The International House of Mojo

But I want a review!

I agree with you. Personally I preffer 2D animation as in CMI than 3D animation. Still, that does not make EMI a bad game, nor does it bother me. The can make it the way they want or think it's better. I don't like the game because of it's graphics or it's continuity, or story.I love the game because it's good, its funny (tremendously, sarcasticaly funny) I really love the game, no matter 2D, 3D , 4D, 1000D, XD, 1D, whatever. It's the game as a whole that makes it great.

I have but 1 major problem with EfMI. I thought that the Monkey Head was a doorway to some underground caverns, not a bloody robot. Please. LucasArts should have left it at 2, after Ron left. MI2 is easily the best of the four, and surely its best to finish on a high rather than sinking into 'Nightmare on Elm Street' syndrome.

also another problem is the two different ways ofwhich Herman Toothrot got to Monkey Island. Wasn't his original ship taken back to Melee or whichever island by monkeys. Wasnt he on the voyage from Melee? Didnt he also have a crewmember? oo ooooo i have another problem. What was with none (----zerooo---) of the revisited buildings look nothing like the original ones? I was kinda put off by that.

I want to say i applaud everything you say. Were would all us Adventurers, i use the term LEC and the other companies call us by, be if it wasn't for lucasarts/film games. We owe them, both now and in the past. Just ranting over things like "what happened to guybrush's beard," and "what the !#@$ i thought he was his brother" etc, or insulting the game because of the fact that it uses a 70% GRIME engine w/ 3d, not 2d graphics will just make us be the equivilent of old man ranting of days gone by., BE happy with what we have, its not that bad. Even though EMI's ending made me scream out, "this was not ron's dream!!!!!!!" didn't blind me from the fact that it was an awesome game. Even so a game that brings to mind a project leader from 10 years ago is pretty great. As for 2d v. 3d, Grim Fandango was, in my die hard Lec fan opinion, the best game ever created, and 3d did nothing to destroy its quality. I say, we must support LEC, other wise "adventure" games will be boring, lifeless eyecandy games like "myst" and and if you can really picture your self ranting about the continuity in a myst 4, than your a lost cause. May LEC oneday return to making original, and new games---they never made a new game series that wasn't bad--AMen ---Destro

Hmm... In all the discussion about the faulty controls, buggy engine, subpar puzzles and often senseless story, we all seem to have forgotten the secret of Monkey Island! It's just a game, not the end of the world! P.S. Am I the only one who noticed the irony of a highly sanitized game (e.g. the use of heck instead of hell) released by the same company who has plagued us with 100's of subpar Star Wars cash-ins in the last year, being about stopping giant corporations from coming in and cleaning up/homogenizing the world for profit?

I personally thought it was moronic to say "heck" but then say crap, ass, etc (i think those words were used, or some form of them ie: crappy)... and the game had a Teen rating anyway so they could have said "hell" no problem. Instead they used "heck" which stuck out like a sore thumb...

In my opinion EMI sucked in the story (well not exactly sucked, but that Herman Toothrot => H.T. Marley thing was a baaaad mistake and completely unnatural *referring to things which happened in MI1*). The puzzles were great (I don't think they were too action-like {most of the time}, it just showed us what 3D can do), the controls did NOT suck totally ('cause you can see where the walls are) but monkey combat as the end was so terrible that I quit playing. I prefer the previous MI-games.

Guys there are a LOT of problems with EMI, that I don't want to go into now cause last time I did, I got yelled at(I'll take you on in the MB if you want). But there is another problem here. WE have a GREAT site, that we all get news and such from, IHOM. But that site is dedicated to a company. That is inherently bad, because the bias is going to be huge whenever a BAD product turns up. We have the die-hard LUCAS Lapdogs fighting against the people who want to play a GOOD game. I think it was Spaff who told me, "You should be happy LA is making adventure games at all". No, when the games are bad(buggy, unfunny, bad plot, etc.) we should tell Lucasarts what we think. Having a site dedicated to LA stuff means whatever crap comes out of their factory, you will promote and cover like before you know what it truly is worth, and when you do find out, there is zero chance you will tell LA that you did not like it. The way Spaff said his statement, it proves the relationship: We the consumers should support all LA's Adventure games, no matter how crappy, and eventually they will come out with a good one. Sorry, it's not MY job to buy LA games, it is THEIR job to make their games(that are at least not buggy)good. Look I am NOT advocating not going to mixnmojo.com. Hell, I go every day I?m online(notice how in EMI they said Heck when every other time in the series they said Hell?). All I want to come from this post is for people to realize that they will not find sound and unbiased info from IHOM, and especially not about a product that is crucial to the success of future LA adventure games. IHOM made a site just for reporting bugs, and they still heralded the second coming(actually fourth) of Saint Guybrush. Seems just a little Contradictory... What do we need? I think we need a part of the site that is purely fan QA. Maybe a ?Lucasarts Watchdog?, to help people decide whether the individual games are good enough to buy. We already have a site that promotes Lucasarts, now it is time for a site that puts a check on them. Oh yeah, Spaff... don?t kill me.

