The Next Chapter of TMI???

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by OzzieMonkey

I don't really get the relation between a videogame and food, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

I like videogames.
I like food.

Here, there's your relation.

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by OzzieMonkey

I don't really get the relation between a videogame and food, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

You're a consumer! *whips* You're not allowed to think!

[GuruGuru214]

Originally Posted by GuruGuru214

There's no relation, we're just a hungry bunch of fans around here.

Scratch that, I just ate, now I'm stuffed.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by avistew

Oh, then miso and tahini won't do. All these cheeses you named are much too mild, I'd need to use something like tofu or rice. Or almonds. That would work nicely with almonds.

(Also, I realised cheese cakes (of strong cheeses) already exist, they're just called quiche or soufflé)

Ugh... Cheesecake made from tofu, and sprinkled with almonds? Blech.

...

...ugh, okay I need something to clear my mind of tofu cheesecake.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake @ Allrecipes.com




Ingredients

* 1 cup chocolate cookie crumbs
* 3 tablespoons white sugar
* 1/4 cup butter, melted
* 1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 2 teaspoons cornstarch
* 1/2 cup water
* 2 cups white chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
* 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 3 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

YUM. (Okay, I feel better now.)

[GuruGuru214]

Augh, now I want to try that. My next one's going to be strawberry, though. I already bought the cream cheese, so it's going to have to be soon, too.

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Ugh... Cheesecake made from tofu, and sprinkled with almonds? Blech.

Lol no, made from tofu OR rice OR almonds (in short, something mild and milk-like), and in the end I decided almonds would work the best.

[Mardagan]

I am a firm believer that Telltale has just started to hit their Stride with the TMI series and could very well bring the series to a level that we couldn't believe!

I am an optimist in this regard and to be honest. The fact that we are all here 10+ years later from EMI should tell us all that we can always have more Monkey Island love!

Mardagan

[techie775]

Originally Posted by GuruGuru214

Well, I can agree with that. I'm living in denial that Scrubs has more than 8 seasons. But like you said, that's because in my eyes, it was finished at the end of season 8. The last episode of the season was even called "My Finale". That's where it should've ended, and to me that's where it did end.

And unlike Scrubs, Monkey Island absolutely does not feel finished, as long as Telltale manages to come up with a worthwhile idea for a game.

And if LucasArts should ever follow the example Scrubs set and make a Monkey Island game that's entirely about Pegnose Pete or something and sucks out of control, I'll treat it the same way I treat Scrubs: I'll pretend Tales was the last game in the series and won't go anywhere near The Adventures of Pegnose Pete.

If anything should I thought The Simpsons has overstayed it's run more than Scrubs. Season 9 of scrubs isn't as good but I don't mind watching it right now, I just consider J.D's chapter done.


{SPOILER}


The way Tales ended it just didn't feel complete and left me with questions. Like what the heck is going to happen to Morgan? Is she going to hold a grudge against Guybrush or Elaine? What's going to happen to LeChuck-In-A_Bottle? What is the Voodoo lady now? Good, Evil, Neutral?

I know it can be a mystery, but it'd be neat to be explained in another game.

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by OzzieMonkey

Is it just me or do all these discussions about there being a remake and/or sequel to MI end up leading to comparisons with food? I don't really get the relation between a videogame and food, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

If you haven't played MI with pistachios and beer - you haven't lived.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

If you haven't played MI with pistachios and beer - you haven't lived.

You mean, at the age of 7 or so?
I am not sure my parents would have allowed that...

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

You mean, at the age of 7 or so?
I am not sure my parents would have allowed that...

Oh, I'm really sorry for your childhood. Would you like a tap on the shoulder?

[Chyron8472]

I'm of 2 minds:

1) Tales is great. It's much better for a series to end on a good note than a bad one, so by extension, it's better that EMI was a middle chapter than the final one. This means I'd be okay with TMI as the final game.

2) Telltale is on a roll with great games. I trust them to make more great content for MI.


