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My most recent purchases (Lucasarts)

ArmakuniArmakuni
edited August 2007 in General Chat
For years now it's been bugging me that there were versions of several early Lucasarts games for the FM Towns machine.. and in most cases they're better than the PC versions in some way. For instance, Zak on the PC has 16 color EGA graphics and PC Speaker, the FM Towns version has 256 color graphics and CD audio sound.

Well, I finally decided to do something about this and look for the games.. and after a lot of looking and a lot of money, I finally got them all (these games are pretty rare!).

Here's a picture I just took -

fmtownslucasiw6.jpg

Comments

  • purple_monkfishpurple_monkfish
    edited August 2007
    Oh man.. I want a bigger image of the mangatastic zak!
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Here you go, I hope no one will mind the big picture -

    ZakFMTowns.jpg
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    To show you the difference between the PC and FM Towns versions of Zak, here are some screenshots -

    PC version -
    Zakdos.png

    FM Towns version -
    Zak256.png
  • patterspatters
    edited August 2007
    that is a great improvement do you have any monkey island pics of the same type

    also do they run on any pc now maybe with some sort of emulator
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Monkey Island is pretty much exactly the same as that was VGA on the PC to begin with. Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis are the same as well.

    The differences in the remaining games are -

    Zak McKracken for the FM Towns has 256 color graphics and CD audio sound.
    Indiana Jones 3 looks the same but has CD audio sound.

    Loom has text (no voices) and CD audio music. The PC CD version has CD audio speech (speech stored as audio tracks). The problem with that approach is that storing speech as audio tracks takes up a lot of space so they had to cut dialogue in that version.
    I much prefer the FM Towns version which has CD audio music instead of CD audio speech as this way you get all the dialogue plus very nice music.
  • xChri5xxChri5x
    edited August 2007
    I'd love to get some monkey island dvd covers like that
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited August 2007
    Awesome stuff! There are a few large LucasArts game collections at TTG, but none so far-reaching to have obscure alternate versions like FM Towns.
  • xChri5xxChri5x
    edited August 2007
    That's a pretty sweet upgrade for Zak McKraken. I've never played it before, but it looks to be alot like Maniac Mansion which I didn't dig too much. I didn't like how you could die.
    I really need to finish Fate of Atlantis and The Dig someday.
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    It certainly is a very cool version. And I never minded deaths in adventure games.. I got used to that in Sierra games (I'm a huge fan of Sierra adventure games as well).
  • Guybrush ThreepwoodGuybrush Threepwood
    edited August 2007
    Cool! What differences are there on the Monkey Island games?
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Very few.. I haven't really tested them out but from what I gather, Monkey Island 1 is exactly the same while Monkey Island 2 has slightly different sound effects (but don't quote me on that).

    The biggest changes are in Zak McKracken, Indy 3 and Loom (I explained the differences in these three games in an earlier post).
  • purple_monkfishpurple_monkfish
    edited August 2007
    I loved Zak, it was so superbly silly. and you only die if you're being spectacularly dumb.. like going out onto mars' surface without a space helmet. Hahahaha that was so funny.

    ahem..
    Wow that cover is mangatastic, I mean jeeze.
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Well.. just finished the FM Towns version of Zak again.. it's a great game and a big improvement to the PC version.. well worth the .. $300.. I had to pay for it :eek::p
  • patterspatters
    edited August 2007
    Armakuni wrote: »
    Well.. just finished the FM Towns version of Zak again.. it's a great game and a big improvement to the PC version.. well worth the .. $300.. I had to pay for it :eek::p

    that's more than many copies of panzer dragoon saga
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Heh, just saw an ended eBey auction for Monkey Island 2 FM Towns.. it went for a little over $600.

    At least I didn't pay that much for it :eek:
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Damn I'd forgotten how cool Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is.. sure, there are some silly things like having to pick randomly what to say to the guards to avoid fighting as there really is no logic behind it.. what will work with one guard will not work with another and there is no way to know except trial and error.. however, you can fight instead (but I suck at that so :p).

    Needless to say, I just finished the FM Towns version of this game and the CD audio track music really adds to the atmosphere.. instead of tinny MIDI sounds, this sounds more like a movie score.
  • xChri5xxChri5x
    edited August 2007
    So FM Town versions of these games just have better quality music?

    And I hope you're kidding when you said you paid $300 for one game...

