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[Sectus]

Okie, I've finished recording, encoding and uploading my imuse comparisons. I recorded 6 different versions of the music you hear in Woodtick from these sources:
360
PS3
PC
360 classic mode
PC classic mode (I skipped PS3 classic mode as it sounds literally the same as PC)
Original game in ScummVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkMoHEFtnLQ - Here's the video.

360 version is the only version with zero imuse in both special and classic modes. The songs will just instantly switch between eachother. PS3 and PC seems to have the same implementation of imuse, which is similar to the original just less dynamic and with shorter transitions. Classic mode imuse is hit and miss, at its best it's as good as the imuse in the special edition music in the PS3 or PC version. At its worst, it's like the 360 version (no transitions).

The original game's version of imuse is undoubtly superior. Much more dynamic and each transition sounds better. Although I have to say the transitions in the special edition isn't bad, it's just too short. At least much better than no transitions at all.

 

[Fusebox]

Nice one man, shame you haven't got iDevice to compare.

 

[harriet the spy]

Okie, I've finished recording, encoding and uploading my imuse comparisons. I recorded 6 different versions of the music you hear in Woodtick from these sources:

Awesome, thanks a lot. just hearing those dialogues spoken (i haven't tried actually playing MI2 SE beyond the very first few minutes) made me smile. Great work by Dom d'amato as usual.

 

[PhoncipleBone]

Nice one man, shame you haven't got iDevice to compare.

I agree. I got it on iPad and wonder how it compares.

 

[Tomasooie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkMoHEFtnLQ

Thanks for doing this. What baffles me is: what reason could there possibly be for gimping the 360 version? I have a PS3, but I have the first Monkey Island on the 360 and would rather not have one game here, another there, etc. Not a big deal, and Tales of Monkey Island is on PS3, but for now I'll hold out hope for a patch before buying (and Tales of Monkey Island on 360). Thanks again.

 

[Sectus]

Thanks for doing this. What baffles me is: what reason could there possibly be for gimping the 360 version? I have a PS3, but I have the first Monkey Island on the 360 and would rather not have one game here, another there, etc. Not a big deal, and Tales of Monkey Island is on PS3, but for now I'll hold out hope for a patch before buying (and Tales of Monkey Island on 360). Thanks again.

What's the max limit for XBLA games on 360? Is it 1gb? If so, I think that's the reason. 360 version takes about 900mb, while PS3 version takes 1.2gb. So they probably removed music from the 360 version in order to reduce space.

PC version takes 1.8gb, which is much more. Either that has even more content somehow (unlikely), or the sound is in higher quality.

 

[Lord Error]

OK, so I wasn't crazy that PS3 version has sound transitions, and to my ears they sounded really nice.

PC version maybe has more Behind the Scenes material? Or yeah maybe the audio is less compressed or with different codec or something. Sound quality seemed really good on PS3 regardless, although I couldn't play it very loud last night.

 

[Zeliard]

Ouch @ those instant 360 transitions.

 

[Tomasooie]

What's the max limit for XBLA games on 360? Is it 1gb? If so, I think that's the reason. 360 version takes about 900mb, while PS3 version takes 1.2gb. So they probably removed music from the 360 version in order to reduce space.

No, that's not it -- Red Alert 3: Commander's Challenge is 2.1 GB and Zeno Clash is 1.5 GB.

 

[Sectus]

No, that's not it -- Red Alert 3: Commander's Challenge is 2.1 GB and Zeno Clash is 1.5 GB.

Oh... well, I have zero idea then

 

[dak1dsk1]

The voice recordings seems really hard compressed on the 360. It was the first thing I noticed.

 

[vocab]

Original game in ScummVM

What rom are you using? Is it that Roland one? Because the music is so off compared to the one I played in ScuumVM. Thanks for the comparison. the Special Edition isn't that bad.

 

[luka]

What rom are you using? Is it that Roland one? Because the music is so off compared to the one I played in ScuumVM. Thanks for the comparison. the Special Edition isn't that bad.

Isn't there only one MT-32 rom set? It sounds pretty close to mine. Still a ways off from a real MT-32 though.

The music sounds quite nice on PC/PS3...but you really notice the difference with real iMuse.

 

[GillianSeed79]

Can I say I'm actually loving this game. I get a lot of fans are pissed it's not a 100 percent faithful to the original, but there's a lot of us playing this for the first time that honestly don't care about iMUSE or how dynamic the background music transitions are. It's at least better than 10 FPS slowdown on the ToMI on WiiWare.

