Telltale Games

PariahKing · 10/11/2009, 07:06 am

After receiving endless (and excessive) amounts of indirect hate over Escape and its flaws, he and Mark Darin came up with an intriguing and excellent Monkey Island story. I will admit my initial fear was "...uh oh, Mike Stemmle wrote this story - will it make the same mistakes as Escape?"

I didn't have to worry. The reinvention of LeChuck was brilliant and saved the character. Morgan Le Flay became really interesting as a love interest for Guybrush. They used Murray in a non-forced way. There's not a whole lot of bad things to say about the series.

I think the third episode is where things really hit its stride. If the latter two episodes end up in a satisfactory way this may be my favorite Monkey Island game. And in a way it's kind of cool to see the whole human subplot level of it all, to see the creator of the fourth game get his very improbable and unlikely chance to make a beloved sequel ten years later.

(Obviously with lots of help from a talented staff and everything, but yeah.)

hamzie · 10/11/2009, 07:50 am

3 will always be my favourite

the problem with these episodes is that youre stuck in one island at a time
and these islands are big big like melee island or something

and that keeps the game from being hard

*Irishmile* · 10/11/2009, 08:30 am

I will always enjoy Escape... it may not be my favorite and the character models are dated but the backgrounds are still brilliant to this day and I personally think the story was decent.... the only thing I hated in it was the Monkey Kombat bit... but I enjoy the rest of it very much.

FitzoliverJ · 10/11/2009, 11:23 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Irishmile

I will always enjoy Escape... it may not be my favorite and the character models are dated but the backgrounds are still brilliant to this day and I personally think the story was decent.... the only thing I hated in it was the Monkey Kombat bit... but I enjoy the rest of it very much.

Apropos of this, as a big fan of Escape, can you give me a wee bit of a hint? Having now acquired all the previous Monkey Island games through the offices of those fine people at Ebay, I'm playing through Escape, but no matter what I chuck at Herman, he doesn't remember anything. I can't even skip ahead using saved games downloaded from the web because I don't know the Monkey Kombat codes that cropped up when that player went through those sequences. HELP!

hellary · 10/11/2009, 11:33 am

True, this series really is very well written. I don't remember Escape that much since I haven't played it in years (plan on going through it again if LucasGames finally do a MI2 remake so that I can play them all through in talkie form in one go). Episode 3's definitely the best in this series too so far. If episodes 4 and 5 are as good as this then as a whole the series may even end up being my favourite Monkey Island game of the lot!

KevinSig · 10/11/2009, 11:49 am

The problem for Escape was the whole game engine, and the fact that the story had to be written around it. It hampered what you could do & I think by being forced to think within constraints, the plot of MI4 suffered.

The plot & the puzzles the designers make, go somewhat hand in hand.

Kevin

thatdude98 · 10/11/2009, 12:27 pm

I still don't get why MI4 receives so much hate. I like the game, and I understand the complaints that fans have for it, but some fans go WAY too far, like completely pretending the game doesn't exist or not including it as canon.

SHODANFreeman · 10/11/2009, 01:47 pm

The amount of love he received for Hit the Road probably outweighs the hate he received for EMI.

bobdevis · 10/11/2009, 05:09 pm

I think 4 is a good game. I enjoyed it and the primitive 3D graphics are excused. The monkey-combat thing was quite ok imho.

The problem is just that the controls are really bad and its an inconvenience to run it on a modern PC.
1 to 3 are taken care of by ScummVM but there is no flawless way to run 4 on my Vista+Ubuntu rig. Other early Win9x games have the same problem.

What LA should do is;
Schedule a remake of 4 after they are done with 2SE, OR
Release a proper modern game binary so the original at least runs well, OR
Give some assistance to the ScummVM/Residual project so at least THEY can support the game in the near future.

It's unlikely that any of this will happen though. Shame..

kevintrim · 10/11/2009, 05:14 pm

Escape was pretty decent, except for the Vista Canyon puzzle on Monkey Island. I wanted to break my computer from the frustration.

Alcoremortis · 10/11/2009, 05:15 pm

There is an offshoot of SCUMMVM called the Residual Project that is currently adapting both Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island for current computers. So far, they are about halfway done with Grim Fandango.

*Irishmile* · 10/11/2009, 05:22 pm

neat

guitarsareboring · 10/11/2009, 05:22 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by FitzoliverJ

Apropos of this, as a big fan of Escape, can you give me a wee bit of a hint? Having now acquired all the previous Monkey Island games through the offices of those fine people at Ebay, I'm playing through Escape, but no matter what I chuck at Herman, he doesn't remember anything. I can't even skip ahead using saved games downloaded from the web because I don't know the Monkey Kombat codes that cropped up when that player went through those sequences. HELP!