As it stands, I think evidence that MI games are still being made after so many years suggests that, even if we wait several more years, someone (ie. Telltale) will probably make another one.


...also, CMI was my favorite adventure game until Tales came out. Don't lump it and EMI into the same category of suck. The art is wonderful (and timeless,) the voices are great, the plot is serious yet funny, the controls are good, and the game is still appropriately piratey.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

...also, CMI was my favorite adventure game until Tales came out. Don't lump it and EMI into the same category of suck. The art is wonderful (and timeless,) the voices are great, the plot is serious yet funny, the controls are good, and the game is still appropriately piratey.

Why not? LeChuck's Revenge was one of the best adventures, and Curse was content to follow in its shadow, never daring to have the audacity to step out and be grand in its own right.

Oh, the background art was nice enough. But the characters, rather than evoking an Errol Flynn pirate film with some cartoonish aspects, it gave off the feeling of an entire Saturday morning cartoon. It wasn't the first time LucasArts completely screwed up the atmosphere and was blindly praised for it; after all, Day of the Tentacle took the B Horror atmosphere of the first game in the series and decided that it was completely worthless. When LeChuck is reduced to the laughing stock of a bumbling fool that he is in Curse, it's amazing that anyone thinks there's anything left of him to debase in Escape by following Ozzie. He's goofy, stereotypical, and just not THREATENING in any way. The stupid skull doesn't help either. He's fun for his first apperence in the intro, and then he keeps popping up, being completely pointless, and dolling out the same joke far too many times over. The idea that the atmosphere is any more "pirate-y" Curse than in Escape is absolutely hilarious. Where did you get that atmosphere? The Cabana Boy? Maybe it was the annoying, snot-nosed kid? Maybe it was the trio of singing, hair-cutting dimwits? I mean, Guybrush himself says "you're not pirates, you're just slackers" about his own damn crew. There are no pirates here. Where do you see them? MUPPETS pulled off being more menacing pirates than the jokes in Curse.

But hey, at least it didn't ruin the the overall story of Monkey Island like Escape, right? Except the negative effect on the story that Escape makes is completely overblown, especially considering that Curse ignores a great deal more of the series canon, because hey, they need to win over new people, and they can't very well win over new people if they go around ACKNOWLEDGING the first two games and their events. So, let's ignore them, until an incredibly hammy villain dialog scene at the very end that happily enough simply discounts the ending of Monkey Island 2, rather than actually attempting to explain it. I suppose I shouldn't expect something serious from a cartoony farce of a character running what is quite possibly the silliest death trap ever conceived outside of Adam West Batman, but I suppose I expected more. I'm sorry if I fail to see where Curse's story was ever "serious", even in the sense of the broadest strokes.

The puzzles are generally not terrible, but hardly brilliant for the majority of the time. The most grind-y puzzle of the first game is lifted, wholesale, for Curse. There's nothing new here, unless you want to say that a really ambiguous way to cut down on the verb count(The "mouth" being particularly ill-defined in terms of use) is an actual innovation with a straight face. I suppose they innovated by...not having soundtracks that changed with game progression, like the first two. No, wait, that doesn't help, either. We literally have no enhancement, here. The same thing, but prettier, and a great deal more shallow.

Now, this is all stuff that takes Curse and Escape down to AVERAGE as opposed to being Great like Secret or Amazing like LeChuck's Revenge. Average isn't bad, and I can enjoy both Curse and Revenge for the things that they do end up doing right. The production values are top-notch. There was some well-chosen voice talent...for most roles. Others I hate, like both Stans, and Earl Boen never impressed me at ALL until Tales, maybe that was the script. But when it comes to content that matters, the gameplay and the story? Both fail in places that are pretty obvious.

That doesn't make them terrible games, or even unenjoyable ones. But it does make them SERIOUSLY flawed, and just not worthy of the legacy of LeChuck's Revenge.

[GuruGuru214]

One thing I've noticed about you is that you're the sort of person that will pick out annoyances that most people consider fairly minor or perhaps don't even think about, and then you dwell on them and let them eat at you.

