Maniac Mansion or Day of the Tentacle? YOU decide!!!
I've noticed a divide on these forums between those who love Maniac Mansion and those who love Day of the Tentacle. I know there have been threads on this before but I thought I'd start a poll because I'm very interested in whether one game is significantly more popular than the other or if they are more even than one would think.
Please be aware that I am generalizing here, I know that everybody has their own unique opinion. That being said I have found two general camps the fans belong in: Those who love Maniac Mansion complain that Day of the Tentacle abandoned the things that made the MM great and forced itself into a generic adventure game mold. Those who love Day of the Tentacle complain that Maniac Mansion was to hard and the ability to die made the gameplay frustrating.
If you haven't played either then please don't answer the poll. I don't mean to exclude you or anything but you are not really adequately equipped to contribute the discussion. I recommend filing the names 'Maniac Mansion' and 'Day of the Tentacle' away mind as games you get you should get around to playing some time and once/if you complete them both come back here and give us your two cents
I personally picked Day of the Tentacle. I thought it was a masterpiece from when LucasArts where right in their prime. Also, I just loved Laverne, she was my kind of crazy XD. I suspect that Day of the Tentacle will win this battle convincingly but I'll let the numbers to the talkin'. Also, I'd love to hear from you Maniac Mansion fans (and I know you are out there) as to why you think that game is better.
This isn't usually a problem on the Telltale forums but I hope we can all keep things spirited. Articulate and well prepared arguments FTW!
For funsies I'll end with the poster art for each game:
Please be aware that I am generalizing here, I know that everybody has their own unique opinion. That being said I have found two general camps the fans belong in: Those who love Maniac Mansion complain that Day of the Tentacle abandoned the things that made the MM great and forced itself into a generic adventure game mold. Those who love Day of the Tentacle complain that Maniac Mansion was to hard and the ability to die made the gameplay frustrating.
If you haven't played either then please don't answer the poll. I don't mean to exclude you or anything but you are not really adequately equipped to contribute the discussion. I recommend filing the names 'Maniac Mansion' and 'Day of the Tentacle' away mind as games you get you should get around to playing some time and once/if you complete them both come back here and give us your two cents
I personally picked Day of the Tentacle. I thought it was a masterpiece from when LucasArts where right in their prime. Also, I just loved Laverne, she was my kind of crazy XD. I suspect that Day of the Tentacle will win this battle convincingly but I'll let the numbers to the talkin'. Also, I'd love to hear from you Maniac Mansion fans (and I know you are out there) as to why you think that game is better.
This isn't usually a problem on the Telltale forums but I hope we can all keep things spirited. Articulate and well prepared arguments FTW!
For funsies I'll end with the poster art for each game:
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Also, I can already tell how this is going to go. Day of the Tentacle is revered in this community...for no good reason mind you, but it still is. Oh, and I'm the resident Day of the Tentacle hater. I don't MEAN to clash with the community so often, I just happen to...do that.
In your opinion, in which you are a very small minority.
It's widly regarded as one on the best adventure gaems of all time, but I guess everyone else is wrong?
The game officially is called "Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle". Alas, the game takes place in said "Maniac Mansion", at least for a good part.
So? That makes it part of the Maniac Mansion series, not making it "Maniac Mansion"(which, in a "versus" discussion, is the only possible inference). _____ 2: [Subtitle Here]" is not _____, it just belongs to the _____ series.
But really? Can a heavily negative opinion of a video game offend somebody? It's...a video game. Surely, you must have issues with any discussion that involves Escape from Monkey Island, because there are tons of offensive opinions about that particular title.
Perhaps I'm being a bit snarky about how I express my opinion, and it appears condescending. I'm sorry about that, but there are certain flaws in logic that had to be addressed. Could I have done it with more civility? Probably, and I can try to work on that. I forgot that the same hatred for something can't be expressed in the same way when most people disagree with you.
I do greatly prefer DoTT. It really took LucasArts games to the next level as far as looking and feeling like a cartoon, being a full talkie, streamlining, etc. The puzzle design was excellent too. The only flaws I can think of were that it lost a lot of MM's darkness, and it was on the easy side.
Do you hate other games Lucasarts made around the same time, like Sam & Max, or is there something specific you dislike about DoTT that's different from anything else LA has done?
But I am thankful for MM, because without it, the SCUMM engine would've never existed. I guess.
One can only dream if Telltale somehow got to make a series on DOTT!, That would be so CRAAZZZY!