 

[Ogni-XR21]

Just gave it a first try (PC) and it feels nice.

But WTF where are the opening credits????

 

[mandiller]

I bought the iPad version and im really enjoying it. The controls are great. There's something about playing a point and click game on a big touch screen that's very satisfying. I expected the voices and music to be very compressed but it sounds very clear and good. I could have bought it on steam but I'm glad I got this version instead.

I can confirm the iPad does have the good transitional music just like the pc and ps3 versions. Looks like the 360 is on it's own.

 

[Lord Error]

Hmm, after seeing the youtube video, it actually seems the PS3 version has the best implementation of transitions. Note how the sound effects, like crickets, fade in and out in PS3 portion of that video, while they abruptly come on and off in PC version? In X360 version everything comes on and off abruptly of course.

I can confirm the iPad does have the good transitional music just like the pc and ps3 versions. Looks like the 360 is on it's own.

Iphone version has great transitions too. Even sound effects transition nicely like on the PS3 version.

What version did 1up review if they complained so much about this?

It's funny that PC version seems to have the same gamma tuning as PS3, which I think is somewhat wrong in both cases. I think it's supposed to be darker. You'd lose some of the shadow detail that way, but there's sometimes even errors in drawings (like pixelation) in the shadow detail so it's probably no big loss.

 

[Oni Jazar]

Can I say I'm actually loving this game. I get a lot of fans are pissed it's not a 100 percent faithful to the original, but there's a lot of us playing this for the first time that honestly don't care about iMUSE or how dynamic the background music transitions are. It's at least better than 10 FPS slowdown on the ToMI on WiiWare.

The game is amazing and I'm jealous that you can experience it for the first time. One of my favorite games of all time. Best Monkey Island game IMO.

 

[Sectus]

By the way, if anyone thinks I'm hating on the game, that's wrong. I'm loving every second of it and taking my time to go through the game (I even spent extra time checking out random books from the library just to hear Guybrush's reaction to them). I just find it interesting to see how each version handles imuse a little bit differently.

Hmm, after seeing the youtube video, it actually seems the PS3 version has the best implementation of transitions. Note how the sound effects, like crickets, fade in and out in PS3 portion of that video, while they abruptly come on and off in PC version? In X360 version everything comes on and off abruptly of course.


Iphone version has great transitions too. Even sound effects transition nicely like on the PS3 version.

What version did 1up review if they complained so much about this?

It's funny that PC version seems to have the same gamma tuning as PS3, which I think is somewhat wrong in both cases. I think it's supposed to be darker. You'd lose some of the shadow detail that way, but there's sometimes even errors in drawings (like pixelation) in the shadow detail so it's probably no big loss.

By the way, I have drastically changed the gamma settings on my computer (I lowered it by 33% in nvidia settings since my new monitor is insanely bright), so there's a chance I have messed it up and Monkey 2 doesn't look like it should in the video.

With 360 and PS3, I used component cables with default settings.

I didn't notice that about crickets but after checking the video... isn't that instant in the PS3 version too? When Guybrush enters the bar, you can hear the background noise instantly stop. I tried to tweak the volume of reach recording to be the same, but I htink PS3 ended up being a bit quiter, so the backround noise is less noticable, but it sounds instant to me.

 

[FlyinJ]

Did they improve the interface on the iPhone version of MI2? MI1's interface was horrible.

 

[Lord Error]

Did they improve the interface on the iPhone version of MI2? MI1's interface was horrible.

Yep they did a fair bit. You can download a demo and try. There's direct touch control now and easier actions menu selection.

I didn't notice that about crickets but after checking the video... isn't that instant in the PS3 version too? When Guybrush enters the bar, you can hear the background noise instantly stop. I tried to tweak the volume of reach recording to be the same, but I htink PS3 ended up being a bit quiter, so the backround noise is less noticable, but it sounds instant to me.

Definitely not instant in the PS3 and Iphone version, they both have fade in crickets (and other fx) when you exit from any room back to outside, but it's instant on the PC, judging by your video. When you go into rooms it's instant, you're right, but the volume change is a lot more jarring when it suddenly goes up like it does in PC version when you exit rooms. Check out 1:14 in your video.

