vocal about that.

 

It's funny though, I've been here much longer than you, but you seem to be implying that your overly satisfied opinion represents the entire community and the "complainers" (in example, me) are somehow not part of the community.

 

I think you would probably be better off not posting about it if that kind of separatist lingo is the best you can say. Also nice how you said you had to hold back from namecalling me and still did anyway.

 

So why didn't LucasArts say: "To hell with it, MONKEY is a prestige project and if we lose money on it, we still do it thorough, slow and uber-costly expensive way!"?

 

Well if it is all agreed that they were going to lose money on it no matter what, then they could have just released the original version untouched with no money lost. I'm sure the amount of people who purchase it from downloadable services through the oncoming years would at least offset the digital publishing costs.

 

I don't even really want to go back and forth about arguing whether the money and production costs are an excuse for sloppiness and bad QA. I don't know what it cost them to make, the artists salaries, how much LucasArts budgeted, whether parts were shipped to Singapore, and digital publishing costs and neither do you. It's kind of a moot point until someone from the team wants to come out and have their say.

[Glokidd]

Well I would hope the entire community is not content with this job. The Special Edition has gotten an average of 90 from every review, even though many complain about it's graphics, simply because it's a Monkey Island game. I don't want any more of these remakes if this is the way they are going to do them, and I will be vocal about that.

 

It's funny though, I've been here much longer than you, but your opinion represents the entire community and the "complainers" (in example, me) are somehow not part of the community.

 

I think you would probably be better off not posting if that kind of separatist lingo is the best you can say. Also nice how you said you had to hold back from namecalling but still did.

 

Nobody said that you cant be vocal about it, my point is that there are probably a lot of people who hold off on posting due to just wanting to enjoy the game and not be dragged into a convo about all the ways they shouldnt

 

I also never said that the complainers weren't part of the community just that they arent the only people in it. I have know idea where you got that assumption. Yes you have been here POSTING a lot longer than i have but that doesnt mean that my opinion is any less important. I have been following this community since the Scumm-Bar back in the day and in fact i used to take part often. back then i didnt have internet of my own so i ended up having a lot of name changes before settling on GloKidd (which i would in fact change now again if i hadn't have built an identity around it). My old name when i was here everyday between 96-2002 was thudpumper. Please try to be aware that there are probably a lot of lurkers still who may have possibly been here longer than you.

 

So yeah, there was no "separatist lingo", just an opinion that differs from yours, heaven forbid!

 

EDIT: Oh and if you cant understand that the Self-important asshat comment was exactly what the context says it is: an example of frustration with the constant arguing, then i apologize. If i actually intended to directly insult you i would have left my original reactional post the way it was

[Guy.brush]

Just going back to the "raped my childhood" argument, I wanted to explain this further:

Fanboys in general tend to be the most critical of "their" franchise when a decision is made they are not happy with.

Fumbling with something that had 20 years to sink into the fans' public concience as pretty much perfect is a tough thing to do and prone to generating trouble.

There will always be a percentage of viewers/gamers that saw something different in the original thing, imagined the spin-off adventures another way, or don't approve of a new direction for the franchise (even when the original creator is behind the wheel)

 

What then happens is the typical arguments of:

The creator lost his touch..

..they did a sloppy job

..it wasn't necessary

..I prefer the original way/art.

 

In the case of the prequels some of that was totally justified, as is here, but please remember that no franchise, no work of art can stand up under the scrutiny of tens of thousands of hardcore lovers and fans that put every little detail under the magnifiying glass and due to the nature of their obsession, think that they have the entitled right to be served their special brand, 100% compatible with the vision in their head.

Even if all the visual bugs were gone, there would be a slightly smaller group of fans still hating the thing for the overall look and style.

And if that would be fixed, their would be a core group still hating the low number of animation frames or the speech.

A company has to find that sweet spot where the number of hardcore fans complaining is as low as possible while the workload/doability/profitablity remains acceptable.

 

My guess is that 80% of Monkey Island fans can accept the SE and play it for what it is - and enjoy it. The other 20% obsess over the mistakes, bugs and lack of style.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it sometimes can prompt a correction by the franchise maker.

