MI2: SE - Minor Annoyances

[SyntheticGerbil]

Just as aside: Everyone in Singapore speaks English, it's their primary language. They learn Chinese in school.

 

Ah, thanks. No idea here, just saw multiple languages listed on wikipedia.

 

Of course you also said that LucasArts was a "big" company would didn't need to do this: The sad fact of the matter is they're probably spending as much as they can doing these remakes. Apparently they made the MI2:SE in the same amount of time they made MI1:SE, which suggests that management wasn't totally convinced about their lucrativeness to invest any more in another product.

 

See I guess I still don't understand this. This is how they seemed to operate before. George Lucas hands over their money and they try to make a profit. I look at the games myself as an artist and I think it can't be *that* much work, but I think the $10 price tag is also low for what they are offering as well, sort of forcing outsourcing the work. Other people doing small 2D games at this time, which is what Monkey Island 2 has basically become in the same class as now, seem to have no need to outsource or overrun their budget, but I guess there's probably more than a few artists in each of those small studios putting in overtime for the love of it.

 

I also think with the remakes if they were just made with full polish each time around and just were at their full potential, eventually each successive remake would result in more sales for the one before. I bet Monkey Island 2's remake is garnering more sales for the first one as well. I think a lot of the concentrating is probably on the sales for the first week though in upper management. I just think of it as a good investment for LucasArts, but then I guess the easiest way to print money is to put the words "Star Wars" on the front.

 

This is just as much problem with the US government and entertainment industry here as it is of Lucas management contributing to it, so I'll probably go off the rails talking about it, but I basically just get super annoyed when outsourcing is used excessively to complete "artistic" endeavors. Earlier on we thought the shoddiness of Monkey Island 1 SE was just from 3 guys rushing to get it done, and then later we find out there are actually 12 other guys in Singapore doing the brunt of the work and it sucks that that basically makes sense why it turned out the way it did.

 

Ah well, I filled the thread with ranting. Maybe I'll come back after this evening when I spend time with the remake to do some ranting about the actual game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I'm confused why they offered such a low price point, as well. I think they could have easily charged $15 for MI2, even if it was only for the first three months, and then dropped it to $10. Strange.

 

I feel your pain regarding the manufacturing of "artistic endeavours", but it's the way the world is moving, especially after the credit crunch. Ours in a bankrupt culture, indeed. At least there's been a massive growth in free tools to allow genuinely creative people create and share what they've made.

[SyntheticGerbil]

I'm only somewhere lost in Part 2, but I'm not having too much in the way of minor annoyances so far (besides the obvious missing intro).

 

I like the presentation, I really like how true most of the backgrounds are so far to the original game. Really the Phatt Island Mansion seems to be somewhat of a fluke. The wonkier background also carries over to the Phatt close up, and it maybe looks like the backgrounds for those two scenes was done by one of the poorer artists of the first MI:SE. Some of the art gets iffy but overall I think with all of the great art around for the backgrounds, it lends itself for great atmosphere and I'm very pleased.

 

In terms of character art, I think it's all really well done, many characters are very close to the original depication. It's strange that only the main characters had to be given such a revamp. I don't really know how necessary it was, since they fit in less with the other character art, but oh well. The main characters were also the only ones given more inbetween frames from 3D models for certain animations, but it's not consistent. It also looks strange when a character with a large amount of inbetweens for their walk cycle moves around another character with original frame count for the walk cycle. No big deal, I'm sure many are pleased with the added frames anyway.

 

I'm not as annoyed with Largo's voice but maybe it's not how I pictured it. This time, the voice acting so far has been completely top notch for me.

 

I haven't even seen any of the disasterous technical problems so far that were present on the first SE. Characters aren't overlapping each other at all the wrong times. Graphics aren't missing or cut off in wrong places. The skip function has been fixed for the most part. iMuse isn't working as great as I imagined, with just general fade ins and outs, but I understand the incredible difficulty in implementing it.

 

Also, the added animations of fish, moths, and fireflies was a great idea. I love it.

 

My biggest annoyance is that you can't turn on the voice in the original game and keep the old music. I guess it doesn't matter since the music is messed up anyway and it's missing parts, so oh well.

 

I'm happy with my purchase and then some.

[ATMachine]

My biggest annoyance is that you can't turn on the voice in the original game and keep the old music. I guess it doesn't matter since the music is messed up anyway and it's missing parts, so oh well.

