How were you introduced to the MI series?

[Suedehead]

It was 1992 for me, I'd just got an Amiga 500+, and somebody gave me a pirated copy of Monkey Island. I'd heard of it, and liked the sound of it, but at that point the most stimulating games I'd played were the 'Dizzy' series on the Spectrum! I haven't got the words to describe the extent to which MI blew me away, the fact I'm still talking about it a decade later says everything! - At 22, Monkey Island Games are the only games I still play, well along with Championship Manager!

 

As I was used to the Dizzy style games, back then I had no concept of saving a game, so everyday I used to play Monkey Island 1 from scratch!, no matter where I was up to, I'd go through the whole thing to get there, and didn't find it the slightest bit irritating! Had no guide whatsoever either - Great memories!

[sea_cucumber]

Somewhere of the...

The year was 1998. I was watching television and changing the channels when I saw a TV show about computer games. It was called "Myst". In that TV show people call and play adventure games.

And guess what, they were playing CMI. On the next day I bought it.

In 2000 LucasArts released EMI and I bought it:mad:. Than last year I found a friend who has MI1 and MI2.

[crazymatt]

I grew up with monkey island, the game came out before i was old enough to remember and i thought it was so cool i ended up learning how to read by playing it. i always had a lot of trouble with the insult sword fighting and had to memorise the letters of the words in the insults and the comebacks they went to (as i didn't know how to read and could figure out if i was right if guybrush moved toward the right side of the screen). i lost a lot of fights, especially against the sword master, but after i learned how to read i started to understand the humor in the game.

I was still struggling with the first game when the 2nd one had come out, but still vaguely remember playing through some of the easy mode stuff from the original dos game.

I sort of drifted from that to educational games from the learning company (with which i learned how to multiply when i was still in first grade) and MYST and nearly forgot about the 2nd monkey island game (thinking it was some kinda weird dream) until i got the 3rd game in december of '97 (as well as the impossible-to-beat-w/o-several-dozen-hints-and/or-a-walkthrough sequel to MYST, Riven). I played through CMI several times, both regular and mega monkey, and finally got "monkey island madness" the cd with the1st two games the summer of the following year.

I became addicted to monkey island and got through all 3 games before the 4th game came out. i finished it the spring after i got it, and kept myself busy with the 3rd Myst game: Exile until i finished it (with no hints!, <--in a MYST game!) last year, and have been drifting between other games, lost, until the 5th Monkey Island (or 4th MYST game, whichever scomes first) will help me out of my condition of adventure game deprivation.

[Shinji-Ikari]

Originally posted by brief

I didn't get the games, however, until much later, when PC Gamer included the first two games in one of their CDs, which could be "unlocked" by purchasing them online from LucasArts.

Exactly the same way I got it. I no longer have it

 

when MI4 came out i bought it and my computer wasnt good enough to play it. So about a year later we got an upgrade and it started to let me play it

 

I bought MI4 first day it was out. My computer wasn't too great either. So I played it on some other persons computer. Then I got a new PC (Which I am still playing games on today.) And completed it

 

I was 9 (?) and had borrowed a mates PC Gamer magazine with a CMI demo on it. I played it really liked it so I "unlocked" MI1 and MI2 and loved them. Later on I ordered CMI for $100NZ. Then one year another LucasArts game very similair to monkey island came out. It even had the same characters and followed from CMI, But was not a good. But I also quickly bought that.

 

I was going to buy a pack with MI1 MI2 MI3 and MI4 for $50NZ the other day..WHY DIDN'T I!?!?!

__________________________________________________

Arg, us monkey island geeks are all alike

[Mentat88]

Upon visiting a friend of my dad's when I was a young lad, I became very bored. I wanted to be at home with my Commodore64 <stamps feet>. Ah, the games it had, Herb's Dummy Run, Grog, Cliff Hanger, Boulderdash just to name a few. Memories.

I made the point that I was bored. Repeatedly. Until, finally, my Dad's friend introduced me to his Amiga sitting out in the back room. I was stunned. The graphics were cool, it was fast and...this is what blew my mind...it had speakers?!?!? He pointed me out to the vast amount of copied games in the 14 disk boxes of 3.5" and said, "Go for your life".

So I did, game after game. Hours passed and I was just flicking through the list of disks until I came across an interesting title...Secret of Monkey Island. Taking the same chance I did with the rest of them, I fired it up.

After watching the intro, it moved to the scene where Guybrush is walking down the cliff side to the docks. I noticed the boxes of words in the bottom-left corner. Instantly I thought it was an educational game. Quit.

Now, before you start screaming "BLASPHEMA!!!!" and pointing at me, hear me out. Dad's friend came by just as I quit the game. He said, "How come you quit that game?"

