MI2: LeChuck's Revenge SPECIAL EDITION Officially Announced!

[MusicallyInspired]

The Announcement

The Official Website - Screenshots, Concept Art, Animations, and feature list!

More Screenshots at Joystiq - More amazing screenshots along with hi-res scans of the title and the remade cover artwork!

Well, it's a rotten day for King's Quest fans, but adventure game fans as a whole are getting a pretty big pick me up! 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! And more! It's a dream come true!!!

This is truly EPIC for the adventure community and gaming as a whole! This is seriously one awesome looking game. I can't see myself even switching to classic mode at all this time around like I do for SMI:SE! I was worried about them carrying over the same mood and atmosphere from the original screens but honestly these new screens truly SURPASS the originals in every aspect! I almost can't even look at the originals anymore!

It's set to be released summer 2010 for PC, Mac, PSN, iPhone, and XBLA. (Also SMI:SE is getting released on PSN and Mac as well)

I am seriously so excited right now I don't know if I can wait until summer....I don't even know if I can sleep tonight!

[misslilo]

Indeed great news, but unless it gets released outside Steam, then I won't be getting it

[DeadPoolX]

It's nice to see that LucasArts hasn't forgotten the Adventure genre. Maybe Activision will react (positively) to this, as well.

[MusicallyInspired]

Indeed great news, but unless it gets released outside Steam, then I won't be getting it

Apparently SMI:SE is coming to the TellTale store. So it makes sense that MI2:SE might make it's way there as well in the future. The TellTale store is a much better alternative to Steam if you despise DRM .

[Rath Darkblade]

Huzzah! This is good news indeed. *BWG*

Incidentally, MusicallyInspired, where did you see that SMI:SE is coming to the TellTale store? I haven't seen it at the store, and there's no word about it at Telltale. *shrug*

[MusicallyInspired]

It seems to be rumour at this point. I don't know where people got their info but they're talking about it.

[Datadog]

They're also advertising TOMI right on the MI2:SE site, so it could be possible that they're collaborating since they both own the IP.

I like the newer character designs. The designers have gone very ridiculous with Guybrush's hair in the past and it's nice to see they're taking a cue from "Tales of Monkey Island."

Can't really say the animations will be smoother, though. What we're seeing on the front page was animated in a different engine, so we won't know for sure until they release a video. Still, this is very awesome news.

[MusicallyInspired]

It'd be pretty misleading and rotten of thsm to DRAW and show additional animation frames in a promotion of a game and not even implement them. It's definitely possible to implement. I honestly believe they didn't really have the time or budget to do it for SMI:SE. And besides, it's listed on the features list that this time they have feature quality animations.

Also, according to LA's recent press release about MI2:SE, SMI:SE is indeed coming to the TellTale store. Unfortunately, MI2:SE is not mentioned. Maybe in the future.

[Datadog]

Worth checking out for a laugh:

The new E3 trailer for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition

[MusicallyInspired]

Well, apparently they ARE using some sort of MT-32 emulation for classic mode instead of Adlib emulation. I'm quite impressed. It's not of the same quality as a real MT-32, however. Maybe they're using some kind of soundfont system? Also, they claim that full-working iMuse is present with the digital recordings. I'm quite excited.

Some of the latest videos:

Gameplay demo at E3 abooth - The game in action, some features explained.

Featurette with interviews with the creators of the remake and the original (Ron, Tim, and Dave) - Despite the Woodtick sequence here not being in iMuse, the developers said that the music for this video was just pasted in for thematic effect. The final game does indeed have the fully functioning iMuse system with live recorded instruments. I can't wait to hear it.

Sadly, it still doesn't seem like the original introduction/credit sequence has made it into the remake....hopefully it's still there when you first run the game or something.

[DeadPoolX]

Indeed great news, but unless it gets released outside Steam, then I won't be getting it

Apparently SMI:SE is coming to the TellTale store. So it makes sense that MI2:SE might make it's way there as well in the future. The TellTale store is a much better alternative to Steam if you despise DRM .

You have to log-in to your TellTale account in order to play games you've bought from them. I fail to see how this is any better (or worse) than Steam's DRM. Neither is intrusive and the only requirement is to access your account in order to play.

Hell, you need to make an account and log-in to it for just about everything these days.

I'd take Steam's DRM over the types gaming companies have tried in the past and will still probably try in the future. StarForce? Limited installs and activations? That seems pretty nasty to me, so I think Steam is the lesser of DRM evils.