I myself would categorize myself as "well now that my childhood got raped, I'll show them how to have sweet real sex again - utilizing the remains of my abused childhood

[SyntheticGerbil]

Just going back to the "raped my childhood" argument, I wanted to explain this further:

Fanboys in general tend to be the most critical of "their" franchise when a decision is made they are not happy with.

Fumbling with something that had 20 years to sink into the fans' public concience as pretty much perfect is a tough thing to do and prone to generating trouble.

There will always be a percentage of viewers/gamers that saw something different in the original thing, imagined the spin-off adventures another way, or don't approve of a new direction for the franchise (even when the original creator is behind the wheel)

 

Well okay, I don't know what makes me more of a fanboy than you are, except that I'm dissatisfied overall. I understand you are always asking for trouble with a remake.

 

Thing is, this is a video game, not a movie, so it's not impossible to do a good job. I think the team should have considered people who grew up with Monkey Island and dedicated *a lot* more care and polish into the project. Video games often get remade with fan satisfaction. I own a lot of remakes of video games myself, but probably none are as drastically and stylistically different as MI:SE. Remakes also usually come out with more polish than the first time around not less.

 

If LucasArts had taken the fan reaction into account, they may have seen that it just would have been better all around to just rerelease the original game.

 

What then happens is the typical arguments of:

The creator lost his touch..

..they did a sloppy job

..it wasn't necessary

..I prefer the original way/art.

 

Well in the case of the sloppiness, it's not fan backlash. It's just sloppy, you even showed me a lot of the proof yourself.

 

My guess is that 80% of Monkey Island fans can accept the SE and play it for what it is - and enjoy it. The other 20% obsess over the mistakes, bugs and lack of style.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it sometimes can prompt a correction by the franchise maker.

I myself would categorize myself as "well now that my childhood got raped, I'll show them how to have sweet real sex again - utilizing the remains of my abused childhood

 

I'd change your numbers more to 50/50 with a lot being happy about the audio portion and Monkey Island being available once more than the new graphics. The rest of what's going on in that paragraph is really gross.

[Glokidd]

Well I would hope the "entire community" is not content with this job overall. The Special Edition has gotten an average 9/10 from every "real" review, even though many complaints are made about the new graphics inside the review, simply because it's a Monkey Island game. I don't want any more of these remakes if this is the way they are going to do them, and I will be vocal about that.

 

It's funny though, I've been here much longer than you, but you seem to be implying that your overly satisfied opinion represents the entire community and the "complainers" (in example, me) are somehow not part of the community.

 

I think you would probably be better off not posting about it if that kind of separatist lingo is the best you can say. Also nice how you said you had to hold back from namecalling me and still did anyway.

 

Im going back to this because you added quite a few changes instead of actually replying and there are a few points that really get under my skin.

 

Where does someone who constantly refers to the length of time they have been a member get off calling anybody's opinion "overly satisfied"? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You have been coming in shooting down everybody elses opinion for weeks, starting argument after argument. Seems to me your the one with an overly satisfied opinion.

Why cant someone like this game, because you dont? Why do YOU constantly draw these lines of separation, referring to anyone who doesn't agree with you as "Apologists" and "fanboys"? What makes your having the same account since 2001 the metre-stick to measure ones fandom?

 

I never at any point claimed to speak for the entire community, that is complete bull. You just picked something i said out of context and chose that it somehow meant that.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Im going back to this because you added quite a few changes instead of actually replying and there are a few points that really get under my skin.

 

Why do you want to make this some public internet argument? Just PM me if you really hate my guts. I don't hate yours.

 

Where does someone who constantly refers to the length of time they have been a member get off calling anybody's opinion "overly satisfied"? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You have been coming in shooting down everybody elses opinion for weeks, starting argument after argument. Seems to me your the one with an overly satisfied opinion.

Why cant someone like this game, because you dont? Why do YOU constantly draw these lines of separation, referring to anyone who doesn't agree with you as "Apologists" and "fanboys"? What makes your having the same account since 2001 the metre-stick to measure ones fandom?

 

I never at any point claimed to speak for the entire community, that is complete bull. You just picked something i said out of context and chose that it somehow meant that.

