"Tales of Monkey Island: Enhanced Version"?
The Siege of Spinner Cay really surpassed my expectations of what I thought would be capable of making in terms of a new Monkey Island game. I really think the music, the humor and especially the storyline so far stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the best Monkey games. It takes the characters into what I hope is new territory and brings something fresh and unexpected to the series. It's up there in my top 3 right now.
With Telltale wonderfully continuing the story of Monkey Island, I feel that it's a shame how flashy graphics and live-recorded music has been mainly put to use in "Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition". It feels kind of dissatisfactory when LucasArts, the company with big budgets and money, spend their time on reviving an old game with an old story that already is fantastic, and leaves Telltale with a so-so-budget to move the series forward. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY happy things are going the way they are for Monkey Island, but once all the episodes of Tales have been released, I can't help but feel the game might risk not getting the attention it deserves because of it being somewhat weak in the graphics and musical departement. (Re-use of character models being one of the examples of the side effects of having a low budget and working towards a short deadline)
To me this IS Monkey Island 5. Once with all episodes put together I'm sure it makes for a pretty darn epic story, and when it's packaged and put on shelves in it's collected glory, I want it to stand strong with the other series installments and not age as badly as Escape from Monkey Island did. Siege of Spinner Cay shows already that Telltale is slightly improving their games episode by episode. I'm curious if pherhaps episode one will feel aged by the time the final episode is out.
The first three Monkey Island games always seemed to take big, bold steps into new territory in the graphics and music departement, and I feel this game has a great magical monkey feel that could be even more fantastic with big budget looks and sound. So my question is, once Telltale has finished all the episodes of Tales of Monkey Island, would it be a good thing to make an enchanced version of it with updated graphics, music and overall a more polished version of the game and release it as one whole game? Even if you are happy with Tales as it is, do you think it would be worth it? I dunno how much money and effort would be requierd, but I sure wouldn't mind. What do you think?
With Telltale wonderfully continuing the story of Monkey Island, I feel that it's a shame how flashy graphics and live-recorded music has been mainly put to use in "Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition". It feels kind of dissatisfactory when LucasArts, the company with big budgets and money, spend their time on reviving an old game with an old story that already is fantastic, and leaves Telltale with a so-so-budget to move the series forward. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY happy things are going the way they are for Monkey Island, but once all the episodes of Tales have been released, I can't help but feel the game might risk not getting the attention it deserves because of it being somewhat weak in the graphics and musical departement. (Re-use of character models being one of the examples of the side effects of having a low budget and working towards a short deadline)
To me this IS Monkey Island 5. Once with all episodes put together I'm sure it makes for a pretty darn epic story, and when it's packaged and put on shelves in it's collected glory, I want it to stand strong with the other series installments and not age as badly as Escape from Monkey Island did. Siege of Spinner Cay shows already that Telltale is slightly improving their games episode by episode. I'm curious if pherhaps episode one will feel aged by the time the final episode is out.
The first three Monkey Island games always seemed to take big, bold steps into new territory in the graphics and music departement, and I feel this game has a great magical monkey feel that could be even more fantastic with big budget looks and sound. So my question is, once Telltale has finished all the episodes of Tales of Monkey Island, would it be a good thing to make an enchanced version of it with updated graphics, music and overall a more polished version of the game and release it as one whole game? Even if you are happy with Tales as it is, do you think it would be worth it? I dunno how much money and effort would be requierd, but I sure wouldn't mind. What do you think?
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For the sound, I really liked that too, I would say live instruments would be better, but its nothing THAT BAD.
Telltale is just a smaller budget company. This isn't even necessarily a bad thing, considering the customer support and game quality from a lot of big-name publishers and developers.
Sam and Max Season 1 was released on the Wii.
and in the store I work in it sells really well (helps that I'm the one pitching it.)
Probably ain't gonna happen though!
Graphics wise, I'd have to say: what for?
Oh and I wouldn't mind seeing DeSinge's Lab in that Episode 2 cutscene instead of a painted backdrop.
Sometimes it slows then jumps in moving the camera (and that's probably my machine, considering it has Vista64, only 2GB RAM and onboard graphics/sound) but apart from that, I'm happy with my graphics.
The sound when hooked up to my two-speaker hi-fi is acceptable (I'm told a 5.1 setup is required to get the best out of the game).
All the acting sounds perfectly natural, except for Elaine's, which could be at least partly due to the sound compression.
I could tolerate re-use of character base models but in a professional game, it shouldn't really happen.
There were a few typos in the voice text in ep2 (most notably 'burry' and 'Esponga'), that I'd like to see fixed for the DVD.
Game controls are jittery. On my machine, the cursor doesn't have the same responsiveness as in the other MI games or the desktop. The character movement via mouse was probably conceived for the Wii and while I've got the hang of it, I appreciate most have reverted to centuries-old arrow keys and WASD. Due to inhibited cursor movement, combining items is real pain in the neck.
Hooking all the episodes together, perhaps with chapter-specific credits being in the menu, like in SMI: SE, would be nice (it is a MI game, after all).
