AGDInteractive - Sierra Adventure Game Remakes Forum

If anyone needs a reason to pay attention to the GDC next week, I have one:

MI2:LR Special Edition is rumored as an announcement at the conference, supposedly for PC, 360, PSN, and iPhone. If the PSN part is true, hopefully the game will be dual-compatible with PSP and PS3.

I will be watching intently!

Official news from LucasArts at GDC: SMISE on PSN and Mac and MI2SE...now with new hair!

Don't these guys look thrilled?

The new cover art can be seen here. http://twitpic.com/17u0gt I'm very excited about this!!

Amazing screenshots!!!

This is the most fantastic thing to ever happen in 2010 since the finale of Tales! It's so much more well done than the already fantastic SMI:SE! Smooth animations! Hand-painted backgrounds! Speech available in both remade AND classic modes! Alternate optional secondary control interface for moving Guybrush! All-star Monkey Island cast returns (of course)! In-game commentary by the game developers! It's a dream come true!!!

Wow that looks really slick!

Monkey Island II: Special Edition looks far better than I thought it could even be possible.

Is the first one hacked yet to fix the hair?

Months ago. Google.

One would have to assume that if they have put more effort into the 2nd one then the first must have been a commercial success. I know Tales has been released but could this open the door to a new feature length MI game

If it does I don't fully trust the LA of today to come out with a brand new adventure game....not yet. Least of all a triple-A title like Monkey Island. They have no experience.

rugged wrote:One would have to assume that if they have put more effort into the 2nd one then the first must have been a commercial success. I know Tales has been released but could this open the door to a new feature length MI game

The other possibility is that even if the first one didn't make back all of their money, the lower cost of the second one would cover the difference, since the engine was already written for the first and they're just reusing it.

To be technical, the engine was written 20 years ago since these remakes are simply built right on top of the original game like a high resolution mod pack for an FPS game. Plus it looks like they've made some additional features (like more animation frames for smoother animation appearance. So they very well could have actually spent more time and work on MI2:SE than SMI:SE.

Here's another tidbit out of GDC 2010. Will Wright, the guy behind Sim City, The Sime, Spore, and other titles, gave an impromptu lecture on the last day. An article summing up the session had this to say:

The relationship between players and game makers was perhaps the largest theme in Wright's session, and he fed back some of the findings from his previous games. "Players are inherently narcissistic--we'd see that players would spend hours creating themselves in The Sims," he said. He joked numerous times that he was essentially a drug dealer, as the end result of his work was to stimulate players' "hormones, endorphins, and neurotransmitters."

So basically, we're all self-absorbed junkies. Gee thanks, Will.

He's partially right, you know. Especially those MMORPG's are designed not to maximize fun, but to maximize time you spend on them. Almost like drugs.

He makes a very good point. Sometimes I think people are too immersed in game culture; as Erpy said, it's almost like drugs.

Playing games is fun and all, but there's a whole lot of world out there as well - it would do one well to get out, explore, enjoy and make some connections with real people - face to face!

Bt

Who first started remaking old adventures with new graphics after adventure games had stopped being the big sellers? Wasn't it AGDI/Tierra? I wonder if their success partly inspired the MI special edition thing.

I think MI2 special edition looks great, but does anyone else think the new graphics (while crisp and pretty) look a little too bright, artificial, barren, plastic-looking, sterile and cartoony? I know the art is nearly identical to the original version's painted backgrounds, but the higher resolution exposes a lack of detail and lack of grittiness in the new backgrounds that, I think, could detract from the atmosphere of the game. I'm just being picky here, and part of it might be the resolution differences, but I liked how the original MI2 backgrounds had a grimy and worn kind of look.

For example, I think the sewage looks nastier and smellier in this pic:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/ ... and207.jpg

than it does in this one:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/ ... and206.jpg

Also, this background had a runny, water color-like look that made the pirates' environment look appropriately dumpy and smelly:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/ ... and205.jpg

Whereas this one looks too clean, shiny and perfect... almost like a perfectly painted plastic set:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/ ... and212.jpg

AGDI was definitely the first group to finish a fan-remake of a Sierra adventure, but I'm not 100% sure if we were the first people ever to remake an adventure game non-commercially.

I don't think there's any direct evidence LA was inspired by the Sierra fangame scene to remake the Secret of Monkey Island. IF they picked up the idea from the fangame scene, Lucasfan Games' Maniac Mansion Deluxe would have inspired them instead. However, companies have been making remakes way before fans on the internet started doodling and coding. Sierra made several remakes in the past and LA had several games that had both EGA and VGA versions. (though calling those remakes is probably stretching things a bit)

Erpy wrote:Sierra made several remakes in the past and LA had several games that had both EGA and VGA versions. (though calling those remakes is probably stretching things a bit)

Yes, but Sierra's and LA's "remakes" were 10 years prior to the fan remakes (which, I believe, came years after adventure games stopped being those company's biggest sellers).

And didn't Maniac Mansion Deluxe come out a few years after AGDI/Tierra's stellar KQ1 remake? Hmmm... I think AGDI may have had a hand in inspiring and influencing the direction that this remake-a-classic trend has taken. It might be hard to point to direct evidence, but I think the AGDI team ought to feel some personal satisfaction about this.

Also, to go along with what I was mentioning earlier... omg, I hate the new MI2 Special Edition cover art. It's like a cheap, cartoony knockoff of the classic original, which I always loved! It's fine if they were going to go with a new art style, but at least create a very different painting, rather than bastardize the original artist's work. see below...

new crappy cover art (ok, I shouldn't say "crappy" since the artist here is surely talented, so maybe "far less cool-looking cover art" is a better way of putting it):
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/ ... keyart.jpg

original and still-the-best cover art (painted by steve purcell?):
http://www.dosspirit.net/images/dosspir ... _cover.jpg

Guys, there are many classic game remakes from all genres right now on XBLA and PSN that probably mostly inspired SMI:SE rather than a few fangames. And they're still making them. LA just decided to take advantage of the current fad.

MusicallyInspired wrote:Guys, there are many classic game remakes from all genres right now on XBLA and PSN that probably mostly inspired SMI:SE rather than a few fangames. And they're still making them. LA just decided to take advantage of the current fad.

I remember first downloading and playing the Tierra/AGDI KQ1 remake nearly 10 years ago. I was blown away. It was exciting. The quality of the product was top notch, and it seemed like playing a new Sierra adventure game again for the first time in many years. No one else (that I knew about or had seen) at that time was making and finishing remakes of classic adventure games, and few very others even since then have succeeded in releasing polished remakes of such impressive quality. Infamous Adventures have also been great.

It seems to me that AGDI was the first, since the early 90's when Sierra and LA released their own official upgrades, to remake (and significantly improve upon) classic adventure games. Being the first does count for something. I remember my own excitement when I first played their KQ1 remake, and I have to believe that many people interested in adventure gaming then could not help but take notice of what Tierra/ADGI had accomplished. I don't understand the reluctance to give AGDI their due for at least likely inspiring more fan-made adventure titles and paving the way for other adventure remakes... and helping to show the industry the interest that still exists for classic-style adventure games.