Jump to content

Home

First and Favourite experiences with Monkey Island


Recommended Posts

For me, it was The original Secret of Monkey Island back in 1990/1991 when I was just a wee young whippersnapper.

 

I obtained a copy for the Commodore Amiga 500, from a dodgy guy around the corner from me. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'd heard good things about it. I came home clutching my 4 x 3.5in floppy disks and got started. Oh my good lord....what a game, I was immediately immersed in this incredible world of late night adventures on Melee island with the most incredible characters I'd seen outside of the movies.

 

around 2-3 years later, I bought LeChucks Revenge at full price from the local computer shop, and my god it was brilliant....although I seem to recall it being on around 10 disks lol!!!! The disk swapping didn't ruin it at all though.

 

I never quite felt the same about the later games, but I always loved and frequently go back to the original. My favourite version being (for some reason) the very basic version with text descriptions of items rather than icons.

 

I think my favourite part of the game, was that eureka moment when I realised I simply had to follow the shopkeeper to find the Swordmaster....pure genius....and I love the 'wandering around in the woods' music. :)

 

Happy days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Around 95/96 I was round a friends house and his friend had lent him The Secret of Monkey Island. We played it for a few hours, laughed, got stuck, laughed some more. It was my friends brother who suggested that "How appropriate, you fight like a cow!" was an appropriate response to all of the insults, which got us no further in the game, but made us laugh more.

 

That's probably my earliest and best memory of playing any of the games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1990 I got an Amiga 500 for my birthday, the first game I got for it was The Last Crusade. It took me at least two years to beat it. Maybe because meanwhile I got Monkey Island in '91 as a present, and beat it within a week and also Loom in about 6 hours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

My first game was Curse. I also bought it from a dodgy guy standing on some street corner at night wearing sunglasses (sunglasses at night? Really?) and a hat. I actually had no idea what I was buying - being a kid around the times where Mario and Donkey Kong were in, I thought I was buying Donkey Kong! XD

 

Then I went home and played and was hooked instantly by the opening cutscene. Took me a really long time to figure out how to even do stuff LOL, first real adventure game XD (other than Fatty Bear though that was pretty easy). I have to agree that playing Monkey Island in that age was purely magical - the music, the characters *squeak* - there were times where I'd put my hand on the screen wishing it could literally suck me into the world of Monkey Island! :D

 

Sigh, good old days.

 

I DO remember watching my brother play LeChuck's Revenge years before though, he kept reloading the game and trying different dialogue options in attempt to stop Largo from stealing all his money! :rofl:

 

The only game that really kicked my Monkey Island obsession (for a short time at least) was Psychonauts. THAT blew my mind when I finished it! XD

 

...Why do I always fall in love with franchises that always fall in risk of being discontinued? :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

My friend had The Secret of Monkey Island on the Amiga and had solved quite a few of the individual puzzles, but hadn't really bothered to follow the storyline or work out why he was using a rubber chicken to cross a telephone wire or following a shopkeeper to a weird place in the woods or whatever. So we had a few sessions of working our way through the puzzles on Melee Island, until we got completely stuck at the point where

 

 

everyone is gone and you have to collect mugs from the SCUMM Bar and use them to carry grog to the prison for some reason, I dunno man

 

 

We were completely stuck and eventually I had to go home. But I couldn't stand the mystery, so I borrowed the game off him

 

 

Ok I copied it, sorry everyone

 

 

and took it home. And after only several hours of frustration trying to figure out what you could possibly need all these mugs for, I figured it out! YAAAAS!

 

And that's my first big memory of the series. I actually solved a puzzle by myself and remembered to go to the toilet afterwards and everything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and took it home. And after only several hours of frustration trying to figure out what you could possibly need all these mugs for, I figured it out! YAAAAS!

 

I worked that one out in about 10 seconds! I'm not bragging or anything, as the rest of the puzzles took me an age lol :D

 

I also copied MI as I knew literally nothing about it other than I'd read it was good....I did however pay full whack brand new for MI2 and MI3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me too! I ended up with two boxed copies of MI2 because one of the disks was faulty and rather than just replace that one they sent me a whole new box.

 

I bought MI2 as a present for my dad's birthday but I think we all know who it was really for. Think I was off Scabb Island before the big day rolled around!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh man, the main puzzle that had me around the bend in MI1 was the finding the last ingredient to recipe on the ship with all the chemicals in it!! :giggle1: I caved. I had to resort to the hint system :ohdear: Yup, couldn't play the first two games till they released the special editions because I just could NOT find them anywhere before then!

 

LOL I also paid full price for the next game (Escape), which was quite a feat because it's hard to find original games when I was where I was! :D Tales I sort of "borrowed" from a friend but then I bought it on my brother's PS3. Ooh and he bought the MI1 special edition for PS3 for me too to keep me occupied last time I was here. He also gave me an original Curse and Escape at one point so now I have two Escape originals :lol:

 

I'm loving how I'm ultimately getting the original copies for the games I love! :giggle1:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was only playing through the special edition of Monkey Island 2 that I realised that during the spitting contest, the flags move to show there's a gust of wind that will help your spit cross the line. Until then, I'd played through the game loads of times, but once you'd done everything else necessary to win I thought it was random chance whether you could make your spit travel far enough or not.

 

Also, in Fate of Atlantis, there's one particular configuration of the Lost Dialogue of Plato where the correct alignment of the stones to get into Atlantis makes no sense. I'm still convinced its a bug in the game. Anyway, to get past that point I just had to try every possible combination which took ages. Grr!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The convoluted labyrinth that is Ron Gilbert's mind has always been too complex for the simple likes of me. :halo2:

 

I used to be a lot more patient with these games, easily standing being stuck in the same place for months at a time. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OOH OOH! Talking of labyrinths, and Ronzo definitely had nothing to do with it, but I genuinely really enjoyed the labyrinth thing in Escape from Monkey Island. Probably the best bit of the entire game for me. Felt like a bit like an off-the-wall episode of Red Dwarf or something, all the stuff about meeting future versions of yourself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember really liking the music for the boulder room! :D Not to mention the following-Ozzie-into-the-jungle room.

 

Wahay, I'm trying to incorporate the time-travelling-ness of the marsh into a fan ficcy :D Which may never see the light of day and has ultimately turned into an alternate sequel to EMI because that's how long ago I started writing it.

 

Shooting yourself was admittedly kinda fun but I distinctly remember that part of the game being quite glitchy. :/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I don't remember the music from the boulder room, or the jungle room. There were some great pieces of music in the game though - need to play it again. Need!

 

I don't think I messed around with the Mystes o' Time very much. Probably why it was fine for me!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Oh really! So you didn't experience that bug where you could still be in possession of whatever future Guybrush gives you because past Guybrush refused to take it later? I gotta admit it was cool to still be holding the gun afterwards but it did something weird to his walking animation - like he'd stand in place and tap his feet or something... Oh, and using the abomination of nature in the swamp made it float off screen or something too LOL, there's a whole page of bugs somewhere on worldofmi I think :giggle1:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A replay of Escape From Monkey Island is long overdue for me - confirmed by the fact I have no idea what you just said.

 

I thought someone had organised a FORUM PLAYTHROUGH thread, which would be fun to participate in, but I think that might have been on a different board. And about five years ago. But apart from that it would be ideal to get me going through the game again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...