Return to Monkey Island

Like the ghost pirate LeChuck, the Monkey Island franchise will be once again brought back to life with two new releases by LucasArts and Telltale Games.

Tales of Monkey Island is the name of the new episodic series being developed by Telltale, a company created by some of the developers of the original games, like Dave Grossman, that returns as the design director for the project. The composer Michael Land, responsible for the famous music of all Monkey Island games, also returns along with Dominic Armato reprising his role as Guybrush Threepwood. The first of the five planned episodes will be available on July 7, with a later release set for the WiiWare service.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a high-resolution remake of the classic game, with redrawn graphics, a remastered digital music score and newly recorded dialog, with Armato also providing the voice of Guybrush. As a bonus feature, players will be able to switch between the original game and the new remake on the fly, by pressing a button. The game is being developed by LucasArts, to be released on this summer for PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

The announcement of the new titles prompted Ron Gilbert, the creator of the series, to share some memories from the development of the original game on his blog.

Oh, Gawd no. They're going to make me trash MI.

They already did 9 years ago. Your lack of awareness about these things is disturbing.

"You're lack"? Seems like someone's been spending too much time with them GameFaqs semi-literate brats. This Rabbi keeps puzzling me more and more.

I forgive you.

Macs, you don't read the forums much, do you :)

He had it in the queue in time, my bad for not approving the item earlier.

Old news but good news.

I'm oblivious enough to actually learn about this now... and what joyous news it is! :)

I'm glad I've got my Wii online finally :) I can't wait to get my mitts on these!

LucasArts officially announced today that if the Special Edition of Monkey Island sells well, they will consider remakes of Day of the Tentacle, Loom and Full Throttle. With their approach (switch simultaneously between the old and the new version), this is an outstanding way to relive the adventure classics. No original work so far, but if there are sufficient sales, why wouldn't they work on something entirely new for a change? The only downside is that most of the original adventure talent has already left the studio.

A remake of DOTT?! *wheeze* *wheeze* I think I'm having a heart attack of happiness!

I can't think of anything in DOTT that would benefit from remaking. Now, Zak McCracken or Maniac Mansion on the other hand...

Ah, but you are surely forgetting that you can play the entire game Maniac Mansion in DOTT? What if they up the graphics in DOTT to the Monkey Island standard, and MM to DOTT standard as sort of a "one generation better" approach? Now that would be something. :)

Exactly what I was going to post.

Only with this frowning face for added effectivity of displeasure message: >=(

Loom!

Listen, If I bought the Special Edition it must be selling well, since I never buy stuff online!

The way you use the past tense to talk about your future actions boggles my mind =)

...ok, it's the episodic series that I bought...:P

I still want to see a remake of Loom.

Yeah I've always wanted to play Loom

Didn't they abandon Loom after it tanked horribly?

And LEAVE THE CLASSICS ALONE, dammit! Just release them over GoodOldGames instead!

I honestly don't see the point of remaking a game that had amazing graphics for its time using graphics that were barely adequate ten years ago. Otherwise, the meaning of the word "remake" escapes me. Isn't this supposed to be re-creating an older work using most modern techniques?

Well, the inventory and action system is updated as well, not to mention an entirely new voice recording. I'd rather have them not touch the basic gameplay.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. The remake's graphics look dull -to say the very least- both technically and stylistically, which is the exact opposite of the original game.

But even if style and technical execution were adequate, I still see no reason for a remake. Instead of remaking a game that is rightly recognised as a pinnacle of its genre, developers should better remake games that could profit from it. There are enough games that didn't live up to their full potential due to various reasons - MI is *not* one of them... :/

To counter argument this I have three following things to say.

1. For all its deficiencies the remake of MI is very faithful to the original game artwork. Its 320x240 upscaled to 1920x1080 and that's a feat in itself, regardless of the quality entailed. Even though I expressed my own dissatisfaction with the too much faithful approach, I still appreciate the course taken by the development team.

2. It's not about remaking the game for the old guard. It's about introducing the kids to the marvellous concept of a humorous adventure game. And I can't think of better introduction than the original MI. It's jokes and gags are still fresh. It's gameplay is solid and challenging enough.

3. As I said previously this remake by itself may not mean much. But it does signify a possible new direction LucasArts may be facing. Thus, it needs all the support it can get.

It's about introducing the kids to the marvellous concept of a humorous adventure game.

You do have a point there. However, the chances that antiquated-looking remakes of twenty year-old games will convert your average Xbox LIVE kid to adventure games are extremely slim, IMO.

Not at all, because the quality in writing was hardly ever surpassed. You don't complain about the content of a good book written half a century ago, do you? Except in this case, the industry has made it virtually impossible to re-read it, and LucasArts puts out effort to dust it off and re-publish it in a more modern form. A brave move I say.

Oh, come on, you think that the average mainstream-gaming kid these days will care about that? I doubt they'd even associate videogames with foreign words such as "writing"...

I don't even hate the game or anything (I find it fairly pointless, though), I just don't see the whole "remake old stuff" approach as the potential messiah of the adventure genre as some people do. If there's an approach to revive the genre, it will be the Fahrenheit/Heavy Rain one, which is of course crazy expensive.

Make it an action-"adventure" game. Demote puzzle solving to jumping on appropriate platforms. And give Guybrush some boobies.

Instant hit and equally disturbing. :p

I find it ironic how most of the old timers complain how stale the games these days are, how little innovation there is, and how vicious the industry is, but when a remake (enhanced port) of a classic comes along, which is essentially another way to milk money, everyone gets excited.

You're not being fair.

Firstly, it is possibly a harbinger of greater things to come. Secondly, you must realize that the industry haven't actually progressed anywhere as far as adventure games are concerned. Monkey Island is still fresh because nobody paid attention to either Tex Murphy or Last Express. These were the games ahead of their time. The problem is, that they're ahead of this time as well. This is an opportunity to make a statement.

I love seeing all the young folks around the web, asking "Hey, what's this Monkey.. something game, never heard of it." and then the major outlets are ready with a three pages long retrospective. This is cool. The adventures never progressed as they should have, as the ultimate form of gaming.

So, there is no hipocrisy in hating the staleness of the industry and applauding the remake of the game, which is still light years away as far as interactivity, wit and design are concerned.

Monkey Island is still fresh because nobody paid attention to either Tex Murphy or Last Express.

Unfortunately, this is absolutely true. I'm still waiting for that fully 3D, fully interactive, open-world, real-time pure adventure game.

Old timers tend to forget that its easier to be innovative when the last game you played back then was interactive fiction or crappy pink pixels.

Although of course, developers didn't waste too much time on graphics and had to make the game more attractive with other elements.

Last time I checked, most of the advertisements for the games in 80s and 90s praised the graphics as well, and developers certainly wanted to push the envelope even more as far as graphics are concerned.

It's true, however, that the graphical prowess wasn't as great, so they couldn't base everything on the graphics.