I hate to seem like a Steam "fan boy" here, but games having been using DRM and copy protection schemes for years. The old Adventure games were terrible for this! Needing a scroll wheel or red plastic in order to see fingerprints or getting info out of the manual. I feel all of those are worse, since it was very easy to lose the items in needed to access the damn game!

[Maiandra]

Worth checking out for a laugh:

The new E3 trailer for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition

That would have been so awesome if the game graphics were actually like the part at the end. They still look good, though.

It will be strange to play the stories that come before Tales of Monkey Island, since that's what I'm playing now. It will be a little out of order, but it'll still be fun!

I don't mind a simple login for game verification, whether it's through Steam or Telltale. Both can be played offline (as far as I know) and don't mess with my computer. That makes me happy. Neither require much in the way of personal information either, except for at point of purchase.

[MusicallyInspired]

You have to log-in to your TellTale account in order to play games you've bought from them. I fail to see how this is any better (or worse) than Steam's DRM. Neither is intrusive and the only requirement is to access your account in order to play.

Actually, in the case of SMI:SE, you don't have to log in to your TTG account. There is some kind of SecurRom protection (I think, don't quote me on that) and something about a serial key. But you don't have to be online to play it.

But yes, Steam is one of the best DRM out there. The most friendly. Especially with all the benefits that you get with it.

I don't mind a simple login for game verification, whether it's through Steam or Telltale. Both can be played offline (as far as I know) and don't mess with my computer. That makes me happy. Neither require much in the way of personal information either, except for at point of purchase.

Actually, Telltale's games (again, with the possible exception of SMI:SE from their store) install a SecurRom thing on your computer along with the game (yes the downloadable versions) and don't tell you about it and offer no uninstallation for it. Basically all it does, though, is if you uninstall the game and install it again it doesn't need to verify it because SecurRom is already there installed and verified the game already when you previously installed it. If you DO remove it and reinstall the game it reinstalls SecurRom again and uses up an extra activation. These are the finite activations you have to activate your Telltale games. But according to TTG, nobody has ever reached that limit and if someone did they'd happily give you more activations.

[Maiandra]

I don't mind a simple login for game verification, whether it's through Steam or Telltale. Both can be played offline (as far as I know) and don't mess with my computer. That makes me happy. Neither require much in the way of personal information either, except for at point of purchase.

Actually, Telltale's games (again, with the possible exception of SMI:SE from their store) install a SecurRom thing on your computer along with the game (yes the downloadable versions) and don't tell you about it and offer no uninstallation for it. Basically all it does, though, is if you uninstall the game and install it again it doesn't need to verify it because SecurRom is already there installed and verified the game already when you previously installed it. If you DO remove it and reinstall the game it reinstalls SecurRom again and uses up an extra activation. These are the finite activations you have to activate your Telltale games. But according to TTG, nobody has ever reached that limit and if someone did they'd happily give you more activations.

Although I wasn't happy to hear that at first, I looked this up online and apparently Telltale has adapted SecuROM to be as unobtrusive as possible. The verification for downloaded games basically operates like the Steam verification (both allowing an offline play option) and it uses a simple disc check for games installed from DVD. So it still doesn't really seem like it's messing with my computer, other than leaving the file, which can be manually removed, there for next time.

Obviously, they had to be using some kind of software to verify the login anyway and apparently the fact that it's SecuROM doesn't have to be a big deal. It sounds like other developers simply don't bother to take the time to make it more user friendly.

Here's what Telltale has to say for anyone else that's interested in hearing it directly from them.

Here's a comment from someone on the Steam forums who may or may not know what they're talking about. If they do, then it sounds like Telltale is as generous as possible with the activations. I can't honestly see anyone needing more than 400 activations!

[DeadPoolX]

Something I find interesting is that there are SOME games you can buy on Steam that don't require Steam to be active when playing them. Sounds weird, right?

Well, I've found that Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Tales of Monkey Island don't need Steam activated in order to start the game. Normally B:AA does require Steam, but all I had to do was redirect my desktop shortcut to a different EXE. B:AA still needs Games For Windows Live, but that's a requirement no matter what. As for ToMI, I didn't have to change anything.

I want to stress that I don't know if any other game works like this. If some do, I have no idea which ones they are. I have a ton of games on my Steam account (most of which either have a multiplayer component or are multiplayer-only) and ALL of them need Steam activated to play. Maybe the difference is that B:AA and ToMI are single player-only, but I wouldn't bet on it.