First off, LeChuck. Yes, he's less menacing, and that's to be expected with the shift to a more cartoon style. I don't think that means that he's no longer menacing at all, though. Consider the opening. To me, LeChuck has absolutely returned to form, 1. attempting to force Elaine to marry him, as in Secret, and 2. making use of a specially prepared voodoo artifact in order to achieve his goal, as in MI2. When Guybrush shows up, LeChuck attempts to kill him outright, which isn't something we see often from LeChuck. Yes, the screaming chair idea and the dimension of infinite pain things were menacing in their own right, but the acid pit contraption and voodoo doll were also a lot less direct than just killing him outright with a sword, and doing it in front of Elaine makes it that much more ruthless (see Tales). Yes, the Carnival of the Damned sort of hurt his credibility a bit in the end, but his early appearances in the game were classic LeChuck to me.

Now, look at him in Escape. His evil plan is promising good times and free Grog to the inhabitants of Melee Island. When he has Guybrush right in the palm of his hand and could easily kill him, he instead listens to Ozzie and strands him "in an inescapable, faraway place, where he can't do any harm", except he screws it up and strands him on an island that he's not only escaped from before, but also one that's right on top of a key component of their plans. To me, LeChuck in Escape is the embodiment of bumbling incompetence. There's absolutely no comparison to him in Curse.

As for Murray, if you don't like him, you can blame audience testing. He was only supposed to be in that first cutscene outside LeChuck's ship, but the response was so positive, he was thrown in the game in a few more places. And hell, he's more menacing than Bob, LeChuck's right hand man. At least Murray embraces his lot in life for the most part, instead of having to be bullied into service.

Then there's Plunder Island. I wouldn't call it much less piratey than an island where it's Mardi Gras all the time. Yes, the cabana boy and the theater are steps in the wrong direction, but to me, the jungle full of snakes and quicksand, the shipwreck in the swamp, the moonlit cove, the chicken restaurant with a skeletal patron and maggot-infested food, and the barber shop with blood on the smocks and floor are all plenty piratey to me. As for Kenny Falmouth, all pirates have to start out somewhere. For all we know, the kid is the illegitimate son of a pirate who had a one night stand with a wench on Scabb Island, and given what we've seen of him so far, I'd say he's going to grow up into a fine pirate.

Then there's the crew. All of them have stories of their piratey pasts. Yes, they're all a bit incompetent, but no more so than "victim of society" Otis and "afraid of parrots" Meathook, and if you'll recall, once they set out to sea, Guybrush's Sea Cucumber crew was a lot more helpful than his Sea Monkey crew. At least Haggis would've lit the cannon once Guybrush was in it, unlike those other lazy sods.

Now we're on to the rectonning. Honestly, the biggest retcon I can remember from Curse was that it made Dinky Island into an atoll off the coast of monkey. I'm just going to refer to a past conversation I've had with you.

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Yeah. I kind of meant, but didn't really communicate, that I meant Big Whoop=Carnival of the Damned was a pretty dumb retcon. In that the whole scene just feels a lot more hokey, cartoonish, and ridiculous than the endings to the first two games, as silly as they still somewhat are.

Originally Posted by GuruGuru214

Okay, Curse did not retcon Big Whoop into being an amusement park. What it did was play off the ending of MI2 and had LeChuck name the Carnival of the Damned after the Big Whoop treasure, which was the gates of hell. If you remember, the carnival at the end of MI2 was also named Big Whoop.

The way I see it, MI2 left behind a pretty difficult situation to figure out: how to continue the series after that ambiguous ending. The puzzle pieces it left were 1. that Guybrush ended the game as a child in a carnival, and 2. that Elaine was concerned that LeChuck had put a spell on Guybrush. If we consider that the strange tunnels with a working elevator, a first aid office, a room with a vending machine and helium tanks, and a room full of carnival prizes are part of the game's "real world", it's not so far fetched to say that there's a carnival on the other end of the tunnels. And if you want to discount that, the earliest LeChuck could've cursed Guybrush was when he used the voodoo doll the first time, in the first room of the tunnels, unless you want to say that he cursed him in the fortress and that Dinky Island never happened. I prefer to think that it happened later on.