I said "It was educational. I hate educational games"

He said, "The only educational thing that game teaches is how to steal stuff not nailed down"

I pondered the answer briefly, he said steal. I said, cool.

I played the game anyway. Alas I only got halfway. I made it my mission then to find the game and buy it for 386. I picked up the game on PC for $19.95 (it was on 7 disks for PC!!) and a code wheel. (Ah, the code wheel)

 

It was a love affair from then on. Since then, I have bought many LEC classics and newbies. But there will always be a special place in my heart for SOMI.

SOMI, may your legacy live on **sniff**

 

(I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Ben Gorman and the SCUMM team [and all those involved] for making LEC classics possible to run under a windows kernel

[Pagnell]

I brought Loom on the Amiga back in 1989 and completed it within three days I enjoyed it that much. As soon as I seen MI come out it was almost natural to buy it due to my Loom experience. It took me a bit longer to complete that though due to both the ingredients section on the ship (pain in the butt!!) and the 'searching in the cave with the dead pirates head' section. What a game!!!

[simonmhutchins]

I don't remember how I found out about the games but I ended up buying the bounty pack. I loaded up all three games and started with MI3 because I thought the graphics and music were the best. How shallow is that.

[Cutthroat_Nick]

I remember being merited from my 1st grade teacher who was a video game fanatic. He ended up giving me the original demo disk that contained demos of Loom, Secret of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

I fell head over heals in love with all Lucas arts adventure games

[Cutthroat_Nick]

You know, Its really amazing that when people want to tell a story about themselves they talk a lot-

LOOK AT THE SIZES OF THE POSTS-WOW!!!

Of course, who wouldn't want to rave on about Mnkey Island!!!

[Ariana]

I've only played a few adventure games, and I'm not very good at them (I usually stick to console RPGs), so while I had heard of the Monkey Island games, I didn't really think much about giving them a try. I thought they sounded a little too goofy for me, and I wasn't sure it was worth trying to play a PC game on my not-very-good computer.

 

I've recently become very interested in all things piratey, though, especially silly piratey things (I loved Muppet Treasure Island, I admit it), so my brother gave me EMI for my birthday this June.

 

Since June I have acquired and played all the Monkey Island games. I am now hooked.

[Reaper Girl]

I'll keep it short and sweet, becuase of legal reasons and Nick;)

 

Where my dad worked when i was little, there was a LOT of computer people, so there was a LOT of share-ware going around. But it was "Joe", the software pirate, who was brave eneogh to copy full programs. Joe copied many games, many which my father recieved (my childhood was spent turning pale in front of a glowing screen... )

Two games were Mi1 and Mi2. I can remember being in nirvana, playing SoMI at night, with the old Northgate's fan humming and a summer breeze coming in the rumpus room window, and because there was no voice or music, you could hear the crickets sing...*cries because memories are beautiful*

I always felt like thanking "Joe" in my later years. But when i was ten, he developed cancer and died. He was buried with floppy disks...he was that much into computers.

*sigh*

[Junior™]

When I was six years old I saw my brother (who was 15 back then) play The Secret of Monkey Island with a friend on an Amiga 2000. From this very moment I was hooked to adventures. Pretty strange considering that I wasn't able to read properly at this time.

[Bushmeister]

The first MI i was introduced to was MI3 (I'm not too old!), from some friends of mine who usually went out and bought a few games a month for cheap. They were usually cack, so I wasn't too optimistic when I first heard the name "Monkey Island", but as soon as I started playing, I loved it, and helped them to complete the game by solving a few of the difficult puzzles (which were very difficult when I was about 10/11!)

[HelloBunny]

It was late 1991, and our family had just bought a spankin' new PC... I stumbled upon a Secret of Monkey Island demo, I have no idea where it came from, but it was the only game we had in that first week or so of owning the computer, so I played it... I think the objective of the demo was to get past the troll at the entrance of the town on Melee Island... I was 11 at the time, but for some reason I didn't find it hard, or confusing, or anything like that... maybe I was mature for my age? Who knows...

 

Anyway, after completing the demo, I found out that they had the whole game on sale at the local software superstore... Not only that, they had Monkey Island 2 out already! Everytime I would visit the store I would drool over the screenshots on the back of the boxes.. And of course, like all other kids, dream about how the games were... This look-but-don't-touch relationship went on for a few weeks, until I convinced my parents to buy me one of the games... I chose MI2, because the screenshots were alot more interesting... After finishing MI2, I went on to MI1, and then Indy and the Fate of Atlantis, and then on to a whole score of other graphic adventures...

 

I would play all the LucasArts adventures, comformed with the fact (or so I thought) that the Monkey Island franchise was over... How could it not be over? I mean, Guybrush was just a kid and all of it had been a weird dream... Needless to say I was blown away when I discovered MI3 on sale in the stores! I had goosebumps all over me... (Sort of like how I felt when I found out they were doing the Star Wars prequels!)

