best looking MI?

[threepcross]

which of the Monkey Island games do you consider to be the better looking one?

[serweet]

Curse is the best looking, but the original two are iconic in their appearance.

[threepcross]

personally I find the second one the best drawn game.

[der_ketzer]

CoMI of course.

[Quanta]

From a pure design standpoint: LeChuck's Revenge
Considering the technical limitations: Curse of Monkey Island

I voted for MI2.

If LucasArts is working on a LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition, then I hope by god that they reuse the original Purcell character designs and don't come up with wacky over-the-top caricatures.

[threepcross]

Originally Posted by Quanta

From a pure design standpoint: LeChuck's Revenge
Considering the technical limitations: Curse of Monkey Island

I voted for MI2.

qft

[manetheren]

Without a doubt it has to be CoMI.

For me it captured the spirit of MI in a modern looking game. I do agree with serweet that the original two are iconic

[Alucard]

CMI had a different style that was ok. I can't have enough love for MI 2 though

[MusicallyInspired]

I will always hold an appreciation for 8-bit 320x200 graphics in a special way. Saying that, I can't decide which looks better; SMI or MI2. SMI had Deluxe Paint "shopped" 256 colour palette extensions to the original 16-colour graphics, but MI2 had hand-painted graphics. As such they have very different looks despite being both in 8-bit 320x200. I think I shall have to say SMI because the locked-palette Deluxe Paint-ified 256 colour graphics give a very atmospheric effect to the gameplay. Something MI2 didn't manage to grasp with it's vibrant varying colours. But both still look gorgeous.

All the games look great, though.

[turingmachine604]

Guybrush's design in CMI was way too lanky and goofy looking, even if the backgrounds were gorgeous. With that being said, MI 2 remains the best.

[Armakuni]

I agree.

[moomoocow]

Curse of Monkey Island for sure. Except for the low resolution its still absolutely beautiful and looks better than many adventures released today.

Thats one of the advantages of 2D-graphics in my opinion. Even after many years it still looks good. Just play DoTT and you will find yourself liking the graphics of a game which was originally released on floppy disks. I find it funny that nobody selected MI4.

[Ash735]

CoMI for me, Escape had some nice looking renders around but the whole thing felt too clean and plastic. As mentioned MI1 and 2 are just classics in their own right but I'd love to see how they'd look redrawn in MI3's style.

[Armakuni]

I have to go with MI2, though MI1 looks fantastic as well.

MI3 has incredible background graphics, but I don't like the character graphics all that much.

[doodo!]

Nostaligia is nice and all but when it comes to reality drawn backgrounds with sprites versus draw/ painted, rendered back grounds with fluid -drawn characters and a whole new and bold sense of atmosphere I go with curse of monkey island over the two first games which are in fact flat im comparrison. If M-I 4 had more lustrious and imaginative locations I feel that the graphics could have been better seen. Blood island in Mi-4 could be interesting for example . Although curse definitely wins over EMI.

[Armakuni]

It's not nostalgia, I just like the style in MI2 better.

Technically, of course CMI is better.

[esteban]

I vote for CUMI because it's a great cartoon and the best technically. But MI2 has the best draws.

[doodo!]

I like the first two games, and both styles are well enough, but that's just it for me, as you said its technicially choronically stated which is better looking, and I can't see past that. Each to there own,. I'm kind of a grouch , aren't I? STEVE worked on MI-2 , well I respect it almost definitely more now , although I still say that given the technology he could have made MI-3 look better than it is as well as the first two games.

[VagrantWulf]

Lechuck's Revenge by leaps and bounds for me.

It's an amazing accomplishment as a game, it has so many richly varied environments, and yet the art direction is so cohesive that they all look like they belong in the same game, this is no small feat with game development.

I'd give a runner-up mentions to Escape from Monkey Island and Secret of Monkey Island though, as they really did try to provide some variety, and overall it was quite cohesive, there wasn't really anything that looked out of place in either, but for all their gusto, they still weren't as varied as Lechuck's Revenge when it came to richly detailed and vividly different locales.

One problem with art direction is that it can often be weak, this can lead to either A) having a lot of scenes in a game and a bunch of them looking like they don't fit with the rest, or B) keeping a degree of sameyness between all the scenes so that they fit. The latter is what I personally felt CoMI suffered from, as I can't really remember any truly distinct locations in CoMI, barring maybe the Voodoo Lady's house.

If you go back and play through Lechuck's Revenge though, over the three islands and the other locations, there was a surprising amount of variety there for a game of the era, and there wasn't one thing one could look at and think "That looks out of place in this game." So that's why I think MI 2 looks the best, it's an exemplary show of good art direction, even if it isn't the most high-res.

[threepcross]

I agree. every single spot on LeChuck's Revenge has a unique feel to it.