Bad graphics?
I've seen a few people complain about the graphics of Tales of Monkey Island. Now I'm curious, what is it that you don't like about them? Is it because the game is in 3D instead of 2D, or is it something else?
Personally, I think TMI looks great, but if you have a different opinion, I won't bite or anything, I'm just curious about the reason.
Personally, I think TMI looks great, but if you have a different opinion, I won't bite or anything, I'm just curious about the reason.
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I think a lot of people maybe got comfortable with Gurbrush as a clean-cut guy with a big nose and the new interpretation feels alien.
graphics wise.. ep1 lagged out badly for me esp at the start with the movements
to me the graphics are just.. telltale graphics.. and thats how they do it.. i do expect other character models soon, but the backgrounds and animations are fine!
But other than these tehnical things. It still looks great, the art and design is great.
the reuse of models is a bit annoying, but not "bad graphics". there were a few "cracks" in the first episode, but it seems to be mostly fixed in spinner cay..
I decent 2D sprite driven engine IMO is better than a 3D engine that will run on most peoples PC and won't cost a stupid amount of time and money to create.
The 2D engine I'm talking about would contain sudo 3D processing, such as gradient maps over the main characters to then apply colour and light intensity filters on dependent on light source and direction to then change/tinge the colour brightness of the sprites pixels. Also include a long shadow, where appropriate. Have smooth animations for when the character changes direction.
This would then make it a lot easier to create fixed animation scenes (as mentioned by StarEye in tread Would you want next-gen graphics?) where you enter the kitchen window on Scabb Island in MI2. This has been done in MI5 chapter 1 such as when you are trying to board the Screaming Narwhal. With a 2D engine these would be a lot easier to create and hence could fit a lot more of them in.
This would allow almost everyone to play the game at 1600x1200, and have the screen fully detailed.
In an ideal world I would like to see 3D with very detailed textures and very high poly-count and be able to run on an Intel 486 with 4Mb of RAM, with a budget of $5k for graphics, that isn't going to happen, hence why IMO 2D is still a better option.
Next reason I'm not a fan of the graphics (which is in part due to the above mentioned). Is in MI1 and MI2 LeChuck was a scary ghost pirate, in the opening scene of MI5 Chap1 he just isn't that scary. There is very little atmosphere in the opening scene (and there on in), the opening scene based on the script should have a lot of atmosphere.
I'm not sure why they started it at this point, rather than from the point where Guybrush first started making the sword. I'm also not sure why there wasn't a re-cap of story up to now, which would of helped bring new people into the game that weren't around computers 20 years ago or just weren't born/old enough.
Also there is a clear lack of grime and grog stains, which is partly due to the lack of detail!
Anyway, the game looks great on my widescreen monitor, so I'm not sure what people are complaining about. Sure, it's not Crysis, but it's one of the better looking adventure games on the market right now. The art style, colours and character designs look great.
I used to be (and still am to an extent) a big advocate of 2D graphics, but I don't think this is strictly true.
A 2D animation usually requires every frame of a character to be drawn from scratch, but with a 3D animation, the model's already there, it's more or less a case of moving the skeleton rig around (I'm over-simplifying the process a bit here, but the fact remains).
Basically, the same goes for the characters (I really envy Elaine for her, uh, robust hairstyle). Although here, a great job is done with the facial expressions and the way they make their eyes look. I nearly felt off my chair laughing when Guybrush gets the U-Tube and hypercritically looks up at the glassblower. A-mazing! So that kinda makes up for the 3D-look of the characters.
I guess it depends on what you are looking for in an adventure game. I reckon some people don't give a damn about the graphics as long as the gameplay is good. On the other hand, there must be a reason why this genre was originally called "graphic adventures"...
Also to create the 2D version you can use (and probably would use) the same 3D skeleton idea to get the basics down, then manually add the detail and smooth over the 3D model. I.e. I'm not saying that each frame or more correctly sprite and background would have to be hand drawn in 2D from scratch.
More of a high polygon count character is created in 3D then rendered into 2D and touched up. When working in 3D it can be hard to get non-bone part of the characters to look correct in every possible position you might want it in. Also facial expression can be very tricky also.