Really, given that Guybrush was under the belief that he was a child at a carnival, I find that having him trapped in an actual carnival while under that illusion isn't the worst solution in the world. I guess he could've just been trapped in a jungle while believing he was at a carnival, but that would've felt pretty unsatisfying. Or maybe the third game could've started with him breaking from the illusion that he was at a carnival and finding himself in a prison cell in LeChuck's fortress. Honestly, with what was left behind to work with, I'm okay with the solution they came up with. Nothing was discounted, unless you choose to interpret the end of MI2 so that LeChuck actually transformed Guybrush into a child and sent him forward in time to a modern carnival, then transformed himself into a child to pose as Guybrush's brother and keep an eye on him. Would you have preferred it if Guybrush had suddenly regained his memory and found that he'd become a child, doing his homework in a suburban home, some 400 years in the future?

And it's easy to say that the game lacked innovation, but it's a challenge to actually define what sort of innovation would've pleased you.

I admit, Curse was my first Monkey Island, so I'm a bit biased, but I also didn't have six years of waiting in which to envision my perfect follow up to MI2, so that's a bias I'm without.

[Kroms]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

*snipped*

Glad you say these things like they're fact. Anyways, it's obvious I disagree with you - just take most of what you said and invert it - but I'd also like to add that LCR is too hard in the middle, which dilutes any fun into frustration. I'm re-playing it right now and I'm completely stumped. Most people I know gave-up on Monkey mid-LCR.

It's still great, but inferior to CMI, for my money.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Curse was content to follow in its shadow, never daring to have the audacity to step out and be grand in its own right.

Oh, the background art was nice enough. But the characters, rather than evoking an Errol Flynn pirate film with some cartoonish aspects, it gave off the feeling of an entire Saturday morning cartoon.

Curse follows in Revenge's shadow? Riiight. Curse introduces voice acting for the first time in the series a la Dominic Armato and Earl Boen. It has fully animated cutscenes. It has Monkey Island-style humor. I'm sure alot of things I can say in favor of Curse can be considered subjective, but I still think that you just hate Curse and are grasping at straws for reasons to justify it.

On the other hand, I thoroughly disliked the end of Revenge. Ending the game at a carnival with no explanation, and LeChuck/Chucky hasn't even been properly defeated. Sure Guybrush tore his limbs off, but nothing comes of it. The end of Revenge is confusing and anticlimactic. wait, didn't I say something earlier about the importance of ending things on a good (ie. not sucky) note? At least Curse takes the time to explain the festering pile of "wtf!" that is the end of Revenge.


ahem... wtf, "evoking an Errol Flynn pirate film?"

in Secret:
- Guybrush haggles with a used-ship saleman during which Stan can ramble about random extra features for it.
- The Legendary Lost Treasure of Melee Island is a T-shirt, under an X with a plaque nearby that reads "share some with others."
- Meathook is terrified of parrots.
- Use... file... with... rhinoceros toenails.
- Grog eats through iron bars.
- Cannibals trade a living human head for a leaflet on "how to get ahead"
- "And it says 'Made by Lemonhead.' Just like one of mine!"
- Guybrush's crew mutinies in favor of tanning on the deck of your ship.
- The key to Hell is a giant Q-Tip.
- Root Beer kills ghosts.

in Revenge:
- Largo has a wig... and a bra.
- Cheese Doodles.
- Guybrush wears a pink dress to a costume party.
- Guybrush wins a spitting contest.
- I'm tired of listing more. you get the point.

I don't only see Errol Flynn style piracy here. If anything Curse more than holds it's own in the series. How can you say it doesn't? Skull Island looks like a duck, for Christ's sake!

