Enchantermon on 1/6/2009 at 23:20

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Hmm.
I played and loved the first two, but I haven't yet played the last two (though I want to).
This new one...eh. I don't know. Although I don't doubt it'll be fun (because I'm a big adventure game fan), the writing seems a little on the "bleah" side. But we'll see.
The remake looks nice, although the voice acting sounds lacking, mostly in the timing department. It's cool that they give you the option to switch between classic and remake on the fly, though. Now I just hope it hasn't been completely butt-raped just for consoles.

mothra on 1/6/2009 at 23:29

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you can switch versions - I'm sold

Aerothorn on 2/6/2009 at 01:23

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I throughly enjoyed Sam & Max and the Strongbad series, so I'm gonna give Telltale the benefit of the doubt here. They really put their hearts into their work. That said, there's always the pitfall in resurecting an old property. If you simply emulate the old material, you'll appear stale and will never be able to reach its heights (this was the main complaint of EFMI). If you do new and bold things, you risk alienating the fans and "ruining" the series. Still, the latter is always preferable - the first three games, at least, always tried to go where they wanted to - keeping the spirit alive naturally rather than by trying too hard. Hopefully Telltale will do that.

As the the remake, I'm all for it. It's easy for older folks to say "Bah, there was nothing wrong with it! They'll ruin it!" But the fact is that I am one of the only people my age to have ever played the game. I couldn't even read when it came out - I was fortunate enough to have a babysitter who was a pretty good actor to read/act the dialog as I played it. And today, well, it's pretty damn pixelated. As long as they retain the ability to see the old graphics, I'm all for it. My only concern is the voice acting - I like the MI cast, but a lot of that dialog was written to be read, and it's hard to get the dry inflection right. Still, if it gets a new generation of people to appreciate Monkey Island, that's a good thing.

Also, Lucasarts writes (via the Monkey Island Facebook):

"These efforts are just the start of LucasArts’ new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio of beloved gaming franchises. In addition to these new Monkey Island projects, LucasArts recently revealed that the classic adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (originally released in 1992) is included as an unlockable bonus in the Wii™ version of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, set to be released on June 9. Additional announcements are forthcoming."

In other words, if this pays off, they'll perhaps add new installements to other franchises - and hopefully they will be intelligent enough to bring the original people on board (which they are at least doing to an extent with Telltale). Grim Fandango 2?

Thirith on 2/6/2009 at 06:55

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I thought that the Sam & Max games were consistently good (though not great) but very much suffered from the law of diminishing returns. Without a strong(ish) story arc, each subsequent game felt a lot like "Been there, done that." I stopped playing somewhere in the middle of season 2, not because the games were noticeably worse but simply because I'd been Sam & Maxed out. Since I thought that Monkey Island 3 was good but nowhere near its predecessors, and Monkey Island 4 felt like a stale retread (even the jokes were largely repeats), I'm pretty much worried that the same will happen as with S&M.

Shadowcat on 2/6/2009 at 14:11

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I have to give Telltale credit for being perhaps the only company who has made a genuine success of the "episodic" model that so many people were talking about a few years back.

Regardless of how the new games work out, though, that remake of the original is pretty damned sexy, and the 'classic mode' switch definitely completes the package. I just hope the voice-acting (for all characters) is good.