Telltale Games

hansschmucker · 07/16/2009, 05:04 am

OK, since I already decided to take another look at Steam I thought that would be a good time to pick up SOMI:SE (actually I was hoping that SOMI:SE would be delivered via Steam, but not use Steam's DRM: Sadly they do).

The game is as good as it always was but there are some minor irritations that I think are thoroughly unnecessary. I won't talk about the style they chose for the graphics, because that has been discussed enough.

What irritations did you encounter?

For me most are interface related:

Cursor movement
The always-visible cursor that only turns the tip when you get near the screen border is a nice idea, but when you actually use it you realize that it just doesn't work. You focus on the big circle and wonder why it appears have a live of its own instead of following your directions. Static cursers may be oldfashioned, but they work much more predictable.

Verb selection
I know that you can't let XBOX users travel all the way across the screen just to select a verb, so I understand the decission to use Sam & Max style controls with cycable verbs. The thing is, if you want to do that you can't just put all the verb actions in there. That's as if they had put all verbs that textadventures understand into MI. You have to reduce the number, otherwise people will have to cycle through actions for so long that they'll forget what they wanted to do.

Matching animation speed.
This is not a problem that you'll find only in SOMI:SE, but here it's particular visible. When you decide on a framerate for animation, you should stick to it all through the game. Moving a 5fps animation over the screen at 50fps will at best make the walking animation unbelievable and in the worst case make the animation totally detached from the background.

Do you have similar issues?

Toothless Gibbon · 07/16/2009, 05:07 am

I'm not sure hand-painted backgrounds lend themselves that well to full HD.

jp-30 · 07/16/2009, 05:12 am

Press F10 and stop moaning.

nofacej · 07/16/2009, 05:14 am

I have many issues with the game visually. A lot of the sprites are downright poorly drawn. My biggest gripe is the animation though. It's just horrible at such high resolution. They should be using at least 16 frames, not 4. Oh, and I absolutely hate the new portraits, and Guybrush's new design. Overall, the sound is its only redeeming feature.

I'd be happier with the old graphics with the new sounds and voice acting.

hansschmucker · 07/16/2009, 05:15 am

You misunderstand. I don't want everything to be as it was in MI, I want it to be good.

*DjNDB* · 07/16/2009, 06:12 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by nofacej

I'd be happier with the old graphics with the new sounds and voice acting.

I read that it's possible to switch to the old graphics. They will probably look much worse in high resolutions because it was 320x200.

Edit: I see, you can't have it that way as it looks from a youtube video. That's sad.

hansschmucker · 07/16/2009, 06:19 am

Nope, you can switch to something that mimics the old game (F10), but that means loosing the new music and speech too.

plrichard · 07/16/2009, 06:21 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by DjNDB

I read that it's possible to switch to the old graphics. They will probably look much worse in high resolutions because it was 320x200.

Edit: I see, you can't have it that way as it looks from a youtube video. That's sad.

You can switch but the voice-acting and new music go away.

Yandros · 07/16/2009, 06:24 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by hansschmucker

Nope, you can switch to something that mimics the old game (F10), but that means loosing the new music and speech too.

It doesn't mimic the old game, it is the old game. They've revamped the SCUMM engine and put the new graphics on top, but the actual game code (SCUMM script) is supposed to be the same. When I played it I found that it was word for word, item for item, screen for screen identical.

tgeorgic · 07/16/2009, 06:32 am

the only thing i found annoying is that when you go see carla after the first time you get to her shack she isnt spinning around. i hit F10 and that fixed the problem.

*Vainamoinen* · 07/16/2009, 06:33 am

The system requirements are unbelievable. Does anyone play this below the "minimum" 3 GHz P4? My PC is slightly less capable. I can play ToMI in 3D just fine, but not the MI Special Edition in 2D? Does that make sense somehow?!

hansschmucker · 07/16/2009, 06:39 am

I don't think the CPU is really important. I'm playing on a 1.6Ghz Core Duo.

SOMI:SE is a dot.net application, so it needs a little more processing power than a normal game, but not that much. The graphics are rendered entirely by the GPU, so that doesn't take up much CPU power either.

Arodin · 07/16/2009, 06:44 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by hansschmucker

Cursor movement

Haven't had much problem with it. I'm playing on PC though not XBOX, it's probably easier to manage the cursor with a mouse.

Quote:

Verb selection

The idea was to faithfully recreate the original, not redesign it. Changing the verbs would have been a departure from the original, including having to change puzzle solutions to some extent.

But I agree selecting verbs can be bothersome. On PC, you can scroll the mousewheel to change the verb selection but I haven't been able to get used to it.

Quote:

Matching animation speed.

Yeah... SOMI:SE could be subtitled "Monkey Island On Ice!" This had something to do with limitations on the old SCUMM engine I think. They could have dug into the SCUMM code to allow them more fluid character animations... but oh well. I haven't been too bothered by this really.

hansschmucker · 07/16/2009, 06:51 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yandros

It doesn't mimic the old game, it is the old game. They've revamped the SCUMM engine and put the new graphics on top, but the actual game code (SCUMM script) is supposed to be the same. When I played it I found that it was word for word, item for item, screen for screen identical.

I've only looked at the data so far and for that it really only mimics the old game. All music from MI1 has been recorded into WMA files, all images have been converted to DXT5 and are rendered through your 3D accelerator.

Maybe the game logic is identical (although I'm not so sure about that either), but for everything else it really just mimics MI1.

*DjNDB* · 07/16/2009, 06:52 am

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