[Kroms]

In Revenge, Guybrush escapes LeChuck's fortress by blowing-up some dynamite and flying out. Also, LeChuck has a fortress. Guybrush also wins the spitting contest by running in fast motion, he shoves Captain "Hellish Terror" LeChuck's underpants up the fundament (tricking him, of all things, with a penny on the ground), he escapes a descent into a pool of acid using grog-drenched spit, and spends the majority of the game hanging above exploded treasure.

Don't get me wrong, I do love LCR, and I love it a lot - these previous examples aren't points against what the game is. It's just ridiculous think Curse introduced the cartoonish dimension into the series. Monkey's always been satirical and bizarre. I'd liken it more to The Princess Bride than Errol Flynn.

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, CMI is my most favorite MI so I am biased. Most others already explained why it's a good addition to the MI serious.

But I just wish to agree with the assessement than MI2's ending was horrible... plain horrible. I really like the game... but the ending. HORRIBLE!

[Rather Dashing]

First off, LeChuck. Yes, he's less menacing, and that's to be expected with the shift to a more cartoon style. I don't think that means that he's no longer menacing at all, though. Consider the opening. To me, LeChuck has absolutely returned to form

A return to form, eh? Maybe all that slaw helped.

"GET ME MORE SLAW!" Might as well cue a piratey Popeye laugh.

1. attempting to force Elaine to marry him, as in Secret, and 2. making use of a specially prepared voodoo artifact in order to achieve his goal, as in MI2.

I had to double-check by watching the opening scene of Curse again. I don't know what game you played, but the version of Curse I played has LeChuck start off by crying at Elaine like a pitiful, lost pupppy. All uses of Voodoo are completely accidental, due to some hi-larious hijinks that find our heroes in quite the pickle! LeChuck neither planned the ring nor his resurrection, they just sort of HAPPEN due to chance and happenstance.

When Guybrush shows up, LeChuck attempts to kill him outright, which isn't something we see often from LeChuck. Yes, the screaming chair idea and the dimension of infinite pain things were menacing in their own right, but the acid pit contraption and voodoo doll were also a lot less direct than just killing him outright with a sword, and doing it in front of Elaine makes it that much more ruthless (see Tales). Yes, the Carnival of the Damned sort of hurt his credibility a bit in the end, but his early appearances in the game were classic LeChuck to me.

Which part was classic? The bit where he is rebuffed by standard "I'm just not that into you" excuses? Or the part where he's quickly disarmed and distracted? He's goofy here, he's not being a threat so much as a loud nuisance.

Now, look at him in Escape. His evil plan is promising good times and free Grog to the inhabitants of Melee Island. When he has Guybrush right in the palm of his hand and could easily kill him, he instead listens to Ozzie and strands him "in an inescapable, faraway place, where he can't do any harm", except he screws it up and strands him on an island that he's not only escaped from before, but also one that's right on top of a key component of their plans. To me, LeChuck in Escape is the embodiment of bumbling incompetence. There's absolutely no comparison to him in Curse.

Somehow, I'm missing the part where LeChuck is displayed as being competent in Curse. At the start, he's pathetic. In the middle, he does nothing. In the end...he's spent the whole thing being this caricature, and he then goes about fixing that by...giving a cartoon villain monologue.

As for Murray, if you don't like him, you can blame audience testing. He was only supposed to be in that first cutscene outside LeChuck's ship, but the response was so positive, he was thrown in the game in a few more places.

I've heard the story before, and it definitely seems likely, because he's completely pointless in all of his later scenes, and his presence only serves to break up the flow of the game.

And hell, he's more menacing than Bob, LeChuck's right hand man. At least Murray embraces his lot in life for the most part, instead of having to be bullied into service.

"More menacing than Bob"? In what way? I suppose that's a really low bar to set, but still. Murray's whole shtick is "BE SCARED OF ME....p-please? :'(" Cartoonish caricature of a scary statement, followed by pathetic statement due to his state of being as threatening as a tablecloth.