 

Huh? Aren't you overly satisfied with the special edition? I should have written "overall" and not "overly"... sorry.

 

I am not saying no one can like the game, but when you and others start saying "well this is the budget they had or they only had so much time," you are apologizing for the team. I also have not called anyone fan boys at all and what I said earlier in the thread was in reference to Guy.brush naming upset "fan boys," which I think he meant in reference to older fans. I'm not sure how it would make sense for a Monkey Island fan to call another Monkey Island fan a "fanboy," anyway.

 

Earlier you said this, which seems to me to divide the community as you refer to yourself and everyone who likes the special edition as "we" and imply that is the "entire community" when everyone else who does not is referred to as a "complainer" or "hater."

Perhaps its because we don't want the complainers to continue to act as though their opinion represents the entire community. You guys can complain, we can defend. The fact that almost every thread gets hijacked into these arguments is a major turn off when it comes to joining in. I cant speak for everyone but i know 99% of the time I end up passing on a topic due to not wanting to feed the haters."

That's fine whatever, but you consider all threads with a negative opinion as hijacked unless you mean you just want me to stop posting my thoughts on the game. I'll move on when I run out of things to say. I'll also tend to reply when I get directly quoted. I did not want to keep going with you so I did not reply to your response. I normally edit after posting to fix mistakes (just as I've done here) in order to make myself more clear when the first proofread doesn't fails. You caught me before I was finished. My idea was to soften the post, but I guess you took it the wrong way.

[Glokidd]

Huh? Aren't you overly satisfied with the special edition? I should have written "overall" and not "overly"... sorry.

My bad, i completley misread it i thought that you mean i must be overly fond of my own opinion or something of the like. Sorry for taking what you said the wrong way

 

I am not saying no one can like the game, but when you start saying "well this is the budget they had or they only had so much time," you are apologizing.

Fair enough and very true. I guess i just get worried that the guys at LEC will see this stuff, take it to heart and abandon us for another decade or so I retract the accusation

 

I also have not called anyone fan boys at all and what I said earlier in the thread was in reference to Guy.brush naming upset "fan boys," which I think he meant in reference to older fans. I'm not sure how it would make sense for a Monkey Island fan to call other Monkey Island fans fan boys.

Also true and retracted. Sorry man

 

Earlier you said this, which seems to me to divide the community as you refer to yourself and everyone who likes the special edition as "we" and imply that is the "entire community" when everyone else who does not is referred to as a "complainer" or "hater."

Ah i see, by "we" i was refering to the people you said were trying to say people shouldnt complain

but some are saying we aren't allowed to scream that and making constant excuses.

(which btw for some crazy reason i misinterpreted as "anyone who sticks up for the game at all" lol i dont think that people shouldnt complain)

-and not the entire community. What i meant is that the people complaining are only a portion of the community same as those who are satisfied with the game.

 

That's fine whatever, but you consider all threads with a negative opinion as hijacked unless you mean you just want me to stop posting my thoughts on the game. I'll move on when I run out of things to say.

No and no. My point is that the dissatisfied are almost always the more vocal party (the satisfied are usually off joyfully playing their game instead ) and unfortunately this can misrepresent the overall feelings of an entire community. I wish more of those who enjoyed the remake would share, but it can be hard sometimes to relate to a conversation thats based on such a different opinion

 

I'll also tend to reply when I get directly quoted. I did not want to keep going with you so I did not reply to first response your response. I normally edit after posting to fix mistakes I made and make myself more clear when the first proofread doesn't work. You caught me before I was finished. My idea was to soften the post, but I guess you took it the wrong way.

Fair enough, another point misunderstood, again my apologies

[SyntheticGerbil]

It's cool Glokidd, no hard feelings, I think we both just misunderstood eachother a lot. Sorry about that. I'll try to shut up more about this game as well.

[Glokidd]

It's cool Glokidd, no hard feelings, I think we both just misunderstood eachother a lot. Sorry about that. I'll try to shut up more about this game as well.

 

Likewise, sorry man

 

And my apologies to the OP for hijacking the thread in a pointless argument wasn't i just complaining about that, ouch. On that note id like to say that its a pretty difficult feat to type with my foot physically jammed in my mouth

 

to try to get back to topic (sorry again):

There was a lot of EGA graphics left in the VGA update way back when, i can only assume that this was done because the art still seemed applicable at the time. While im not sure that the same logic applies to the new HD update, i guess i can see how those decisions were made.