You CAN turn the voice on in classic mode, you know. It's one of the new features (and it's worth it at one point in the game to hear a nifty Easter Egg of sorts).

[SyntheticGerbil]

I know the voices can be turned on in classic mode, but actually looking at it again, it seems I can play classic mode with voices and the old music.

 

I guess what happened earlier is I must have been on one of those screens without music but still keeping the ambient noise. That happened in the original SE's classic mode as well.

[jrrtoken]

The f****** intro. I want it back. Seriously, what was the design mandate to omit it? It's like removing the title crawl in Star Wars; a Monkey Island game doesn't feel like a Monkey Island game without the theme tune.

[Monkey Mania]

The voice was recorded, the music was recorded, the monkey graphics are there. All that needs to be done are the Guybrush sprites and perhaps the map-art.

[Glokidd]

IMO I actually think that leaving Guybrush as his classic sprite and having him shoo off the updated monkeys is more in the spirit of the SE's. It would be very similar to what they did in MI1 with it opening with the VGA Melee Island shot the expanded to the new editions updated scene. Perhaps even go so far as to start with the original Monkey Island 2 splash screen and either fade or morph it to the new one.

 

Just my 2 cents on the intro recreation subject.

 

It would be neat it it was the other crazy idea iI had but this really makes more sense from a purist stand point (when compared to having GB morph into the golden guy and chase them of with force lightning that is )

 

The thing that bothers me about the current fan made intro is it leaves so much credit ungiven. The team that worked on this did an amazing job of paying tribute and it would be a shame for them to not be recognized for it

[ThunderPeel2001]

The voice was recorded, the music was recorded, the monkey graphics are there. All that needs to be done are the Guybrush sprites and perhaps the map-art.

 

I don't think ALL the monkey sprites are there, btw. I don't recall seeing the ones where they do backflips (correct me if I'm wrong).

[SyntheticGerbil]

Okay, finished!

 

Biggest problem for me was that they just messed up the Rapp Scallion animations. Sure they added frames of animation to smooth out some people, but did anyone notice they subtracted frames of animation for Rapp?

 

The original is much smoother and has way more inbetween frames. I don't know if they were too pressed for time or just not skilled enough, since animating things like Rapp takes real knowledge and skill of traditional animation and cannot be cheaped out by using a 3D model as a base to trace over or fill in all of the inbetweens. Oh well, I guess it's still somewhat there.

 

Also I noticed two places where they didn't get rid of the old pixels. One where Jojo is entranced and also when Guybrush jumps off Kate's ship, some of the frames of his splash are pixelated.

 

Last problem is that the music seems really subdued. It's much less ballsy on the new one and the cues are much less noticeable. I think SurplusGamer was saying some come in at the wrong time, but I think overall it lost a lot of the sinister atmosphere in some spots, sounding too playful most of the time.

 

But yeah, no other annoyances I think. I was absolutely sick of Guybrush saying "nice" by the end, but that's the fault of the original designers.

[whipwarrior]

Just reading up on Monkey Island at Wikipedia. Having never played any of the MI games before (my entire LucasArts gaming experience is from the LucasArts Archives Vol. 1 boxed set, purchased in 1994 after we got our first real PC, and Full Throttle, which I picked up in '95), which one would you recommend for a curious newbie? I'm thinking about picking one up to play around with when I feel like procrastinating on my other projects. Also, can I download them from Steam and plug the files into ScummVM?

[Gabez]

It makes most sense to start with the first one, whipwarrior. The second one is generally considered to be better, but that's saying a lot, because the first is a classic in its own right, and the most natural "hop on" point for a newbie.

 

If you buy any LucasArts adventure it should work fine without Scumm VM. If you're getting the first MI game, it'll be the Special Edition anyway (the non special edition isn't widely available).

[Monkey Mania]

I don't think ALL the monkey sprites are there, btw. I don't recall seeing the ones where they do backflips (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

I just checked, they are all there.

[whipwarrior]

Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I'm being luddite, but I'll probably buy a used copy of the original CD-ROM disc so that I can add it to my ScummVM library, along with FOA, DOTT, Sam & Max, and Full Throttle. I feel more comfortable having the physical disk for backup, rather than just a downloadable file of the game.