Then there's Plunder Island. I wouldn't call it much less piratey than an island where it's Mardi Gras all the time. Yes, the cabana boy and the theater are steps in the wrong direction, but to me, the jungle full of snakes and quicksand, the shipwreck in the swamp, the moonlit cove, the chicken restaurant with a skeletal patron and maggot-infested food, and the barber shop with blood on the smocks and floor are all plenty piratey to me. As for Kenny Falmouth, all pirates have to start out somewhere. For all we know, the kid is the illegitimate son of a pirate who had a one night stand with a wench on Scabb Island, and given what we've seen of him so far, I'd say he's going to grow up into a fine pirate.

Except I'd rather not go with what they "might be at some point in a future formed by conjecture", but rather what they are. Plunder island is a place with a chicken restaurant, a lemonade stand, a theatre, and a cartoon forest. That the cartoon forest contains a snake only promotes it to Jungle Book rather than Snow White. Actually, I take that back. Jungle Book had a far more menacing villain in that tiger, and at least Snow White had the balls to adapt the part about putting her bloody heart in a box.

Then there's the crew. All of them have stories of their piratey pasts. Yes, they're all a bit incompetent, but no more so than "victim of society" Otis and "afraid of parrots" Meathook, and if you'll recall, once they set out to sea, Guybrush's Sea Cucumber crew was a lot more helpful than his Sea Monkey crew. At least Haggis would've lit the cannon once Guybrush was in it, unlike those other lazy sods.

They were definitely lazy and ridiculous, but they weren't a trio of singing barbers. Their overpowering character trait was "pirate"(or "pirate-skilled enough"), with Meathook's fear being an EXCEPTION to the otherwise pirate-y character traits rather than the freaking dominant aspects of his life. He didn't walk around, constantly talking about being horrified of parrots, never doing a pirate thing the whole time. That's a major difference between the great Monkey Island games and the mediocre ones. The pirates are first pirates with some odd quirks. The world is pirate-y with oddities and humor being an EXCEPTION, and it's all the funnier for the contrast. Curse and Escape are full-blown CARTOONS that HAPPEN TO FEATURE PIRATES, and I think that's the important distinction.

The way I see it, MI2 left behind a pretty difficult situation to figure out: how to continue the series after that ambiguous ending.

[...]

Nothing was discounted, unless you choose to interpret the end of MI2 so that LeChuck actually transformed Guybrush into a child and sent him forward in time to a modern carnival, then transformed himself into a child to pose as Guybrush's brother and keep an eye on him. Would you have preferred it if Guybrush had suddenly regained his memory and found that he'd become a child, doing his homework in a suburban home, some 400 years in the future?

I would have preferred it, but not because I want Guybrush to be a kid somewhere. I just want an ending that doesn't feel like it's brushing aside the closing of Monkey 2. Does that mean that Monkey Island's "world" has to be fake and imaginary? By no means! There just should be an explanation that doesn't feel like "Well, magic!", just to re-establish a sense of status quo.

And it's easy to say that the game lacked innovation, but it's a challenge to actually define what sort of innovation would've pleased you.

I could have dealt with simply not yanking the puzzles directly out of previous installments.

I admit, Curse was my first Monkey Island, so I'm a bit biased, but I also didn't have six years of waiting in which to envision my perfect follow up to MI2, so that's a bias I'm without.

To be fair, it wasn't six years for me, since I wasn't waiting from the release of MI2 straight through the release of MI3, and I wasn't even "waiting" the whole time. After a couple years, one video game fades from your mind and others come in. Especially since I was a good deal younger and a good deal more eager to get to the next thing. I didn't actively think about it much, until Curse went ahead and did...well, THAT to the franchise.

Originally Posted by Kroms

Glad you say these things like they're fact.

Oh, hey:

Originally Posted by Kroms

Rowling got lazy. Hallows had some great parts, but Prince fumbled the ball, tripped over it, smashed its head on the ground and then barely made it to the finish line. The last chapters are great, but for the most part the book's rather empty.

-Citation
Glad you say these things like they're fact.