I remember playing MM as a child though, and I think the theory of the gameplay is fantastic, and I did try and play it multiple times throughout the years, I could just never figure it out.
Anyway, my avatar should say where I put my vote. =P
1. Atmosphere
I absolutely adored the original Maniac Mansion's atmosphere. It was spooky, it had dark humor, and it mirrored the atmosphere of 80s horror. In contrast, Day of the Tentacle is a...cartoon. And a loud, bright, obnoxious, badly voice-acted one at that. I like cartoons, I like comedies, Sam and Max is an amazing game and I love that franchise to death, but Day of the Tentacle was too much in the wrong franchise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w&feature=player_embedded
2. Gameplay
If I were to describe Day of the Tentacle's gameplay, I'd have to go with "Maniac Mansion for retards". No death, which contributes to the atmosphere problem. After all, if you're not picking them off one by one, the intensity is lost. You don't pick the kids, they're pre-picked for you. You use their unique abilities, but only the one of the kid you have, so you have only one solution to each puzzle.
3. Story
This is brief and admittedly minor in comparison to the first two. Only one ending. I don't like the story of Day of the Tentacle, but honestly it's the least of my issues compared to how it was executed.
There are probably more issues I have, but those are the main ones.
Man, adventure games are so much better when you get punished for not hitting the save button often enough. That's so excellent and amazing.
They should just make entire games where all you do is choose between 3 different doors, and behind 2 of them is death and you have to save after every set of doors. That'd be the best game of all time.
I don't care about puzzles, dialogue, or storyline, just give me loads of random pointlessly annoying deaths and it's the greatest thing ever.
While DoTT is indeed part of the same gaming universe as MM the two could hardly be more different. DoTT completely reinvented itself to the extent where you could almost say it was from a different gaming universe and genre. I think it would be more accruate to say say it's from a parallel gaming universe. More like a cousin than a son. Look at the boxarts. It is indeed the same mansion they go to in both games but look at how drastically different it looks in the two games.
To say this is pointless because they are the same game is just silly.
That game just stands out, the voices are super great, the graphics are wacky and crazy, not all these boring straight realism crappy stuff, you see today, nay, the mansion was bigger on the inside that outside! ^^
the voice really gave life and deph to the characters, and we are talking about every damn character in the game was great. Its not like (no offence) tales of monkey island, there are great characters, and those characters fillers, which and bland and boring.
Its not wonder Dott is up there amoung the best of the best of adventure games, and probably always will be, its hard to beat, unless they have the cash, the talent, and get all those originale or many of the togther.
to this day im still amazed how Lucas Arts managed to collect all those various people with so much talent. Lucky alot of it is in Telltale, i just hope they continue to learn and evolve and hire more talented people, especially in the voice department.
First of all, we're dealing with a mock horror franchise. Death of the main cast must be involved, or it just doesn't work. As a gameplay mechanic, Maniac Mansion limited what skills you could use when characters died. It didn't end the game, it just changed it. Each character had their own skills, and you had to learn how to handle them all, because you were going to lose your favorite character. When you know how to
This is all specific to the way Maniac Mansion handled death, I didn't even touch on the more general arguments for death in adventure games.
I played Day of the Tentacle, a game in which almost all of the voices grated on my nerves. Again, that's the kind of thing you get when you discuss something that, you know, is subjective.
I also love Zork and the first few Space Quest games, along with other Infocom and Sierra titles.
But it's still a different game. If you like you can use then use that fact as a positive for DoTT. If you are in the Rather Dashing camp the fact that DoTT is the rest of the game is actually a negative.
The question I'm more asking is which world do people prefer?
Same situation with my pseudo-rant on death in adventure games. :cool:
If going to Weird Ed's room to play his computer is too cumbersome, you can rename the MANIAC.OVL file to MANIAC.EXE and run it standalone outside of DOTT, actually.
Also MusicallyInspired, thanks, but I actually own a standalone copy already. Two, actually, since I got one of the NES carts.
What I meat was that you'd probably view the Day of the Tentacle component of Day of the Tentacle as a negative to the Maniac Manson Easter egg, as supposed to just playing Maniac Manson by its self.
I am in complete agreeance with you. As far as I am concerned they are two completely different games. I think players can view the fact that MM is included as an Easter egg as a positive to DotT but the bottom line is you don't even have to touch the game to complete DotT. It's an option. They are two completely separate narratives and calling them the same game is just absurd.
I'm almost certain if you navigate into DOTT's folder that you can run MM directly from there.
Edit: Actually, I think I'm thinking of running it via Scumm VM using that folder for the resources.