Thank you TellTale for bringing back Monkey Island!

[Sally]

I know I'm quite late with this, but I've only just finished playing ToMI. Just wanted to say thanks, as I've played all the Monkey Island games through the years, but this is the one I have enjoyed most - especially the last two chapters which were absolutely brilliant. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you'll do a second season ... Really looking forward to your remake of LeChuck's Revenge too.

Best wishes,
Sally

[Fury]

Originally Posted by Sally

I know I'm quite late with this, but I've only just finished playing ToMI. Just wanted to say thanks, as I've played all the Monkey Island games through the years, but this is the one I have enjoyed most - especially the last two chapters which were absolutely brilliant. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you'll do a second season ... Really looking forward to your remake of LeChuck's Revenge too.

Best wishes,
Sally

Telltale isn't in charge of the Monkey Island remakes. That's Lucasarts. Telltale is better at coming up with fresh, original wit, whereas all Lucasarts can do is use all of it's money from star wars to make an old game look slightly prettier.

If you like Tales of Monkey Island, try Sam and Max season 1, 2 or 3. They're WAAAAY better than the old Hit the Road game, and I personally think that they're funnier than TOMI.

I liked episode 4 too. It was fantastic, easily the best Monkey Island game ever.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Fury

If you like Tales of Monkey Island, try Sam and Max season 1, 2 or 3. They're WAAAAY better than the old Hit the Road game, and I personally think that they're funnier than TOMI.

I'd say Season Two is better than Hit the Road. Season One, especially the first half of it, definitely shows the series' growing pains. And even then, I wouldn't stress that Season Two is THAT far greater than Hit the Road.

[Irishmile]

You missed all the good times on the boards here during ToMI release.....

[Sally]

Thanks for the replies. I thought TellTale were strongly involved in the Monkey Island/LeChuck's Revenge remakes though, I thought I'd read that somewhere, or am I wrong? Also read that TellTale will be selling it soon on their website.

I've just started playing Sam and Max Season 1 - really liking it so far. Will have a go at Season 2 after that - so far I'm enjoying season 1 as much as Hit the Road. It's amazing how far the graphics have come on since Hit the Road times - from memory I thought the graphics in that were pretty good - but I saw a clip on Youtube of it the other day, and it looks so dated now.

Sally

[Sally]

Originally Posted by Irishmile

You missed all the good times on the boards here during ToMI release.....

Well no, not entirely - I've just been slow to finish the game, and haven't posted on the board until now

[Scrawffler]

I think the confusion might come from the fact that TOMI and the first Monkey Island special edition were announced at the same time, so it might have sounded like all the news was coming from the same company! The special edition games are definitely made by LucasArts though.

But it's true that the SOMI special edition will be available through Telltale's store. So they are a bit involved!

Good to hear you enjoyed Tales so much, and that you are loving Sam and Max so far! True, the graphics from the old games are quite dated now, though they were pretty incredible for their time. (I must admit I still like all those old pixelly games today, nowadays I consider them nostalgic!)

[Irishmile]

Originally Posted by Sally

Well no, not entirely - I've just been slow to finish the game, and haven't posted on the board until now

Well you are in time for all the fun we will have talking about Sam & Max: the Devils Playhouse

[Sally]

Yes, looking forward to the new Sam and Max game! Will keep reading the forums, but I'm going to finish the first Sam and Max game before I play it.

Ah, so Lucasarts are doing Monkey Island games independently of TellTale, I got a bit confused there sorry :-) Great that there's such a revival of adventure games going on.

Sally

[feldon30]

Monkey Island was invented by Ron Gilbert. At Lucasarts, he led the creation of the Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Ron moved on and LucasArts went ahead with creating the Curse of Monkey Island without Ron's involvement. Ultimately, it was an excellent game in my opinion (even Ron said it was pretty good), but now there is this question of what would Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island 3 game have looked like?

The last Monkey Island game from LucasArts was Escape from Monkey Island. Players have a love-hate relationship with this game. Some people pretend the game doesn't exist. It used a new control scheme designed for the console (Playstation 2). The graphics were developed in stylized 3D. Some of the storylines and character appearances have received widespread criticism for being shallow and gratuitous. Also, the "centerpiece" puzzle to the game, Monkey Combat, has been widely derided as tedious and unnecessary. That said, many players consider EMI a worthy successor within the series and don't have such harsh feelings towards it.

