The year’s most unexpected sequel is barrelling towards us, and Telltale hope to whet a few more preorder whistles by finally releasing a smidgen of interface’n'puzzle footage – specifically, the opening minutes of the reborn point’n'click adventure. Episode 1, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, is out in just six pirate days (which are like normal days, but with a looser moral code), and if you’re convinced you’re going to love it, you can pay pirate money (which is much like normal money, but with a slight scent of seaweed) for it right now. Video below. Comments that will almost certainly annoy someone are also below.
Laugh? I nearly cried. Actually, I idly checked Twitter instead for half of it, because it sadly failed to raise much chuckleage from my ever-sneering lips. This doesn’t mean the thing’s a cockup, just that, as with the majority of the Sam & Max eps that preceded this, something about the humour simply leaves me cold. I must point out that I do have a sense of humour, lest you wonder. Why, only last decade I laughed at an episode of Yes, Minister.
It’s well-presented visually, however, adding in a big ol’ dose of cinematic that S&M’s more static locations perhaps lacked, and it’s good to see item combination finally find its way into Telltale’s hitherto rather simplistic puzzling system. If the humour does tickle your pirate funny bone (which is much like a normal funny bone, but with a picture of a parrot on it), I can’t see any reason why you won’t have a wonderful time with this first of five episodes. Me, though: I’m going to go paint the corner of my room black, and then go sit in it and sulk until sunset, whilst secretly hoping all the really great zingers have been saved up for later in the game.
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@Wulf: TL;DR? (But good post)
I found the trailer refreshing and funny. Given that its a 3 minute snippet, I chuckled enough times for the full thing to be worth, well, whatever they’ll charge. Also, people comparing to the original MI games, I think they’ve forgetten how memory works.
Thanks Wulf, that’s what I was trying to get across.
Way too hot today for well thought out replies from me.
Wow, longest post in RPS’ history? :D
Something I just realized: The dialog sounds like Max’ dialog from Sam&Max. Like 2 completely random adjectives thrown in front of every word: “Prepare to meet your frosty, carbonatedmaker, LeChuck!”
They seem to have gotten so used to this style of writing, it stuck!
Wow, people actually like MI3… the game NOT made by the creator of… everything sir Gilbert and the other 2 guys.
This is beyond insanity, the 3rd and 4th games were utter junk.
Wulf, I’d much rather have well-drawn 2D scenery and some mostly static but attractive sprites than something that sits squarely in the Uncanny Valley while simultaneously being smaller and less flexible in scale and scope. IMO, a game shouldn’t bother being three-dimensional unless it intends to use that third dimension in some way. I can think of so many franchises that, in moving to 3D animation, lost not only much of their variety and depth but also their charm and loveliness.
In the old days, if you wanted to draw a messy table covered in stained teacups, you just drew one. And if you decided on the spur of the moment to allow the player’s avatar to drink out of one of those teacups, you just had to draw that table minus the teacup, then draw a few static sprites of an arm with a teacup at the end of it. Nowadays, you’d have to render the table, each item on it — including all the fancy textures — and figure out the points of intersection between the cup object, any “liquid” inside it, and the hand. Sure, at some point diminishing returns kicks in — if you need to animate a lot of people drinking from things, it’s probably easier to build that routine into your engine than to draw sprites to represent it — but for the vast majority of old-school adventure game scenarios in particular (as opposed to the sharply limited “interactions” of modern 3D adventures) it seems obvious that sprite-based design was a lot more conducive to creative flexibility.
Wulf, no I don’t. Both look horribly dated and overly cartoonish and 3D and shit. Oh, and really unfunny and trying too hard. Where’s the problem?
I’m glad now that I hadn’t played the original games as a child. Otherwise part of me would have died.
@Wulf
Sorry, but I think you misinterpreted my post. I’m not arguing that I want a return to 2d, I’m saying that they did what they could and it happened to work bloody well. However, today, the amount of work that has to go into realising a 3d world is astonishing. We demand a certain level of execution now and this doesn’t seem to have had that treatment. I’m still reserving judgement until I see the thing for myself though.
And I also directly referenced the technological restraints that were imposed upon the first 2 MI games.
Sigh. You all lose the internet. HARD. TMI looks awesome. And humorously accurate as well as true to the original series. Get over your nostalgia and enjoy the 21st century. It’s Monkey time again!!
Hmm, to be honest, I LeChuckled twice, which is much more than I expected from a TellTale game… But I’m only mildly curious about it, and the 3D, let’s admit it, is putting me off :/
Someone shut LeChuck up. I can’t stand his voice acting no longer.
Well, the reviews so far are pretty good:
Joystiq: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/07/review-tales-of-monkey-island-launch-of-the-screaming-narwhal/
Destructoid: http://www.destructoid.com/review-launch-of-the-screaming-narwhal–138653.phtml (9/10 + editors choice)
Now if only Telltale would actually RELEASE the damn thing.
Ok, so it’s official, LeChuck’s voice actor sucks. But apart from that, Episode 1 was really good imo. The puzzles struck a nice balance between meaningful and guess-I’ll-just-combine-stuff-at-random. Quite a few funnies in there, and all in all, I think they’re off to a really good start.
The controls are weird (what’s wrong with just letting you click where you want to go, like in oh, say, every single other adventure game ever made?), but it’s generally bearable.
Good information!