That puzzle is a nightmare, I think it's littered with bugs that stop it from working. Try using the coconut (I think that was in the inventory, right?) more than twice in a row.

guitarsareboring · 10/11/2009, 05:23 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevintrim

Escape was pretty decent, except for the Vista Canyon puzzle on Monkey Island. I wanted to break my computer from the frustration.

I thought that was quite clever but yes, frustrating

guitarsareboring · 10/11/2009, 05:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobdevis

The problem is just that the controls are really bad and its an inconvenience to run it on a modern PC.
1 to 3 are taken care of by ScummVM but there is no flawless way to run 4 on my Vista+Ubuntu rig. Other early Win9x games have the same problem.

I had absolutely no problem running it on Vista

hellary · 10/11/2009, 06:05 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobdevis

What LA should do is;
Schedule a remake of 4 after they are done with 2SE, OR
Release a proper modern game binary so the original at least runs well, OR
Give some assistance to the ScummVM/Residual project so at least THEY can support the game in the near future.

It's unlikely that any of this will happen though. Shame..

Yeah definitely. Mind you, as much as I hope that they do release a MI2:SE, I doubt they'll go further. I guess MI3:SE would be a possibility but I think there are a lot of people out there for whom "Monkey Island" just means 1 and 2. I doubt they'd do a remake of 4 though because it would require a whole new 3D game engine (unless they licensed Telltale's engine) and its not nearly as popular amongst fans as the other games. At the least I would hope that they could at least recompile it and rerelease it via Steam. If they could add support for far higher resolutions and maybe use the game data from the PS2 version with higher polygon counts and less pre-rendered stuff then that would be just fine.

Personally I just want the ability to play through all of the games with voice acting and I want to be able to do that easily from any modern version of Windows (since OS X is too much to hope for).

eskimo · 10/11/2009, 06:36 pm

I feel sad that I never finished MI4.

I purchased it, but I never could get into it. I spent too much time getting frustrated by poorly executed controls that any humor was quickly de-railed by frustration.

EDIT: And yes, I have played, finished and enjoyed every other MI game to date.

Takun · 10/11/2009, 11:25 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by eskimo

I feel sad that I never finished MI4.

I purchased it, but I never could get into it. I spent too much time getting frustrated by poorly executed controls that any humor was quickly de-railed by frustration.

EDIT: And yes, I have played, finished and enjoyed every other MI game to date.

Back when MI4 was out, my pc at the time was little more than a paper weight with internet access. So I kindaq forgot about it. Now I could play it but I can't buy it without going through eBay and I'm just too impatient to wait. Fortunately youtube had a whole playthrough of about 45 videos of the game, from start to finish with all most (if not all) the dialogue featured, but without the running back and forth (the player just grabbed whatever items were needed before coming up to a puzzle to avoid needless "Hmm, where can I get a duck?").

StarEye · 10/11/2009, 11:54 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by guitarsareboring

That puzzle is a nightmare, I think it's littered with bugs that stop it from working. Try using the coconut (I think that was in the inventory, right?) more than twice in a row.

That was the only time I used a walkthrough for that game, and it only confirmed what I suspected. It was a bug. I threw the right items on him, but nothing worked. So after checking the walkthrough and confirming the bug, I reloaded an earlier save (thankfully I had saved only an hour earlier or so), it worked.

Hope you have an earlier save, FitzoliverJ.

Don't understand the complaints about the controls. They were more or less the same as Grim Fandango, only smoother, imo. Ironically though, these are the only two games LucasArts made with that engine, and one is considered one of LucasArts' greatest, and the other is considered one of LucasArts' worst.

Frogacuda · 10/11/2009, 11:55 pm

I don't think Mike needed any vindication. Escape was a good game that got excellent reviews, and while games of that era and that control scheme haven't aged gracefully, you can't fault him for not having a time machine. It might be the low point of the series, but it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

10/11/2009, 07:06 am	#1
PariahKing I Have Arrived Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Ohio Posts: 1,327	Personal Vindication for Mike Stemmle? After receiving endless (and excessive) amounts of indirect hate over Escape and its flaws, he and Mark Darin came up with an intriguing and excellent Monkey Island story. I will admit my initial fear was "...uh oh, Mike Stemmle wrote this story - will it make the same mistakes as Escape?" I didn't have to worry. The reinvention of LeChuck was brilliant and saved the character. Morgan Le Flay became really interesting as a love interest for Guybrush. They used Murray in a non-forced way. There's not a whole lot of bad things to say about the series. I think the third episode is where things really hit its stride. If the latter two episodes end up in a satisfactory way this may be my favorite Monkey Island game. And in a way it's kind of cool to see the whole human subplot level of it all, to see the creator of the fourth game get his very improbable and unlikely chance to make a beloved sequel ten years later. (Obviously with lots of help from a talented staff and everything, but yeah.) __________________ It's OK to eat fish - they don't have any feelings.