Then there was silence for several years and doubts that there would ever be another Monkey Island game after EMI.

Then out of the blue, two announcements happened nearly simultaneously:

• A special edition of the original Secret of Monkey Island was announced from LucasArts
• a 5 episode series Tales of Monkey Island was announced by Telltale Games

The graphics in Monkey Island 1 were upgraded to High Definition (1920 x 1080), full voices and music were added. Some complained about the graphics (specifically Guybrush's appearance, and there were some complaints about the uneven quality of the backgrounds) and music (Michael Land has created the music for every Monkey Island game so far, but it was another person at LucasArts who remixed the music for the Monkey Island 1: Special Edition). I personally had few complaints about the Monkey Island SE graphics or music and I played it through both on my iPhone and PC.

Telltale Games consists of several developers, story designers, and animators who left LucasArts. After cutting their teeth on Sam & Max, Homestarrunner, and Wallace & Gromit games, it was only a matter of time before they would return to their roots and produce a LucasArts-era title. Fortunately for all of us, Tales of Monkey Island did have some involvement from Ron Gilbert, the full voice cast eventually returned from Curse of Monkey Island (Earl Boen, voice of LeChuck didn't sign on until after Tales episode 1 was completed with another actor), and of course Michael Land produced the music.

Any complaints about the pacing and depth of Tales of Monkey Island episodes 1 and 2 soon faded with the tremendous episodes 4 and 5 which were just as powerful (in my opinion) as the previous Monkey Island games.


So now we have the announcement that LucasArts are producing a Special Edition of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. This is an ambitious project, as Monkey Island 2 is approximately 4 times the size of the original Monkey Island in artwork and dialogue. So far, there have been concerns and negative comments about some of the upgraded graphics. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

I think a lot of us are crossing our fingers that either Ron Gilbert will be able to put together a full Monkey Island game to address the cliffhanger at the end of Monkey Island 2, or whether we'll see another Tales of Monkey Island series from Telltale Games. Either way, it's an exciting time to be a Monkey Island fan!

[Chyron8472]

Yes, and there's already been discussion in this forum about how LucasArts didn't finish the artwork on SMI:SE (Melee forest and Stan's sign are prime examples.)

I would hope that they actually finish the job on MI2:SE, although the picky people around here (including myself) can already find old pixels from the original game in screenshots of the SE version of MI2. We'll just have to see.

[Sally]

Certainly is an exciting time for Monkey Island fans! I have to say, looking at the screenshots of the forthcoming Lechuck's Revenge, I like Telltale's graphic style of ToMI more. It will be fun to play and old favourite again though - it is so long ago since I last played it that I've forgotten a lot of it.

[CaptKevinKID]

Thankyou Telltale for making 2009 a Monkey Island year I will never forget.
I hope in the future we can have more times like this.

With Tales of Monkey Island, it was spot on and the new look of Guybrush and Elaine and everyone, I hope you stay with that look in future games.

You hit the nail on the head with Tales.

A work of genius.

[VeronicanPlay]

My interest in MI has really gone up since ToMI. The game is so great, I am going to play SoMI and MI:LR when that comes out as well. And I do hope they will carry on with ToMI because they are done so well, and I would hate for my fan experience to die out just as I have gained it

[QuestForGloryFan]

I'm just starting Episode 5 but I gotta say so far Episode 3 was my favorite. It wouldn't make a good stand-alone game but it had some of the best puzzles and a lot of new characters making it the "Freshest" of the new crop. At the end of the day MI is a lot like a sitcom in that a "Status quo" needs to be addressed but even that episode had me a bit fooled on LeChuck's allegiance. His passion was one of the better written character development pieces so far. I'm really hoping for a Season 2 but the remakes will be more than enough to hold me over until the next installments (not to mention episode 5.) I imagine the forums must have been crazy after Episode 4 due to it's incredibly crafted cliffhanger. Speaking of which, off to finish the season. Thanks Telltale, you certainly proved capable of taking the reigns.

[B-J]

You're absolutely right Sally. Me I just finished chapter 2 and I already can say that there could be no better continuation of the MI series. The Telltale crew made many allusions to the classic games, and as they are often hidden in the game or the gameplay (like the forest levels) I am always very pleased when I get to recognize new allusions to the 'old' games. But with the new landscapes/levels/characters Telltale brought a certain kind of freshness into the game. All togehter created the perfect 21st-century Monkey Island game!