Now I love Tales of Monkey Island, but what I'm asking is that if you could, without seeming unappriciative and whiny, have a full blown game exactly like Tales but with higher polygon rate, detailed textures, smoother animation, better composed backdrops, live-recorded music, varied character designs and less glitches, would you be interested? This would probably be more of a project for a console game I suppose. Think of it as ToMI but with the sandards of a top notch Xbox 360 game.
When playing Siege of Spinner Cay, what really got to me was walking through the jungle and seeing the pirate skeleton leaned next to a tree in the foreground. That kind of composition in enviourments really made me feel like I was playing a Monkey Island game. It reminded me of Purcell and co's background work. But, I also thought about how much even more awesome it would be if it had been a more detailed, big budget game.
I know alot might be reacting to this as "Oh screw Qwazin, he doesn't appriciate Telltale's hard work on bringing the Monkey Island series back", but I do. I just think what is already great could be even greater, and with Telltale doing such a good job with LucasArt's franchise, I don't think it'd be completely wrong of them to give old Telltale a hand in budgets and crew to pimp this sucker out. I'm just speculating and fantasizing. I by no means think this is a realistic proposition. Just think about it. Wink wink.
The graphics don't really need an update (exept the background matte could be made tear-free), but the casio-sound of the music would be great if it was updated by real orchestrations.
I don't like the Monkey Island 5 idea... Tales of Monkey Island IS a great game, but there is a whole demographic behind the choice of name...
yes, it IS the fifth installment in the series, and I actually see this as a genuine Monkey Island adventure, but they chose this name for a reason.
I don't know how other telltale games are on DVD, but I would like to see at as just one game on the final DVD... the rest of the Monkey Island games all have chapters, so they would "just" have to stitch them together without cutting anything.
I would hate to have to install 5 seperate chapters from one DVD.
The series' names got themselves into "*something* of Monkey Island", and I wouldn't call that a bad thing. I mean, LucasArts, if it would like, could as well make a NEW Monkey Island game set between Curse and Escape and call it, like, Honeymoon of Monkey Island, therefore transforming MI4 into MI5 (chronologically), and ToMI, into what, MI7? O_O Meh, just messing with your heads
Besides, there is an advantage in NO chronological numbers. I mean, take Devil May Cry series, for example. I do NOT know for sure, but it goes something like "DMC2 is set before DMC1, DMC3 after DMC1 and DMC4 before DMC2". Of course, I don't remember for sure now, but that kinda proves my point that chronological numbers sometimes can be quite useless.
allthough Curse does cary the name "Monkey Island 3" in a small circle on the box in most versions, Escape isn't called MI4.
"The Pox of Monkey Island" could be fitting at the moment, but we still have to see if the pox carry on until the last episode.
I'm actually pretty satisfied with the name "tales".
Uhm... what's the point of thinking a fitting name for Tales of Monkey Island if it's already called Tales of Monkey Island?
Although the music is nicely put together, is does indeed sound too "electronically" to my tasting.
The little errors in backgrounds and in characters could be ironed out too...
To me, this is the next monkey island... maybe just because I've been looking forward to it for so long... just like the rest of you I 'spose
If they were to make it into one big game, then taleS could be unfitting, since it would be just one TALE...
I was just speculating.... kind of the point of this topic.
It's like asking what the point of this entire topic is, or worse; what the point is in posting in this topic.
No, No and no. There is nothing wrong with the game except the voice quality in one occasion in Episode 2.
I don't think it'd be worth doing if it's a lot of effort though, they've got to get the Brains Trust to get together series 2 after all. :-)
It's already been said many times, but I do agree that all the chapters should be stitched together as one big game for the final release though. I really, really hope they do it that way.
i mean we've allready had a ton of people complaining their aicient pcs or laptops with integrated graphics chips cant run tales as it is! personally now im a bit of a gfx freak, i like upgrading my pc and playing games with the best grphics like crysis etc but sadly im in a minority.
So do i, but then we would loose the awesome Murray Credits. Unless they were put in as an extra, or alternate credits.
As for the quality, Coming from someone who owns both wiiware chapters (only two are out in the UK) and now the PC versions (i swapped. It's still cheaper on PC for the whole set than buying the last three wiiware episodes) I think the quality is perfect on the PC version (minus a few bugs, like the Voodoo smoke on guybrushes hand turning square, or Lechuck being replaced by a black ball in chapter two (after revisitng the island after breaking through the blockade). The wii version however, desperately needs a disc release. It's just So painfully inferior. I lived with the Crashes, and low res graphics because i was so starved of Monkies, but it just isn't right that wii owners pay more for an inferior version.
I reckon there should be a switch in options for end-of-chapter credits and also a skip button during end-of-chapter credits.
The WiiWare quality and price are in the hands of Nintendo. I'm willing to bet TT only get about £4 for every episode sold on there. As for releasing it on disc, this is more expensive and TT must have thought about this first.
The quality could be alot better on a disc though. Especially if they make it dual layered. Considering that i would pay £35 ($60) for a normal, fully functional disc game (same price as all the episodes on wiiware, if points are bought from Shop channel, otherwise price=£40+) It is a bit of a ripoff. Also, considering that the PC version comes as a disc anyway, costs can't be that much more on wii.
Sure its not made with the most cutting edge in graphics but MI never was about that.