10/11/2009, 07:50 am	#2
hamzie Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 389	3 will always be my favourite the problem with these episodes is that youre stuck in one island at a time and these islands are big big like melee island or something and that keeps the game from being hard __________________ http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...azer215/PK.png

10/11/2009, 12:27 pm	#7
thatdude98 Professional Hobo Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Dirt Hole, USA Posts: 755	I still don't get why MI4 receives so much hate. I like the game, and I understand the complaints that fans have for it, but some fans go WAY too far, like completely pretending the game doesn't exist or not including it as canon. __________________ "The world's gone to shit." Said every Walking Dead character ever.

10/11/2009, 05:09 pm	#9
bobdevis Penguin Fanatic Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 197	I think 4 is a good game. I enjoyed it and the primitive 3D graphics are excused. The monkey-combat thing was quite ok imho. The problem is just that the controls are really bad and its an inconvenience to run it on a modern PC. 1 to 3 are taken care of by ScummVM but there is no flawless way to run 4 on my Vista+Ubuntu rig. Other early Win9x games have the same problem. What LA should do is; Schedule a remake of 4 after they are done with 2SE, OR Release a proper modern game binary so the original at least runs well, OR Give some assistance to the ScummVM/Residual project so at least THEY can support the game in the near future. It's unlikely that any of this will happen though. Shame.. __________________ If you don't like this post, please go make another one yourself and show me where I can improve my language.

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10/11/2009, 08:30 am	#3
Irishmile The Skipping Dead Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: WI, its a paradise 3 months of the year Posts: 6,542	I will always enjoy Escape... it may not be my favorite and the character models are dated but the backgrounds are still brilliant to this day and I personally think the story was decent.... the only thing I hated in it was the Monkey Kombat bit... but I enjoy the rest of it very much.

10/11/2009, 11:33 am	#5
hellary Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 15	True, this series really is very well written. I don't remember Escape that much since I haven't played it in years (plan on going through it again if LucasGames finally do a MI2 remake so that I can play them all through in talkie form in one go). Episode 3's definitely the best in this series too so far. If episodes 4 and 5 are as good as this then as a whole the series may even end up being my favourite Monkey Island game of the lot!

10/11/2009, 11:49 am	#6
KevinSig Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 81	The problem for Escape was the whole game engine, and the fact that the story had to be written around it. It hampered what you could do & I think by being forced to think within constraints, the plot of MI4 suffered. The plot & the puzzles the designers make, go somewhat hand in hand. Kevin

10/11/2009, 01:47 pm	#8
SHODANFreeman Mute Ruler of Insects Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 3,741	The amount of love he received for Hit the Road probably outweighs the hate he received for EMI.

10/11/2009, 05:14 pm	#10
kevintrim Because I Can. Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: California Posts: 143	Escape was pretty decent, except for the Vista Canyon puzzle on Monkey Island. I wanted to break my computer from the frustration.

10/11/2009, 05:15 pm	#11
Alcoremortis Lonely Ruffian Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Ankh-Morpork PD Status: Killjoy Extraordinaire Actual Posts: Lots! Posts: 4,229	There is an offshoot of SCUMMVM called the Residual Project that is currently adapting both Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island for current computers. So far, they are about halfway done with Grim Fandango.

10/11/2009, 05:22 pm	#12
Irishmile The Skipping Dead Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: WI, its a paradise 3 months of the year Posts: 6,542	neat

10/11/2009, 06:36 pm	#17
eskimo Stay at home Dad Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Southern Ontario, Canada Posts: 137	I feel sad that I never finished MI4. I purchased it, but I never could get into it. I spent too much time getting frustrated by poorly executed controls that any humor was quickly de-railed by frustration. EDIT: And yes, I have played, finished and enjoyed every other MI game to date.

10/11/2009, 11:55 pm	#20
Frogacuda Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 516	I don't think Mike needed any vindication. Escape was a good game that got excellent reviews, and while games of that era and that control scheme haven't aged gracefully, you can't fault him for not having a time machine. It might be the low point of the series, but it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of.