What do you expect me to do, preface all statements that are opinions with "I think", close them with "perhaps", or should I just shuffle my feet and look down at the ground so that I appear unsure of my own opinion's validity? Because if that's a standard you're going to hold me to, it'd be nice if you held yourself to it first.

Anyways, it's obvious I disagree with you - just take most of what you said and invert it - but I'd also like to add that LCR is too hard in the middle, which dilutes any fun into frustration. I'm re-playing it right now and I'm completely stumped. Most people I know gave-up on Monkey mid-LCR.


It's still great, but inferior to CMI, for my money.

So the game is bad because...you haven't beat it.

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Curse follows in Revenge's shadow? Riiight. Curse introduces voice acting for the first time in the series a la Dominic Armato and Earl Boen. It has fully animated cutscenes.

Ah, so you're in the "Citizen Kane is inherently inferior because it's not in color" crowd, or those that consider the Star Wars prequels to be better films due to the special effects. Note: A turd filmed with the most expensive cameras, and enhanced with bleeding-edge CGI is still a turd.

It has Monkey Island-style humor.

I'm sorry, I need several minutes to laugh hysterically at this one. It's the funniest thing to come out of Curse of Monkey Island, the idea that it has any idea what "Monkey Island-Style" humor even is. Alright, that's too harsh on Curse, in that there are a good number of good one-liners in Curse, and many of those would actually work as Monkey Island quotes. Many of the "big jokes" are just stupid, but the smaller observations are pretty good.

I'm sure alot of things I can say in favor of Curse can be considered subjective, but I still think that you just hate Curse and are grasping at straws for reasons to justify it.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. If I hate Curse, then I hate Curse. There are reasons for that. If I hate it, I don't need to grasp for straws to find reasons to hate it, I just don't like it, and the reasons I don't like it are my actual reasons for not liking it. Unless this is that made-up Internet disease where people are simply blind to the objective greatness of something, and they must be shambling husks hiding from the light under a fog of self-delusion. I'm happy to report that I don't want to hate Curse, nor do I hate Curse. It's just...shallow and mediocre in comparison to its older brothers. Imagine a food you're not particularly fond of. It's not bad, just not good. Now imagine that everybody around you assumes that there is not a sane person on earth who could possibly dislike this food. It is the nectar of the Gods, it is perfection in culinary form. Upon lightly mentioning, "Well, I'm not quite into it", the questioning follows in a manner along the lines of "HOW DARE YOU LOWER IT DOWN TO SUCH A LEVEL, YOU HORRIBLE PIG-BEAST OF WRETCHEDNESS". Eventually, the worship of the dish is going to get on your nerves.

On the other hand, I thoroughly disliked the end of Revenge. Ending the game at a carnival with no explanation, and LeChuck/Chucky hasn't even been properly defeated. Sure Guybrush tore his limbs off, but nothing comes of it. The end of Revenge is confusing and anticlimactic. wait, didn't I say something earlier about the importance of ending things on a good (ie. not sucky) note? At least Curse takes the time to explain the festering pile of "wtf!" that is the end of Revenge.

Curse doesn't take time to explain it, though. Rather, it takes the path of least resistance to no affect at all on the new story they're making. "It was magic, well, that's out of the way now". It could have even fucking BEEN magic, but at least give it more credence and attention than that. It was the biggest fucking mystery in adventure games for over half a decade, but the idea was that everyone would be too thick to absorb the idea that MONKEY ISLAND THREE would have TWO GAMES worth of story behind it, so it's best to ditch the majority of it as is convenient.

