[CAT] Scratching Post

Lucasarts adventure games hold a special place for me, they were some of the first games I ever played on my Pentium 75, and each had its own unique feel. None was more sucessful than the Monkey Island series, and now I've got two more entries to play with.

First, we have the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island. Updated, hand-drawn backgrounds, a fully redone soundtrack, voice acting using the same actors from The Curse of Monkey Island (the best of the series in my opinion)...and if you don't like the above, you can play it in the origonal form, litterally switching between the two versions on the fly with one keystroke.

All for $10.

Overall, I like what they've done with it. Some of the jokes that were funny when the game was text-based rather than spoken aren't quite as funny 19 years later, but the quality of the voice acting makes up for it.

Second we have Tales of Monkey Island, the new episodic series from the same developer of the new Sam and Max series of games. Honestly, after the so-so way Escape from Monkey Island turned out, I was nervous about this. But they've gone back to roots on this new one. If you played any of the newer Telltale games, you know what you're getting here, and it's all good. The whole 5 games are $34, and they take round 4-5 hours to complete each.

Which is less than I've paid for shorter games.

On a related note, a good number of older Lucasarts games are now avaliable on Steam, most for $5. Its nice to have them there, since I've long had the CD's for the origonals scratched to hell or the fact they just flat-out don't work on the newer OS's.

Oh, and they all work perfectly on Windows 7 64-bit, so you don't have to worry about incompatibility!

The Lucasarts games I really miss are the old X-Wing and X-Wing v. TIE Fighter games. Those were fucking brilliant. THERE is a series that needs to be dug up and remade with today's tools.

DickSchittlippz wrote:The Lucasarts games I really miss are the old X-Wing and X-Wing v. TIE Fighter games. Those were fucking brilliant. THERE is a series that needs to be dug up and remade with today's tools.

I won't dispute that Dick. I put litterally hundreds of hours into TIE Fighter and it's two expansions. Getting all the Bonus Objectives and playing through the harder levels....good times.

Unfortunately, I don't think it'll ever happen. The adventure games have been translated to a new audience quite well, because you can streamline an adventure game interface so almost anyone can play it.

Trying to streamline a space flight sim turns it into games like Rouge Squadron or Blazing Angels. Both of which are fun in their own right, but are nowhere close to the feel of TIE Fighter.

X-Wing Alliance is just going to be the last hurrah, sadly.

TIE Fighter is what all space sims have aspired to be. It streamlined the bugs and interface of XWing, added on a completely open-ended way to complete any mission, and actually made you feel like you were a part of the goddam Galactic Empire.

The TIE Defender missions where you're Darth Vader's wingman? Oh fuck yes.

snatching that trine right now. prolly part of it from you, spandex.

I never played the monkey island games or tie fighter, slightly before my gaming time. I think i was stuck on the sega genesis back then.

There might be hope for us yet Dick....

Sure, it's just a blatant tease for now, but you never know...at least Lucasarts is going back to their roots now for inspiration, rather than turning out another fucking Lego Star Wars game.

I'd pick up a new Tie Fighter game in an instant (pending decent reviews, of course). Could you imagine doing IL2-like missions as a group? Even if it was only SP, it would still steal my life away from me.

As for other Lucas Arts classics, one of my favourites was Grim Fandango.

I am praying.