 

It seems a lot of the pixel bleed comes through in the less-focused-on parts of the backgrounds (which is perhaps why i was able to play through it 3 times before noticing and only after it was pointed out). I definitely agree that it would be cool to get a patch that blurs or anti-aliases the visible pixelation to make it mesh better with the repainted backgrounds.

 

Due to the super patchable nature of digital downloads its not impossible that we may see a 1.1 bugfix version as well. From the sounds of things over at lucasarts forums they are at least looking into the 360 black border issue so future updates to MI:SE's engine may me a very real possibility

[Rum Rogers]

I've been reading the discussion between Glokidd and SyntheticGerbil, glad it's finished in a good way.

BTW, I felt particularly touched by what Glokidd said: lots of times I feel the need to post in defense of a game/argument that I liked, just after I've seen other people completely unhappy with it.

So I've decided to do it now too

As a very looong time fan (19 years of MI), I couldn't be happier with MI:SE.

It's true, I noticed some bugs here and there, and some backgrounds are a bit sloppy, expecially during the 3rd part.

But, to me, they're really the minority. One thing that actually amazed me, was the fact that the ship is missing the rudder wheel. But I can deal with it.

My point is that I could deal with EVERYTHING that went wrong, and I absolutely love what went well.

Some backgrounds are amazing, I loved so much the store, the Governor's mansion, the Scumm Bar and its kitchen, and I could go on for hours... So faithful to the original game! Voice acting is superb, music is awesome.

It is true that it's kind of a way to cash in with a very old game without spending a lot of money, but I'm honestly enthusiast about resuming the franchise and bring it to new, younger gamers. Thousands of new players are going to love Monkey Island, and I'm not talking about retro-players, I'm talking about players who have grown up blowing heads with FPS and whatsoever.

This special edition, which obviously isn't perfect, is (to me) a perfect way to bring the entire franchise back to life.

I've also liked the art style, I know I'm gonna be killed for what I'm about to say...

Ready? I HATED CMI style. There, I said it. It's just personal taste, I just don't see MI as a cartoon, but I don't wanna start a war here. Personal taste, that's all.

That's why I liked the art style so much, it's a weird hybrid which fits the game perfectly, it's a good compromise between a realistic style and a cartoon style. The storekeeper just ROCKS.

Guybrush's hair are a bit disturbing, but as I said, I can deal with it and, honestly, I got used to it in a few minutes.

So, that's it, I'm very pleased with MI:SE and I'm longing for MI2:SE.

[bcrt2000]

Maybe you don't have a HDTV, but those aren't supposed to be there if made for a normal 16:9 display. Any wider, then yes you will have black bars. If they had done it right, it should completely fill your screen. As posted earlier in my quote from Doug Tabacco, they were doing a lazy fix to get around edges that would normally cut off in a CRT display.

I'm playing the 360 version so I can't do a photoshop comparison but my guess is the aspect ratio is the same on the new graphics as on the old graphics. They would have to crop it or draw new graphics if they wanted to fill the screen. I don't think its that big of a deal to have black bars, lots of movies have black bars and I'm used to seeing black bars when using a console on a 16:10 display and also when watching SDTV on my HDTV.

 

That's silly, Telltale has been around for 3-4 years now, they are making more and more money with each release.

 

You can also count many modern adventure games released and made on a budget like Journey to Atlantis, Still Life, Runaway, and Benoit Sokal affairs which suck but still make money either way. Otherwise they wouldn't be constantly making them.

Yeah and thats Telltale, not Lucasarts. Lucasarts is it's own company with it's own overheads. They just got in a new CEO (or was it COO?) who is a huge fan of the classic adventure games so they've got to start from scratch now. They've got all of the Lucasarts IP but they don't necessarily have the infastructure to do it. In fact under Jim Ward all internal development was pretty much raped and the company was going towards a publisher-only model. They are getting back into development again so its not surprising that the first release has some issues.