I hope my augment makes slightly more sense now. The 2D aspect allows small amount of diversity, which is self contained over a fixed number of frames, rather than having to have the 3D model that little bit more realistic.
For example in MI2 (again) when Guybrush goes grave robbing and he lifts up the bone and his trousers fall down. To do that all using 3D models of his trousers is a big ask. In 2D we are probably looking at about 150 frames (5 seconds @30fps) tops. The 3D model lifts the bone above his head, then looks either way, bends over and moves his hands as if his pulling his trousers up. Then the 2D graphics guy fills in the trousers.
Basically the 2D part fills in the bits that are hard to pull off well in a 3D modelling environment! Also things like, sea spray, spit, fire, etc.
It's the storyline/gameplay that matters, and the night I downloaded chapter 1, would I of kept playing until I had completed it that night, and ended up going to bed 2 hours later than I normally would, if it was rubbish? Would I of download chapter 2 the day it came out (also would I of looked for it at 1am GMT and 6am GMT the day of the release), then played it solidly until it was compete, if it was rubbish? (incase you are wondering the answer to the above questions is no!)
There are a couple of bits that I don't like about the story, purely because they don't fit in to MY idea of Monkey Island (namely the first 2), SPOILER-- namely the cause of the winds and secondly the idea of Merfolk--- END of SPOILER. If it was a brand new game, I would love it to bits and not have any problem with the story line at all.
All in all, it is an OK Monkey Island, as an adventure game it is great!
The only thing that annoyes me a bit is the repeated character models, im sure theres some kind of engine, memory restriction or whatever but im sure they could have gotten round it 1 way or another.
Telltale makes episodic games. They won't be making a "full" game.
The reason why 2D is not going to be used is due to the fact that they would want one person to do each background to keep it consistent. which takes a considerable amount of time, which with Telltale's release schedule is not particularly useful.
And done.
The audio is great !
I love the menu and the grassy jungle thing when You press ESC and then again - I can do that for at least a few times... more then a few but it put a smile on my face.. u u u
... At least but not at last I said smth good about it e e e ?
I know that they do episodic games ! But they will...
Will what?
And its complaints by the way.
The animation of the characters has hugely improved since the first few Sam and Max games which I played - I do hate that one animation most characters do while talking though, where they shake their heads rapidly.
The graphics don't ruin it for me, and they're not terrible - but it's impossible to avoid comparing them to the amazing realistic pixel art in 1 and 2 (when talking to the pirates in the scumm bar, for example) and the painted backgrounds of 3.
Could have worked similar to Bosco's disguises in Sam and Max Season One.
I miss Bosco's disguises
And the next thing after models, is how they make the enviorment/background sound, like it's the worst graphics in the world, are they Videlexrix? Are they trapped in the 90s? Do they think we're spacemen? All these answers will never be answered, only we can enjoy the lovely game graphics, Telltale has given us.
As for the reused models... Well, sometimes it can be a bit annoying, but if that's all you can focus on then you have to be pretty obsessed with finding faults in these games. I didn't even notice them really in the second episode.
As for the graphics I have no problem with it being 3D, but the over-compressed textures makes it look worse than it is.
I'm not convinced by the aesthetic style that Telltale has chosen to adopt for the game though. It's too much "Escape from Monkey Island" and not enough "Monkey Island 2". I wouldn't use the word sterile to describe it, but it's not far off from appearing sterile. In going for caricature, the artists have actually lost something of the "character", if that makes any sense.
However, the only things that I'd change would be to return the characters to less cartoony, caricature-like proportions, make the environmental lighting more dramatic, and add an extra layer of grit and ugliness to the pirates and their world. The game needs to be more "atmospheric" and "spooky" in the dark places and have more fairground "warmth" in the bright places.
I love the facial expressions, environmental animations, and the cinematic camera angles of TOMI though. They undeniably bring something to the series that it has never had before.
It's simple. Because you can reuse so much, you can make the same game much cheaper in 3D.
Take Guybrush's hand for example. To change it every episode is like one hour work. In 2D you will have work for weeks, because you needs to revise every frame of every animation of Guybrush.