 

[Dougald]

Okay, just finished my playthrough of this in full special edition (I've played classic MI2 enough to not feel the urge to switch back except for nostalgia)

Overrall, a huge improvement on the first game; the artwork seemed much better (though maybe that is partially due to the artwork in classic mi2 being much nicer), and I really enjoyed listening to the Directors commentary.

The interface is much better than the clumsy special edition interface in Secret of Monkey Island, too, in fact I only had to switch back to the original interface once at the end of the game

Spoiler

when giving the handkerchief to LeChuck - bringing up the inventory and scrolling to it was too clumsy to get it done fast enough

.

In all worth the money, though I think in future I may be loading up my old copy of MI2 again, as I do prefer the full iMUSE soundtrack of the original. Here's hoping they manage to do justice to some other SCUMM classics soon, too! (I can't really see what can be improved with MI3, though if they just cleaned up the graphics for higher-resolution displays I'd re-buy the game)

 

[netguy503]

So can you select the audio commentary from the start or is it unlocked after you beat the whole game? How does that feature work?

 

[Oni Jazar]

So can you select the audio commentary from the start or is it unlocked after you beat the whole game? How does that feature work?

It's unlocked from the start. You enable it in settings then a prompt comes up whenever you are in a scene that has commentary.

The only problem is that the commentary can be different within the same scene and you can't tell if you've heard the commentary before or not until you listen.

 

[Darklord]

Man, the steam achievements are impossible for a first timer. Easy for a second run through though. Loving the commentary. It sounds like them actually talking about the scenes and not off a script.

 

[Haunted]

Some of the background art looks just fantastic.

But you can tell that they're having a lot more problems interpreting some of the character art properly.

Not Guybrush - he looks great, animates really fluidly and his updated design looks damn good. But then you've got someone like the Voodoo Lady, who they just fucked up royally. Like, Guybrush design in Monkey 1 bad, imo.

 

[Zeliard]

I really enjoy a lot of the new art. They've been very faithful to the original, keeping much of the same architecture and structural design, but it also feels fresh. I also like how they added some palpable atmosphere to some scenes with things like depth of field and fog. I've been switching back and forth between old and new art in literally every scene. I think they've done a splendid visual job here, with a few exceptions.

It's just a shame that iMUSE is compromised to some extent even in the PC version. It's also a shame that iMUSE is never used anymore, and rarely was after MI2. Schafer mentioned in the commentary that it's because it was a lot of work, and not enough people noticed it. Unfortunate.

 

[Haunted]

oh god I just saw the Graveyard scene and the commentary is slaying me :lol :lol

 

[Maxrunner]

Whats the consensus with the pc version? can i safely buy it???

 

[Zeliard]

oh god I just saw the Graveyard scene and the commentary is slaying me :lol :lol

I do wish some of the commentary triggers were more effectively placed. This is a game I haven't played since the mid-90s, so I'm trying to go through it again and actually play it, but while also listening to the commentary when it pops up. This is feasible sometimes, but other times you can't trigger the commentary unless another character is in dialogue with you, so you end up missing what the person is saying.

 

[epmode]

Whats the consensus with the pc version? can i safely buy it???

The PC version is the best. It's an excellent remake, although the old SCUMM version is still relevant because of the superior music transition system (also: it actually has an intro, unlike the remake).

It's also a shame that iMUSE is never used anymore, and rarely was after MI2. Schafer mentioned in the commentary that it's because it was a lot of work, and not enough people noticed it. Unfortunate.

Unfortunate for reals. I noticed (and loved) the music system when I was still very young. Huge nerd? Maybe!

Some companies are still using similar music systems. Nothing quite as advanced as what's going on in Monkey Island 2 but Nintendo is doing impressive stuff with the Mario Galaxy games.

 

[Haunted]

I do wish some of the commentary triggers were more effectively placed. This is a game I haven't played since the mid-90s, so I'm trying to go through it again and actually play it, but while also listening to the commentary when it pops up. This is feasible sometimes, but other times you can't trigger the commentary unless another character is in dialogue with you, so you end up missing what the person is saying.

Yeah, the commentary implementation is a bit hokey in terms of placement, but I do like the MST3K styled overlay. :lol

I usually just stop and concentrate on the commentary before playing further.


On the character model watch front, Captain Dread is a great interpretation of the pixel art and feels much better than the original.