 

 

But I'm not asking for more of those games. I want well crafted games with great art direction like Lucas Arts did have for most of the 90s. The SE is not that. It reeks like the budget games I just listed in the last paragraph.

They can't get to Step 3 without going through Step 1 and 2. They are testing the waters with a full fledged 2d remake in terms of their internal development, marketing, pricing, platforms and ultimately revenue/profit. They've got a good gauge on that and the next step is probably something more ambitious if they were successful with MISE.

 

I'm in software development so I understand the challenges in terms of project budgets and managing product quality based on that. You are never happy with what you shipped but when the business side decides your project is over, its over.

[bcrt2000]

Well, again I don't want to excuse their lazyness.

But sometimes it's good to remind ourselves of how this works in business.

You needed 3-4 guys back in 1990, working for 9 months at least to churn out a game with no speech, 320x200 gfx and sprites.

We have better technology now but it still takes 3-4 guys on the core team when they are using the same art style plus the guys doing sound, etc. If they are doing 1920x1080 you might end up adding a month or two. (it's 64000 pixel vs. 2073600 pixel but thank God it's not the 32x workload)

 

Good point. And remember that they had an experienced team that worked on games like Labyrinth, Maniac Mansion, Zak, Indy Last Crusade, and Loom before they worked on Monkey Island. And while I haven't played all of those games, Maniac Mansion and Zak definitely had more than their fair share of "issues" which they ended up working out by the time they got to Monkey Island.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Yeah and thats Telltale, not Lucasarts. Lucasarts is it's own company with it's own overheads. They just got in a new CEO (or was it COO?) who is a huge fan of the classic adventure games so they've got to start from scratch now. They've got all of the Lucasarts IP but they don't necessarily have the infastructure to do it. In fact under Jim Ward all internal development was pretty much raped and the company was going towards a publisher-only model. They are getting back into development again so its not surprising that the first release has some issues.

 

Wait a second, this is what you originally said that I replied to:

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.

 

And I said there are other companies exposing those unfamiliar and are showing that adventure games are still profitable. So what are you saying now? I would also like to point out you don't know the extent of which LucasArts is developing in house. The original press release said this game was farmed out to Singapore.

 

The Force Unleashed was not developed solely at LucasArts, with many parts outsourced as well as a Thrillville game in 2007 which had LucasArts doing the sound and music and other miscellaneous work while a British company did everything else. It's very possible Jeff Sangalli art directed with Dela Longfish on hand while major work was handed back from Singapore. That would explain many problems from what I hear about outsourced work.

 

If you can supply me some credits, I can try to research the best I can of how this team was arranged. They are not on Mobygames just yet.

 

They can't get to Step 3 without going through Step 1 and 2. They are testing the waters with a full fledged 2d remake in terms of their internal development, marketing, pricing, platforms and ultimately revenue/profit. They've got a good gauge on that and the next step is probably something more ambitious if they were successful with MISE.

 

I can understand them testing the waters and all, but that does not account for sloppiness and (in my opinion) bad art direction. If this game makes enough profit, it does not mean they suddenly ramp up the care, quality, and production values with the next proposed remake. You are assuming they will do better next time, but a lot of the mistakes I see are bad stylistic choices and rushed uncaring work. Why would that all change the next time around in your head if SE leads to another remake?

 

I'm in software development so I understand the challenges in terms of project budgets and managing product quality based on that. You are never happy with what you shipped but when the business side decides your project is over, its over.

 

So am I. But does that make you more of an authority than some of the unhappy fans (not just me)? Speculation on how the company operated and then using that as an excuse does not work for me, whether you software develop or not. I'm more concentrated on the finished product. Unless you have talked to someone who worked there it's impossible to say whether or not they were working extremely hard on constant crunch hours with a diminishing budget.

 

Based on all everyone knows, it could be just as possible that the art team came into work, did an average of 4 hours of actual work a day and spent the rest on Youtube while the art director holed himself up in the office researching his genealogy charts online instead of art directing. I'm not saying this is true, but until an interview is done with a few from the team or someone spills the beans, who knows?

 

Gabriel Knight 3 had major problems in the final release that everyone saw but were not thoroughly explained why they existed until one of the designers came forward with a long interesting article on the development a year or two after the release.