"No, when the games are bad(buggy, unfunny, bad plot, etc.) we should tell Lucasarts what we think"

I'd just like to say that this is true, and if you didnt like the game, im sure lec would like to hear why. everyone needs constructive criticism from time to time.

if you want i can set up a message board especially for the purpose of letting LEC know what you thought, and why. of course swearing and shouting and insulting wouldnt be acceptable but im sure people can be sensible about it.

Spaff's rant was just that, Spaff's. It doesn't reflect the opinions of everyone. There are people on our staff, and obviously the staffs of our hosted sites who don't think EMI is Gods gift to adventure games. Some don't even like it at all. Spaff wasn't defending EMI for LucasArts's sake, they have a PR department for that. He was speaking out against often unnecessary criticism of a game that honestly isn't as bad as *certain* people make it out to be.

Applause Jake, well said! I can't understand why everything must always be so black and white. It seems like the only opinions you can have on EMI is that it's either a complete failure or a perfect product. I enjoyed EMI a lot but at the same time I see several things that could've been better. The same goes with almost any game I play. There's not a single perfect product on the market, and there'll never be.

It is black and white when it is our money! When Indy project gets finished and the game is out, there may be some major problems. But who cares? They worked very hard on it and are giving it out for free! Nobody should complain, cause all they may have lost playing FOA2 is their TIME. However when you run a business and you put out a product consumers should expect a quality game! I am not saying they must have a perfect product at all. I did not think CMI was a Good MI game. However it was a SUPER adventure game! EMI fails in both genres. It was buggy, and that caused people problems. People should expect good quality, not so-so stuff. I did not enjoy EMI. I saw my favorite chartacters Screwed up beyond comprehension: Haerman Toothrot, LeChuck, etc.(Explain how that is okay!) I saw bad jokes, a horrible plot and the result of a BAD design team. Remember LA is in the business of making money, and they will put out any game that is MI related(it's a loopin cash-cow) even if it is bad, just because many will buy it! Spaff tells us to shut up, but we are the consumers damn it! If you are upset with a product you should tell the company. Thats why we have the BBB.

ok, that was un called for. you say MI4 was a BAD GAME??????? Ok so granted the ending made me and every diehard fine scream out in terror, but don't be so selfish to diss them for not modeling their game after some die hard fan's feelings. Granted we should be considered greatly, but it was still a good game. As for bugs, Grim Fandango had bugs, and it was the best game ever; Schafer's final master peice, and its bugs were 10x worse than emi's. i'm not gonna tell you 2 quit complaining; i agreed with most of the things you said untill you said the part about CMI not only being better than EMI, but saying EMI was a horible game. It was far from this. But i think we can all agree that we hope their next game will be something original telling a new, in depth story, so us diehard lec fans can't worry about continuity, or bugs. IF bugs bother you that much, a patch will be out soon enough

ok, that was un called for. you say MI4 was a BAD GAME??????? Ok so granted the ending made me and every diehard fine scream out in terror, but don't be so selfish to diss them for not modeling their game after some die hard fan's feelings. Granted we should be considered greatly, but it was still a good game. As for bugs, Grim Fandango had bugs, and it was the best game ever; Schafer's final master peice, and its bugs were 10x worse than emi's. i'm not gonna tell you 2 quit complaining; i agreed with most of the things you said untill you said the part about CMI not only being better than EMI, but saying EMI was a horible game. It was far from this. But i think we can all agree that we hope their next game will be something original telling a new, in depth story, so us diehard lec fans can't worry about continuity, or bugs. IF bugs bother you that much, a patch will be out soon enough

I agree, there shouldn't be bugs! I didn't experience any, so I was lucky, but I've heard from a lot of people who experienced bugs. But I think the DESIGN was gorgious. From my (personal!) point of view, I thought the Herman Toothrot was one of the greates plot twists of the entire game. I just thought, "wow, that's great". Also that epic cutscene where the monkey run to the head... simply briliant. IMHO, Monkey 4 had the best plots of the series (except Monkey1, maybe). I'm really glad they tried something new and didn't so antother "find map, defeat LeChcuk, save Elaine" story! OK, so you might disagree with me. So you may say: Hey, I(!) didn't like the plot. But DON'T generalize and say Sean and Mike did a bad designing job, just like if this would be an objective fact!

The HT Marley affair might have been an interesting plot twist, but what did they do with it? Nothing. We get a brief "What? You're my grandfather?!" reaction at the end and that's it. It's like they (Stemmle and Clark) were sitting around talking:

"Hey! I know! Let's make Herman turn out to be grandfather Marley! We'll get loads of mileage out of that!"

"Good plan! But I don't like the sound of the mileage. Let's just end the game with the most annoying puzzle ever and go home."

