Monkey Island 2: SE

[Quanta]

I'm fine with the colors and brightness of the swamp scene. The only problem I have with the new version which makes it a little dull actually is the muted sky. In the original it looks more vibrant cause of the moon lit clouds and of cause the many sparkling stars.

[miffy495]

Sorry Thunderpeel, but to me that just looks like all those fan-altered screenshots of Diablo 3 where they try to make it darker to be more "Diablo-y." Not that the SE2 art is fantastic, but I don't see it as anywhere near that bad. I think the main thing that gets me about the new thing is that I always thought that the lettering on the Mojo sign looked like it was burned out of the wood, but now it just looks like it's painted on there. Oh well.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Kroms said:

Youuu...just made everything darker. Are you trying to add stronger colors instead? That's the only thing I miss.

Actually I upped the contrast in a few sporadic places around the image. Interesting that you think I made everything darker, I probably manipulated less than 10% of the image.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  miffy495 said:

Sorry Thunderpeel, but to me that just looks like all those fan-altered screenshots of Diablo 3 where they try to make it darker to be more "Diablo-y." Not that the SE2 art is fantastic, but I don't see it as anywhere near that bad. I think the main thing that gets me about the new thing is that I always thought that the lettering on the Mojo sign looked like it was burned out of the wood, but now it just looks like it's painted on there. Oh well.

No need to apologise, it wasn't a very serious attempt at improving the image, it only took a few mins. But I do still think the lack of contrast is an issue in the game's artwork.

[Salacious Snake]

  Kroms said:

Youuu...just made everything darker. Are you trying to add stronger colors instead? That's the only thing I miss.

It looks to me like he increased the contrast.

EDIT: HEYYYYY there's another page here!

[Thrik]

I don't know if it's because my computer is hooked into a huge plasma TV, but the SE art doesn't look washed out in the slightest to me.

In fact I'd go so far as to say the original art has too much contrast — the roots in the original and the Thunderpeel edit look like a big dark blob to me, whereas in the SE art I can see all the rich detail.

I personally think the colour balance and contrast looks great — zapping some of the oversaturation out of the original is a good move IMO, which is what I suspect is compounding it not looking right to your eyes.

Hopefully the game has a brightness/contrast/saturation slider so you can tune it to your satisfaction, though. Clearly things like contrast will differ depending on the display. Failing that I guess you could fiddle with your display settings.

[syntheticgerbil]

I thought contrast was a big part of Monkey Island's look. It's readily apparent in many parts of the first game, but the second game it's manifested in the method of darkening out key shapes in the landscape and putting highlights or shades around the sides. I'm guessing that's more a Purcell sort of thing since he tends to use the same technique in the Sam and Max comics (especially the weirder ones) and uses it liberally in his Toy Box stories. It also probably stems from him living around Mike Mignola for a major part of his life and taking key ideas from his techniques.

I can see where Thunderpeel is going, and I thought contrast was never really considered a bad thing in artwork by most, especially in a tale where darkness sets the atmosphere and helps tell what's going on.

Either way, I'm not as offended as I would be if they had done something bone headed like the first SE and just typed a standard Photoshop font for the sign (like Stan's shipyard) and then to add insult over injury, not erase the white crap around the text from bad selection. And then when they are done they can make sure not to do something as simple as hide the original pixelated layers they drew over before saving out. I don't see that here, so I can rest much easier.

The ugliest part is again, just Guybrush, who likes to walk around the Caribbean with a yellow tint following him everywhere he goes.

[Thyroid]

Apparently, Phil LaMarr will be playing Captain Dread in the remake.

I really like that one.

[Grippage]

Someone suggested Morgan Freeman

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Kroms said:

Apparently, Phil LaMarr will be playing Captain Dread in the remake.

Hermes!

[MrHoatzin]

Ass. A load of ass. Less ass than SMI:SE, but still an unwarranted pile of ass. Fuck this shit.

[brkl]

They should put that on the box.

[Jake]

  Kroms said:

Youuu...just made everything darker. Are you trying to add stronger colors instead? That's the only thing I miss.

He tried to add contrast and restore black levels. The paintings by Chan and Purcell, they weren't afraid to go super dark, to the point where chunks of the composition are pure black. They were also less afraid to have the highlights be very bright.

Laserschwert points it out pretty well here. The sun hitting the planks of wood on the ship and glistening in the choppy water cut to almost pure white in the original paintings, whereas in the special edition everything is far closer to the same value.

I'm looking forward to MI2 special edition for a lot of reasons, but I wish they had been a little more bold with the backgrounds. Everything feels more flattened and airbrushed than I personally think it should, even if it is looking really nice. Playing through this on a high def TV is super appealing to me.

edit - whoa I missed an entire page here. Oh well.