 

Good point. And remember that they had an experienced team that worked on games like Labyrinth, Maniac Mansion, Zak, Indy Last Crusade, and Loom before they worked on Monkey Island. And while I haven't played all of those games, Maniac Mansion and Zak definitely had more than their fair share of "issues" which they ended up working out by the time they got to Monkey Island.

 

What issues specifically? Zak is not the greatest game, but I think Maniac Mansion still holds up pretty well for an 80s game. It was better than the text adventures and Sierra games you could chose from at the time.

 

Also The Secret of Monkey Island team was definitely not 3-4 guys. I think you guys need to recheck the credits.

 

And as far as seasoned veterans argument, besides Ron Gilbert, The Secret of Monkey Island had programming, writing, and designing on their first game ever by Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer.

 

Also this is not Jeff Sangalli's first game as an artist but his first game (from what I can tell) to art direct. Dela Longfish, one of the artists, used to work at Humongous games, which used a modified version of Scumm.

[Guy.brush]

There are numerous quotes by Gilbert and Co. that the core Monkey team was basically 4-5 guys. Dunno if Michael Land counts as the 6th though. The credits are totally overinflated

[plamdi]

Well, again I don't want to excuse their lazyness.

But sometimes it's good to remind ourselves of how this works in business.

You needed 3-4 guys back in 1990, working for 9 months at least to churn out a game with no speech, 320x200 gfx and sprites.

We have better technology now but it still takes 3-4 guys on the core team when they are using the same art style plus the guys doing sound, etc. If they are doing 1920x1080 you might end up adding a month or two. (it's 64000 pixel vs. 2073600 pixel but thank God it's not the 32x workload)

We aren't loosing sight of their workload. The fact remains that everything is already built: the entire game, all the puzzles, the story, dialogue and even the SCUMM engine - it's all there, as was made (and completed) back in '90.

 

Not to mention that the graphics were made pixel-by-pixel in Deluxe Paint, probably using version 2. If you believe it's easier or faster to make 320x200 VGA graphics in DPaint than it is to create 1080p in Photoshop then you will believe anything.

This thread seems to forget that the EGA version IS the original vision. The VGA is an upgrade that was done after the fact and a lot of the art wasnt 100% upped to 256 color in that process either. Much of the original EGA art leaks through in pretty much exactly the same way that you guys are complaining about now.

I've already touched on this on my (upcoming) MI:SE review. The EGA version I call the "first-run release" and the earliest available version of the "original release". The VGA version was certainly still a valid part of the original version/s. It's not like they released the EGA version and realized they'd made a horrible mistake and quickly put together a VGA version - the VGA version is complete, and is not a simple "upgrade"/port of the EGA; it is a full version from the original release schedule. There are a couple of very minor EGA artefacts present (grog machine at the end of the game for instance), but that's nothing really.

to try to get back to topic (sorry again):

There was a lot of EGA graphics left in the VGA update way back when, i can only assume that this was done because the art still seemed applicable at the time. While im not sure that the same logic applies to the new HD update, i guess i can see how those decisions were made.

There was not a "lot" of EGA left in the VGA version. Not at all. The part at the end, for instance, is a case of a "Special Case Animation" (as Ron calls it here) that simply was not changed. You could actually call that a "beloved mistake" because anyone who would notice it would already have to be a huge MI fan!

 

The CD-ROM Enhanced release was NOT a part of the original release schedule (it was made using the Monkey2 SCUMM version AFTER MI2 was released), and as such has an improved inventory bar. Most people would look at it now and think "why didn't they do this for the first (EGA) release?". Answer is they had the space to fit it on the disks required, but it meant advancements in the SCUMM engine that they hadn't worked out yet. You also have to look at the fact that Monkey1 (VGA) was released on FOUR 3.5" HD disks and was playable from the floppies, whereas Monkey2 was released on FIVE and the game had to be installed to be played. By contrast the KIXX release of Monkey1 fit the game onto just THREE 3.5" HD disks and that had to be installed to the HDD to be played. Point being that they had a different goal in the release of the game with Monkey2 as compared to Monkey1.