 

I have yet to play Grim Fandango and MI4, but as soon as I gather enough $$$ to buy a computer, you can bet I will play them at once... and of course replay the classic MI1 and MI2... And wait for the day they release MI5!

[KTrimmer]

i started liking it when i played Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.where u could turn into Guybrush and explore the Barbery Coast in3-D. igot curious about the game and bought a copy of MI3. i liked it so much i bought all the other games:3headed:

[LeChuck lives]

With me it was when i was younger and one day my dad walked in with an Amiga 500 (this wasnt long after they came out) and two 4 games these were:

 

Days of thunder

 

Back to the future

 

Some horror game

 

The

 

Secret of monkey island

 

Any way i played it with my dad and it took us about a week to complete since then ive completed it in about 1hr 12minutes or somthing like that.

[izzbizz]

I first heard about MI after getting in touch with my cousin. Our gran had just died and we had to go to the funeral and I saw him there (this was only 1 yr ago so I've haven't been a monkey islander for long). I was 13 (and now I'm nearly 14) and he was 15. Well anyway, we got each others mobile no's cos we didn't have em b4 and he txted me asking 4 mine, my and my 2 sisters email addys. So i gave em and then I began tlking 2 him a lot on msn. So then one day, out of the blue,

he said: Hav u herd of dis great game Monkey Island?

i sed: Nooo....?

he said: Well that's what made me want to be one of those ye olde pirates...

 

I thought he was stark raving mad at the time but when I got it and played it I was AMAZED! It was all I'd ever dreamed of! Cool (but old) graphics, puzzles, music, excellent characters, pirates and a swashbuckling adventure (not to mention the grog). It took me about 2 wks 2 complete SoMI without any cheats, help from my cousin or walkthrus. I then completed MI2 in about 3 weeks and then went on for MI3 and MI4. I'll never get over my Mi craze and am currently trying to persuade my parents to let me decorate my room like the inside of a pirate ship; complete with steering wheel and a 'Map to Monkey Island' on the wall (the map will be the old A3 paper in teabags to make it brown and drawn on with those inks things!). So there you have it, I;m obsessed......but why are you reading this....don't you have something better to do (if you don't I suggest you go play MI1 rite now and relive the magic/ live the magic for the 1st time)?

 

[Goffmog]

It was either 90 or 91 and I was about 11. Our all-powerful home computer was a mighty Atari ST with a whole 512k of RAM! I had previously played Maniac Mansion and the amazing Indiana Jones and the last crusade, both on my Atari and already loved Lucasfilm's adventure games.

 

Then I became aware of Monkey island, read all the reviews, desperately wanted it but me little world was cruelly crushed by the fact that to play it on my Atari, I would need a RAM expansion. Monkey Island was one of the few games at the time which needed a whole megabyte of memory to run!! (gasp)

 

Somehow my Dad bought it for us anyway. So against my better knowledge I tried it out in my pathetic Atari and it worked!!!... sort of There were moments in the game when it would run out of memory and crash. The secret was that you had to save the game obsessively at every new scene and re-load so as to free up enough memory to load the next scene without crashing. In a couple of places I even had to take my saved games to my friend's house to get past certain bits on his 1 MB Atari STE. (lucky bastard) Monkey Island was such a brilliant game that it was worth it.

 

Of course, later on I discovered just how much better it all looked and sounded on an Amiga and by the time MI2 came along I had my very own Amiga 600 to play it on.

 

CMI game along years later at a period in my life when I was severely depressed, I wouldn't give it total credit but it certainly helped me get through that time. CMI is probably the only long awaited video game sequel that I ever thought was worth the wait. It was such a joy to be back in Guybrush's world. I wish I could say the same for EMI

[Samnmax221]

I had a dream about rubber chickens with pullies in the middle and woke up a a cold flop sweat

 

Anyone else get the ghost ship toon from MI1 stuck in your head during class finals

[Neikron]

I remember getting the first 2 in some pack and it came with Full Throttle, The Dig and Dark Forces (Surprised I could remember all that) I was really young back then...But that got me into it. Was quite a while after that the series continued.

[Angulique]

A couple of years ago my boyfriend was on the Lucas site searching for a new Indy game when he came across the CMI demo. Being that we're huge pirate freaks he DL'd it and we played through it. We check local area stores for the game, but didn't have any luck for a while. Finally we came across it at Target in a jewel case for like $10 and we grabbed it. I played through the whole game and completely fell in love with it. When EMI came out we grabbed that as well in much the same fashion and I played through it, but it was sort... meh. But aside from EMI's faults I still loved CMI. I just recently acquired MI1 & 2 (after watching an animation on newgrounds) and I must say I love them as well!