I like endings that aren't happy, conventional and pandering to our expectations. Why not? Why not throw a wrench into things every now and again? There are dozens of films made every [measure of time] that will fit the criteria of "simple, linear story with a happy ending". Can't at least a few things get something a bit more unexpected?

ahem... wtf, "evoking an Errol Flynn pirate film?"

in Secret:
- Guybrush haggles with a used-ship saleman during which Stan can ramble about random extra features for it.
- The Legendary Lost Treasure of Melee Island is a T-shirt, under an X with a plaque nearby that reads "share some with others."
- Meathook is terrified of parrots.
- Use... file... with... rhinoceros toenails.
- Grog eats through iron bars.
- Cannibals trade a living human head for a leaflet on "how to get ahead"
- "And it says 'Made by Lemonhead.' Just like one of mine!"
- Guybrush's crew mutinies in favor of tanning on the deck of your ship.
- The key to Hell is a giant Q-Tip.
- Root Beer kills ghosts.

in Revenge:
- Largo has a wig... and a bra.
- Cheese Doodles.
- Guybrush wears a pink dress to a costume party.
- Guybrush wins a spitting contest.
- I'm tired of listing more. you get the point.

Except all those jokes were relevant satire, and they were oddities in a pirate world, not the other way around. And I don't know about you, but Largo's bra and Guybrush's Dress are far more subversive than anything you'll find in the cartoon happy land of Walt Disney's Curse of Monkey Island. Pirates spit. Pirates drink. Pirates are tough. Drinking a caustic material may be ridiculous, but it fits with the character. And again, you're mixing up the broad strokes with the finer details.

The broad strokes of the good Monkey Island games are serious pirate stories. It's in the details that things get ridiculous. In Curse and Escape, the main villains stop being menacing, their plans become stupider, everybody gets a great deal more cartoonish as a whole. This isn't a pirate world filled with anachronisms, witty jokes, and oddities. This is a CARTOON world featuring a pirate aesthetic.

I don't only see Errol Flynn style piracy here.

The SCUMM Bar, for one. LeChuck, for another, as an actually dangerous pirate. Elaine is very much a pirate movie damsel. The pirate crew is a pirate crew, not singing barbers that wear pirate hats.

Skull Island looks like a duck, for Christ's sake!

EXACTLY the kind of stupid crap that doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Kroms

In Revenge, Guybrush escapes LeChuck's fortress by blowing-up some dynamite and flying out. Also, LeChuck has a fortress. Guybrush also wins the spitting contest by running in fast motion, he shoves Captain "Hellish Terror" LeChuck's underpants up the fundament (tricking him, of all things, with a penny on the ground), he escapes a descent into a pool of acid using grog-drenched spit, and spends the majority of the game hanging above exploded treasure.

Don't get me wrong, I do love LCR, and I love it a lot - these previous examples aren't points against what the game is. It's just ridiculous think Curse introduced the cartoonish dimension into the series. Monkey's always been satirical and bizarre. I'd liken it more to The Princess Bride than Errol Flynn.

I'd say The Princess Bride may not be the best analogy, but then Errol Flynn is somewhat inaccurate when you get beyond the broad strokes. Still, the Princess Bride did not play like a Saturday Morning Cartoon for a reason. It would be like if they made an animated remake of The Princess Bride, replaced half the adventuring characters with ones of various oddball professions(fast food server, discotech manager, party clown), and exaggerated the characters' proportions and motives to the point that they become unrecognizable. Then you'd have Curse, as long as someone screamed about Slaw and ignored the ending of the first Princess Bride film.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

but the idea was that everyone would be too thick to absorb the idea that MONKEY ISLAND THREE would have TWO GAMES worth of story behind it, so it's best to ditch the majority of it as is convenient.

I don't recall LCR actually using any story from SMI either. There entirety got ditched too, bar some characters returning. Hey, that sounds a lot like what you accuse CMI from doing. Why can LCR and CMI not?

I like endings that aren't happy, conventional and pandering to our expectations.

However ridicilous endings that leave you WTF? are even worse. Think Jurrasic Park III, Indiana Jones IV, and similar horrors.

The broad strokes of the good Monkey Island games are serious pirate stories.

What? I can't see any kind of "serious pirate story" in any MI. Not SMI, not LCR, not CMI (and EMI/ToMI neither too).

EXACTLY the kind of stupid crap that doesn't work.

I found it funny .

Also, I wonder, if you dislike CMI so much, why like ToMI? ToMI (IMO) resembles CMI far more than LCR. What does ToMI does so different you do not dislike it such?