Well I would hope the "entire community" is not content with this job overall. The Special Edition has gotten an average 9/10 from every "real" review, even though many complaints are made about the new graphics inside the review, simply because it's a Monkey Island game. I don't want any more of these remakes if this is the way they are going to do them, and I will be vocal about that.

 

It's funny though, I've been here much longer than you, but you seem to be implying that your overly satisfied opinion represents the entire community and the "complainers" (in example, me) are somehow not part of the community.

I'll also note that I know I'm biased, and I *want* to write positive-reviews on scummgames.net, I don't want to be negative. And if the game was refined and well done then I wouldn't have needed to spend this extra time looking deeper at it - I would have had a review up probably back on Tuesday... at the latest. But there are so many problems that I find it hard to ignore them. I have a very good eye for detail, and I'm not looking past the problems in the game. Look back at the screenshot on Page1 showing Guybrush standing on the "rail" of the ship - I have my own screenshot ready for the site, but the fact that he's standing "on it" is just one problem, the background itself is unfinished... the rail's edge isn't even defined properly... it looks as if the artist has used that drawing in photoshop as a quick outline and then has neglected to go back to it and complete the picture! Furthermore, the ropes don't blend into the background correctly either (this problem is even more evident on the nose you have to grab at the Giant Monkey Head to enter the gate with the monkey as the sky moves behind it and it's enclosed in a giant box that the sky doesn't move through).

Just going back to the "raped my childhood" argument, I wanted to explain this further:

Why? It's a straw man argument that YOU created, none of us have argued using that and it's invalid to present it as a valid argument to be rebutted. I am going to say this: TOMI is what EMI should have been. I'm confident to say that even though I've only played the first part of the game.

 

MI:SE looks like they started remaking the game well and then quite half-way through because they wanted to make a deadline. It's got nothing to do with the strawman argument you presented, now kindly stick to the real argument here.

 

By the way your analogies to movies is so ridiculous I don't know where to start. What about the "Red Dragon" remake? I'll make a confession - I actually liked it the first time I saw it. Then I realized that it was total garbage when I actually looked at it critically. And other people have argued that in Manhunter "they didn't explore Dolorhyde's split personality" and that "Lecter wasn't a cannibal" to which I respond "I have no problem with Dolorhyde in the remake, never did. And anyone who's ever read the book knows that we're never told that Hannibal is a cannibal until Silence of the Lambs" aka "stick to the argument"!

[Guy.brush]

I'm not trying to have a convincing rebuttal against some of the complains.

All I'm saying is that remaking a beloved MONKEY ISLAND 20 years after it was initially made brought up the same kind of psychological behavior in many of us as did the prequels.

Regardless of quality, fans who are emotionally invested in something first and foremost don't want their memories tarnished.

Look at Terminator. I'm the biggest Terminator fan but even I can't look past T3 and to some degree T4 and not feel a little less enthusiastic about T2. I know that it shouldn't affect the glorious T2, but a bad remake, no matter if it's a stand alone film or continuation of a trilogy always seems to rub off on the original.

So concerned fans sometimes are overly protective of the intial creation, cause they don't want to experience something like the prequels again.

That's all I'm saying. We, as monkey fans need to stand back and look at all of this from an objective POV. Is it objectively bad, even for newcomers? Or are some of the things just over-the-top hatred for something different?

I know some of the stuff is sloppy, buggy and could be way better looking. But the overall design choices seem good.

[Snugglecakes]

I really don't get this apparent defense of this game. It's not about the art style or anything, the actual idea is great. If you take in the picture as a whole, it works. But I'm sorry, the quality is appalling. Like many have said, it is so amateur it's almost hard to believe. I also don't get the price argument. I would gladly pay $20 for a good version, and I don 't see how that price necesitates having a boxed version either. It's still cheap. I'd pay $25 or $30 for a DVD version. When last did you go out on a Saturday night and spend less than $20? New games are going for $40-$60, so a $20 version of MI:SE is half of that at most. For that you get all that voiceover work and brand new graphics? It's a steal. But its current state is inexcusable, no two ways about it. The cheapest website I've ever made would never have such carelessness imposed on it.

 

Just look at Patrik's images mentioned above. A whole lot more care and attention went into those, and he's not even getting paid for it.