[Gabez]

I believe you can make "back-ups" onto disc of the games in your steam library, but there is also something to be said for owning the original version of SoMI/Mi2, especially since the special editions have left a few parts of the originals out!

[whipwarrior]

Yeah, that was my other reason. I want to experience MI in its original glory, so I ordered a like-new copy from Amazon.com. It should arrive next week, and I'll run it in ScummVM and finally see what all the hype is about!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Not quite sure why you posted your question in the 'annoyances' thread, but I'd not get my expectations too high. As much as I love Monkey Island, it's not going to be as mind blowing as it once was, especially for someone who's already played later LucasArts titles. Post back with your thoughts, though.

[whipwarrior]

Will do!

[DAISHI]

I'm super PO'd. I'm at the crypt and the game is frozen. I can access hints or the menu but I can't use any command actions in either old school mode or new mode. It's like when I try to blow through dialogue the game gets cranky.

[TheHutt]

Major annoyances:

- The frigging intro. Come on, guys, make a 1.1 patch, it must come back!

- The frigging outro. Come one, guys, this is a sequence o' sentences, it can be programmed in an hour!

 

Major major annoyance:

- The German translation is seriously been messed with. The classic translation of Boris Schneider did take some liberties with the original text, in order to save a joke or a pun (every good translator knows that you have to do that sometimes). So LEC did take his translation as a base and then ruined it by taking all the creative deviations (puns) and replaced them by literal translations, often losing the joke entirely.

[DPB]

I'm super PO'd. I'm at the crypt and the game is frozen. I can access hints or the menu but I can't use any command actions in either old school mode or new mode. It's like when I try to blow through dialogue the game gets cranky.

 

This happened to me after being captured in the fortress - loading a save fixed it, at least it autosaves occasionally.

[DAISHI]

This happened to me after being captured in the fortress - loading a save fixed it, at least it autosaves occasionally.

 

Major gamer fail on my part. I kept saving over the same save file because it was my second time through and I wasn't thinking.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Major major annoyance:

- The German translation is seriously been messed with. The classic translation of Boris Schneider did take some liberties with the original text, in order to save a joke or a pun (every good translator knows that you have to do that sometimes). So LEC did take his translation as a base and then ruined it by taking all the creative deviations (puns) and replaced them by literal translations, often losing the joke entirely.

 

That sucks. Makes me feel lucky that English is my native language.

[sad_muso]

Things that annoy me slightly:

 

1. Stan started talking to me in a muffled 'inside the coffin' voice before he actually got in the coffin

2. Once you've taken Jojo from The Bloody Lip, the music no longer plays in there, only the metronome ticks. When going from Scabb into the bar you briefly hear the start of the bar theme before it abruptly stops.

3. The animation when Rapp Scallion appears is actually smoother in the original game than in the new one, and looks nicer in my opinion.

4. The dream sequence was poor I thought - the skeleton dance wasn't very well animated and the lyrics being out of time with the song was unforgivable - surely they could have just embedded the actual lyrics within the song and synched up the subtitles? Seems like an easy option, but I'm no programmer!

5. Captain Kate Capsize's voice is proper annoying - "Sightseeing! Sightseeing!"

 

Everything else is spot on and I love the HD style!

[SyntheticGerbil]

1. Stan started talking to me in a muffled 'inside the coffin' voice before he actually got in the coffin

 

Yeah that was weird too. I think there were only 3 lines like that. Stan says so much it seems they may have put the wrong processing on some of the voices.

 

Also some of the things assumed Stan will say inside the coffin (like when you mess with your inventory), or outside the coffin stayed the same from either way, meaning maybe it was muffled when it wasn't supposed to be or vice versa. Oh well, not a big deal to me for some reason.

 

3. The animation when Rapp Scallion appears is actually smoother in the original game than in the new one, and looks nicer in my opinion.

 

I found this incredibly strange. He was one of the only minor characters to get a 3D model to allow extra frames in almost every instance. I have a feeling maybe he was started on first with the intention of having all of the characters with extra frames of animation, and possibly that was abandoned at some point?

 

5. Captain Kate Capsize's voice is proper annoying - "Sightseeing! Sightseeing!"

 

Haha, I guess I'm the only one okay with her voice. I alway sort of pictured her as both bored and stuck up. I thought the voice got her annoyance and prissiness well.