[sith_master2000]

The story of my Monkey Island Fan beginning starts like this:

 

A few years back, in the year 2000, EA (Electroninc Arts) in Australia was having this little deal with their customers, if you bought one of their specially marked games you could choose one for free! Now I know you're all thinking 'but Monkey Island is made by Lucas Arts?' which is true, however EA had asked LA if they could sell some of their best selling games under the title of 'EA Classics.' So I had just bought Rouge Squadron 3D and had the choice of one of the following games to have sent in the mail:

Escape from Monkey Island

American Maggee's Alice

Rouge Squadron 3D (which of course I already had) and

Rugby League #some number#.

Now LA and EA could not gaurantee that you would get your first choice so I chose, MI 4 as my number 1 becasue although I didn't know much about the MI games apart from the fact that the main character was called Guybrush Threepwood, (although ironically I heard someone say Guybroosh Threepgood so thats what I thought his name was,) it sounded very cool, and I chose American Maggee's Alice 2nd because I don't like sport. About a week later I was terribly dissapointed because I got my 2nd preference :( ! However 3 months later my older brother bought a game and we looked at the freebies list and to my suprise saw 'The Curse of Monkey Island' so I asked him if he would get that and he said 'yeah I heard this game is really cool.' So one week later it arrived in the mail 'The Curse of Monkey Island' in all its glory! So we both played it and I became a Monkey Fan! Now for Christmas later that year my parents had seen how muched my brother and I loved the game so they bought as a gift to both of us 'Escape from Monkey Island' I was rapped! and 2 years later I got MI 1 and 2, so now you know my Monkey Island story.

[Sgt. Pepper]

My Monkey island story is filled with love hate adventure and mild comic violence(so the younger and less weak stomached readers should turn their heads when if it gets too intence). It all began when we got our first computer. My Dad must have gotten bored with all they had to offer(How could you get bored with typing programs). Any way I guess he went out and bought some games. As he was in the store looking for the perfect game for himself he saw many tempting buys. Extreme Tick Tack Toe, 3D future Chess, Virtual Tredmill ect.... Not knowing witch was the right one for him he started to walk to the exit when The Secret of Monkey Island caught his eye. "What is the secret of Monkey island?" he thought to him self.

Picking up the package tighly wraped with celophane he felt the power surge through his body. "I must have this game!" he proclaimed.

After purchasing the game he sped home in his 1976 Honda civic with tinted windows, power stearing, and rust complementing the attractive red body with white left door and front bumper.

"Today I am a computer nerd. Doomed to the life of fatty snack food and Mothers basement." Says he.

I was interested in it then but too young to read wich made the game less interesting.

Then a few years ago we found some old games MI being one of them. I remembed how I envied my father playing that 11 mega byte pixalated wonder of a game. I soon was a fan of the series. At that time we only had MI1 the game took over my life. I didnt eat. If I wasnt on the thing Id get cold, itch, shake, my eyes would turn red, I would think only of the game. If my sister was on the computer I would borrow money from my parrents to pay my sister to let me have some of the thing. I would threaten people that wanted to get on with knives. And that was only the begining. I got associated with gangs and we would hang out on the cornor of the street with our laptops tripping people and holding people up for items.

But all this ended when the cops got us. It was a massive bust. It took 10 cops but they finaly got me. Since then Ive been in rehab. Slowly weening me off the stuff. Ive gotten better.

So id like to spread the message DONT DO EXESIVE COMPUTER GAMES. Ive been there I know what its like.

And thats how I came to Love MONKEY ISLAND.

I hope I tought you guys a lesson today. Computer games can make you do crazy things. You might get into Gangs or "Clans". The main point is peer pressure can make you do crazy things youve been warned.....

[loofy]

Dear Lord .... I first played Monkey Island in the U.S.S.R. - damn time flies

 

 

Suggested retail price for all versions is $59.95.

 

[pirate boy]

I jumped straight into Curse of Monkey Island. I was very eyebrowy by how cartoony it looked. Wondering if it would be one of those happy go lucky "Oh can you count to four games?"

Instead upon watching the opening trailer I was washed over with piratey instinct. I felt like a little kid again, pirates was my life, still is. "A pirate I was meant to be trim the sails and roam the seas." One of the best songs EVEEERRR. lol

Anyways it was incredibly awesome. I LOVED IT, the music the cooky characters everywhere you go. The hidden gags. (I found out later about giving the gum to Murray and the wandering around El Pollo Diablo joke. Classic)

 

Escape from Monkey Island came out not long after I had discovered Curse, and I think I only ended up playing till I got lost in the swamp and you had to talk to yourself.

 

Weird.

 

But great series, great storytelling. I recommend it to my friends but of course, they simply don't get it.