    I also love the dvd covers for Monkey Island 1&2. I'd love to get my hands on them (minus the chinese).
  • Zachspyfox033Zachspyfox033
    edited August 2007
    The FM Towns version does have slightly better graphics, but the graphics are still bad and the charactors talk in subtitles.
  • patterspatters
    edited August 2007
    xChri5x wrote: »

    I also love the dvd covers for Monkey Island 1&2. I'd love to get my hands on them (minus the chinese).

    is it not japanese?
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited August 2007
    Yes, it is japanese. Mostly the japanese transliterations of the game titles, plus "Soft Collection" and a bunch of stuff I can't read.
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Zachspyfox033 wrote: »
    The FM Towns version does have slightly better graphics, but the graphics are still bad and the charactors talk in subtitles.
    Zak McKracken does not have slightly better graphics, it has a lot better graphics :)
    But the other games have pretty much the same graphics.

    I disagree that the graphics are bad though - I think the graphics in these games are great.. I love 2D graphics like that.
  • KaldireKaldire
    edited August 2007
    I agree but fmtowns games are drastically overpriced :P Or maybe im jealous.
    I can think of other things I want more though... darn you jake.. Ill get me those nose glasses from zak one day... sigh... A guy can dream right?
    Zak remains one of my fav games to date :P
  • Guybrush_ThreepwoodGuybrush_Threepwood
    edited August 2007
    Armakuni wrote: »
    I disagree that the graphics are bad though - I think the graphics in these games are great.. I love 2D graphics like that.

    Oh man, you can't imagine how much you're right...
    I think the most important point about that kind of graphics is that it mixed perfectly the character and the backgrounds, as well as the objects to pick up and interact with.
    When 2D graphics reached very high resolutions, the difference between the character and the backgrounds became more and more visible.
    I always thought there's gonna be a return to the old style, in spite of the innovations that we have reached.
    Just like Pablo Picasso making his masterpieces in a world of artists that wanted to be realistic and paint nature to the perfection.
    Someday it's gonna happen for computer graphics, I want to believe it.
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited August 2007
    I think in two decades from now graphics will reach such a high level of realism that any improvement is beyond the human distinguishing capacity. Color depth is pretty much at that point already, screen resolution will reach that point soon enough, and the other factors are a matter of computational capacity (ie just a matter of time).
    When that happens, people will soon come to expect but stop being dazzled by such graphics alone and look beyond. Thus, computer game genres that have realistic graphics as a main selling point will re-invent themselves or collapse, while genres driven by story and/or gameplay will flourish. I'd also expect to see more games with graphic styles that don't emphasize realism at and towards that time.
  • BadwolfBadwolf
    edited August 2007
    Yeah, we definitely need a comeback of style over realism. Give me Curse of Monkey Island style clouds over 3D, volumetric, individually modelled and rendered water droplets reacting to every flap of a butterfly's wings on the other side of a level map, any day.

    If we do get photorealistic graphics in games, it's just going to end up creeping everyone out, á la Uncanny Valley.
  • Guybrush_ThreepwoodGuybrush_Threepwood
    edited August 2007
    Yeah, definitely agree with Badwolf and Harald B.
    CMI graphics were wonderful, the only thing I was a bit annoyed of was that you could easily understand what to get.
    The clearest example is the lamp you must get with the arm, that's differently rendered from the backgrounds. Unlike in games like, let's say, Fate of Atlantis (I won't mention Monkey Island 1 & 2 'cause people will start hating me for ALWAYS talking about them:D), where everything was a perfect mix.
    Anyway, videogames are a form of art, so I'm pretty sure that someday realism will be obsolete and we'll pass to... err... videogames' impressionism?
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited August 2007
    Well, Lucasarts adventure games have hotspots so it's still easy to find the items even if they blend well :)
  • Guybrush_ThreepwoodGuybrush_Threepwood
    edited August 2007
    Well, that's just the point!
    I mean, they use hotspots so it's easier for the player to interact with the world, and there's no need to make even clearer what's useful and what isn't.
    I guess it's just a problem with resolution, I didn't mention DOTT or S&M HTR before, but that's another example where everything blends perfectly.
    Full Throttle too. CMI has surely better graphics that look fantastic even nowadays, but that's good and bad together because that perfect blending was lost. And don't forget that lots of hotspots are used just to make the game richer and various and are useless at all. Imagine Wally's monocle puzzle with higher resolution: that puzzle wasn't hard but most players understand what to do after some minutes, but I think it'd have been different with graphics like CMI, Runaway and co. Perhaps 2D graphics will become so perfect that we'll have the perfect mix again. I hope! :)
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