Why do you dislike the SE's? I thought they were excellently done, a true but modern reflection of the originals. I felt they sucessfully kept the original feel of the games whilst improving the graphics, music and adding voice.
I have LOTS of rambling rants. Mainly about Guybrush's new look AND the overall sloppiness and poor quality of the newer art.
Yes, I'm a rabid long time Lucas Arts graphic adventure fan.
First ramble, the biggest problem with this new direction of Guybrush. It showed a complete lack of understanding about the original games, about who he is.
Going by the developer videos I watched, they tried to create a Guybrush that was a combination of all the past version -- so if you've played them all like me, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Now the above wasn't the issue, the part that messed up his new look, was that they tried to give Guybrush... attitude, or something? I'm not really sure what they were thinking, because they ended depicting him almost always as a DOUCHE instead of a DORK with the hair cut to match.
This image of the SE Guybrush says it all:
Now look at the expression of Guybrush's face from the
original box art. Notice he's wide-eyed, naive, and of course after playing the game, we find out he's a dork. Even the games low-rez pixel art captured this look.
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Now for my next ramble about the new art. Its overall quality is poor. It's not that the artist are bad -- the art-director from the videos was quite talented -- but it's clear that they, or maybe just one artist, was rushed to get this done. The background art overall is quite sloppy. It may hold up better on a newer TV or monitor than the pixlated art, but it shows none of the care that went into the original art that was a combination of pixeled-art and scanned-art. Art that was created by really talented artist like
Steve Purcell.
The original low-rez art shows more charm and care, especially when compared to the new close ups. The pirate Cobb is a good example of how poor the new art is when compared to the original.
Even the newer cover art doesn't do the game justice.
Look at the original MI2 cover from Purcell, which is a fantastic painting;
http://www.slowdown.vg/images/Monkey-Island-2-LeChucks-Revenge-Cover-Art-Mac.jpg
Now look at the new direction, which in its own respect is good work, but not when compared to Purcell's creation;
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/oo171/hpquy/2jv7mb.jpg
And on these art changes, when playing in the DOUCHE-mode -- as I called it, of Monkey Island, there were items I missed, that I never missed in the pixel version, because they became dull and part of the messy background. Now if they had just hired Mr. Purcell to help out as creative director, I can only imagine at how fantastic these games would have looked. They could create a Guybrush that looks like his paintings, which would be awesome IMO. Why didn't they just rescan his original art for MI2? Bleh! To many rambles.
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The part I liked best about the new games are the music. My minor gripe here, is that the newer music is a bit more serious in some places and even a tiny bit somber when compared to the original. I still have my original Monkey Island CD -- which has orchestrated music as well -- and have been listening to it for years.
And on the voice, it's the guy that did 3rd and 4t Monkey Island games. I like his voice. I'd actually like an option to here the voices with the original art. And as noted prior, not all art is bad. The icons in MI2: SE on the iPad are wonderful. The icons for MI:SE iPad though, are rather poor.
Bleh, too much ramble.