 

[bishopcruz]

It's just a shame that iMUSE is compromised to some extent even in the PC version. It's also a shame that iMUSE is never used anymore, and rarely was after MI2. Schafer mentioned in the commentary that it's because it was a lot of work, and not enough people noticed it. Unfortunate.

Wasn't iMUSE used in pretty much every LA adventure after MI2? It was used after the adventure games died out too. Hell, according to the back of my KOTOR 2 PC box it was still used in that game as well. Has it been stopped completely by now?

 

[Zeliard]

Wasn't iMUSE used in pretty much every LA adventure after MI2? It was used after the adventure games died out too. Hell, according to the back of my KOTOR 2 PC box it was still used in that game as well. Has it been stopped completely by now?

They used it in all of them to some extent, but I think mostly sparsely post-MI2. I don't think they ever used again to the effect they did in MI2, but it's been a number of years since I've played most Lucasarts adventures, so I could be wrong about that. I only really remember Fate of Atlantis and Curse of Monkey Island doing much with iMUSE, and MI2's use of it always stood out the most.

 

[ProfessorLobo]

Do I need to play the special edition of the first one before I play this?

 

[HadesGigas]

Do I need to play the special edition of the first one before I play this?

You should. 2 is called "LeChuck's Revenge" for a reason.

That is, assuming you mean you have never played the first at all.

 

[PuppetSlave]

Just finished it. Seems to be a lot of first timers buying this game since according to steam only 4,6% has actually finished the game so far. Or maybe not everyone knows the game by heart like some of us :lol

Missed two steam achievements; killing Guybrush and speed-demon.

One thing though

Spoiler

Is it a bug or something. I had to switch to classic to be able to give chucky the handkerchief at the end.

 

[FlyinJ]

So, no commentary in the iPhone version?

 

[Scalemail Ted]

Do they sell physical copies of this game at 'brick and morter' stores?

 

[Animator]

How do I switch to classic mode on the ipad?

 

[McBacon]

Do they sell physical copies of this game at 'brick and morter' stores?

Dude, quit slowing down the future with your zany physical copies!

And iPad question: Two finger tap for interactive elements, two fingerswipe for classic mode, three finger tap for hint.

 

[hamchan]

Shame about the intro but everyone who hasn't seen it can easily YouTube it.

 

[Mad Max]

Shame about the intro but everyone who hasn't seen it can easily YouTube it.

The PC version has both the original intro and a new one in the options menu.

 

[Dougald]

One thing though

Spoiler

Is it a bug or something. I had to switch to classic to be able to give chucky the handkerchief at the end.

Spoiler

I think it's just bad design. I had the same problem with this, and with the melting mugs in the first Special Edition.

 

[PuppetSlave]

Spoiler

I think it's just bad design. I had the same problem with this, and with the melting mugs in the first Special Edition.

Thats pretty damn weak of them... It's not like the game is that long, they could spend some time actually testing it.

 

[mandiller]

How do I switch to classic mode on the ipad?

Swipe two fingers across the screen.

The highlight objects touch two fingers to the screen. To get hints touch three fingers.

 

[dark10x]

It's just a shame that iMUSE is compromised to some extent even in the PC version. It's also a shame that iMUSE is never used anymore, and rarely was after MI2. Schafer mentioned in the commentary that it's because it was a lot of work, and not enough people noticed it. Unfortunate.

It's not as if this kind of stuff is completely absent in modern games, though.

 

[The Super Bob]

One thing though

Spoiler

Is it a bug or something. I had to switch to classic to be able to give chucky the handkerchief at the end.

Worked fine for me using the point and click. I don't care much for the manual movement and still think the point and click method is best.

Loved the game, artwork is very good. Lots of fun playing this game again. Will have to play through with the commentary now.

 

[Radogol]

The PC version has both the original intro and a new one in the options menu.

I don't think that's possible. Mixnmojo guys extracted the sprites and allegedly there's just no HD version of Guybrush shooing away the monkeys in the files.

 

[Ledsen]

Just finished it. Seems to be a lot of first timers buying this game since according to steam only 4,6% has actually finished the game so far. Or maybe not everyone knows the game by heart like some of us :lol

Missed two steam achievements; killing Guybrush and speed-demon.

One thing though

Spoiler

Is it a bug or something. I had to switch to classic to be able to give chucky the handkerchief at the end.

Or many people bought it to get the first one for free, but didn't actually start playing either of them yet