Contrast WAS a huge part of the MI look, but starting with Curse it got a lot more washed out, intentionally. Apparently it was a deliberate choice by the background painters on CMI to never ever use pure black in the game. They rarely used pure white either. Part of the whole dreamy storybook thing, I guess. Then in EMI they kept going with it, but seemingly with no real intent behind it other than "CMI did it." I, um, I tried to bring visual contrast back in Tales chapter 5 but we only had like two months to make that episode, so, my apologies if that one is fucked up too.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Kingzjester said:

Ass. A load of ass. Less ass than SMI:SE, but still an unwarranted pile of ass. Fuck this shit.

Lol. It is frustrating, but I'm glad they're staying truer this time. It's not my dream, but it's certainly closer than the last one. The character designs, while better than MI1 (which I think must have been done by an intern, they look so amateur), still fail in that most important aspect: Guybrush.

Makes me wonder: Where's the better quality fan-made stuff? I saw some amazing CMI style artwork that someone started as a replacement for the first one, but the guy clearly doesn't have the time to follow it through to completion. Shame, because it was really excellent.

[HPopper]

  Jake said:

Contrast WAS a huge part of the MI look, but starting with Curse it got a lot more washed out, intentionally. Apparently it was a deliberate choice by the background painters on CMI to never ever use pure black in the game. They rarely used pure white either. Part of the whole dreamy storybook thing, I guess.

CMI had softer color saturation than the earlier games, but using outlines really made things pop. They also seemed to deliberately put splashes of bold, vivid color in muted scenes (like how you can see the bright orange glow of the volcano from all over Blood Island) to make the rest of the shot not look washed out.

Tales did a good job of the latter, using bold colors sparingly to make the softer tones stand out. EMI had sort of a flat look to it, and even the splashes of color were pretty drab choices. As a result, the whole image kind of smears together. The remakes sort of give me this impression, too. If they'd decided to outline, it might have helped, I guess. At least in my eyes.

I'm still happy they made these remakes, though. It opens up these classic games to a new audience, which is never a bad thing. And I must admit, fully-voiced MI2 appeals to me, even though I'm sure purists would prefer the text-only version. I'm really glad to hear that you can play using the classic graphics (and more importantly, the old interface!) and new voicework. Does anyone know if there are plans to patch the SMI remake to let you do this?

[syntheticgerbil]

I would have personally hated outlines as a shortcut to create contrast.

[Moelman]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

Lol. It is frustrating, but I'm glad they're staying truer this time. It's not my dream, but it's certainly closer than the last one. The character designs, while better than MI1 (which I think must have been done by an intern, they look so amateur), still fail in that most important aspect: Guybrush.

I definitely agree they didn't get Guybrush "right" again. I wouldn't say I dislike his look (I also got used to it in SoMI:SE), but it could definitely could be better.

But overall I am loving the look of it, pretty sure Guybrush is my only complaint. Think it's fairly faithful to the original art, but I can definitely see the issue with the contrast.

[syntheticgerbil]

  Moelman said:

But overall I am loving the look of it, pretty sure Guybrush is my only complaint. Think it's fairly faithful to the original art, but I can definitely see the issue with the contrast.

It's funny because this time around I'm seeing a lot of the characters look the exact same as their old counterparts for the most part.

Too bad Guybrush and Elaine couldn't follow suit, but I guess they had to sort of go with the precedent set by the first SE.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Jake said:

Contrast WAS a huge part of the MI look, but starting with Curse it got a lot more washed out, intentionally. Apparently it was a deliberate choice by the background painters on CMI to never ever use pure black in the game. They rarely used pure white either. Part of the whole dreamy storybook thing, I guess. Then in EMI they kept going with it, but seemingly with no real intent behind it other than "CMI did it." I, um, I tried to bring visual contrast back in Tales chapter 5 but we only had like two months to make that episode, so, my apologies if that one is fucked up too.

That softer contrast was something that annoyed me about CMI's look (and remember taking screen grabs and messing with the backgrounds in Photoshop), but at least the artwork was beautiful... so I ended up loving it (even if I wish it was more contrasty).

[Forbin]

new screens:

http://www.joystiq.com/photos/monkey-island-2-special-edition-lechucks-revenge-4-22-2010/2919564/#2919566

I do feel that it's got the 2D equivalent of a bloom effect. But honestly, I'm just happy they're doing this.

[brkl]

I think the bloom is due to heavy compression on the JPEGs.

[Sergey]

I wonder how in the world the commentary will work.

[Jayel]

  Sergey said:

I wonder how in the world the commentary will work.

Maybe the game designers will appear in the form of NPCs in the world.

[Forbin]

I would create a new tool in the toolbox that is enabled on screens with commentary. Then when you click it, show an overlay of places to click to start commentary on those items.

[thorn]

  Sergey said:

I wonder how in the world the commentary will work.

Have you played Portal with the developer commentary? There are floating icons located in various parts of each level. Walking up to one of them and pressing the action button starts the commentary playing. I imagine it would be something similar; a strictly location-by-location thing.