As with your post, this is just my personal view. The particular plot twist you highlighted seemed so superfluous to me, almost as if they finished writing the plot and thought "Damn! We forgot to put any plot twists in!"

Or maybe their purpose was just to make people like me complain. :)

But they know that people will complain no matter how they make the game, so they decide to make it the way they want. They don't mind if some people are upset because they know that enough other people will like it so they'll make a profit. As for the bugs, they should have tried to get more out, but they probably didn't have enough time because the marketing department wanted to get the game out as early as possible so we wouldn't complain about the game taking a long time to come out.

Thank you both SM and Jake. My rant was not saying be happy LucasArts make adventure games at all, that would be ludicrous to say. Thanks for your opinions tho! You will notice in my rant that i do agree with that the continuity problems, control problems, visual problems, etc are all there, but i didnt let that hnder my enjoyment of this otherwise funny and enjoyable game. And has anyone stopped to think that maybe they didnt cut the word 'Hell' but maybe just wanted to use the word 'Heck' for its own comedy value? no..? maybe consider that. :)

Actually you said it to us on another comment thread! And um, what comedy value does HECK have? The fact that you agree that it has ton of problems, but then just play along anyway, means you are just going to lap up whatever LA comes around the bend with next! Hey it's Monkey Island 5 the revenge of monkey Island,and in this chapter we find out Elaine is actually a man!

OK, so they used Heck... So what? Is that a bad thing to do? What the heck... eh, hell is your problem with that word? You cannot say LucasArts didn't take any risks in this game. Actually, their parody on church is already quite risked. (I think it's quite sarcastic!) Elaine as a man? Now *that* would ruin the character... true! Herman as H.T.Marley? I thought that was genious. It enhanced the character instead of destroying it!

oh also i just like to point out that there are a great number of plot holes from mi2 to CMI covered up amazingly badly, the ones in EMI are nothing in comparison. No one bitched about that , probably because it was 5 years since the last game or soemthing.. mainly because they just enjoyed playing it. I Could be really mean and say that nothing makes sense after MI1. but what would be the point? i could come up with reasons, and they wont be reasonable unless you played MI1, in 1991 before any other mi game. you get my point.... erm enough now im tired.. :P

Nothing in Monkey Island is *supposed* to make sense. The whole series is a parody of an adventure - it was never meant to be this realistic, canonized larger-than-life experience. And it was definitely not meant to be examined with a magnifying glass to locate possible contradictory plot elements. Its purpose is just to be entertaining - nothing more, nothing less.

Sure you are right, nothing in the game is supposed to make sense at all. The puzzles, the plot, the characters. Everything. WHAT BULL! The game is SUPPOSED to be funny. You are right is it a parody, but that does not mean it should not make sense. Look at comedies, they make sense. They are funny but they make sense. Saying that nothing needs to make sense is to abandon ALL logic and reason: HEY WAIT! How do I solve MI puzzles? Logic! Reason! I agree, it's just a game so we should not examine it with a fine comb, but when the mistakes are so glaring and out in the open, you have to be blind, or really biased to not notice them. And by the way, you are still making excuses for LA when they should make a quality game in the first place!

Apparently sarcasm is not your cup of tea. If you look at the first two Monkey games, they pull constant fun of the serious gamers and gaming techniques. As Tim Schafer said, everytime you expected a payoff, you ended up with a sort of non-payoff. It's a computer game making fun of computer games. It isn't supposed to be logical or all coherent. People who take it too seriously are playing the wrong series.

But that's apparently "BULL!"...

Comedy doesn't have to make sense! Where did you get that idea? And why aren't the puzzles logical?

Didn't Guybrush say something like "But who's gonna explain the gaping plot holes?" in CMI? I belive so... The designers didn't just make a goof up with the plot holes, they know they're there. They're probably laughing their asses off too when they see MI purists working up a sweat over those details.

Thats a good team! Hey we couldn't come up with a story that works so lets uh... what are we going to do? I know lets laugh our asses off! And didn't most of the EMI team leave LA? I guess they are having fun laughing their asses off at the unemployment offices!

Debate skills are obviously not your strong point, and... "And didn't most of the EMI team leave LA?" No... No they didn't...

You guys have dropped almost all my arguments and you say my skills are lacking? Who is left? As far as I knew the project leaders left LA shortly after EMI came out. Could someone please find out if they are still there?

Mike and sean are still there. the only people to have left LEC who worked on emi, were michael land, and his music core. im not lapping it up, i loved EMI, plain and simple, (DJG sort this thread system out its getting to thin!!) i dont see whats so hugley wrong with emi to make everyone explode like this. Monkey island is supposed to be funny, take the piss out of its self and everything else. like i said, new designers, new style of play, 9 years since the first game. i can see why some folk wouldnmt like the story etc, i did tho, i thought it was a great laugh.

I'm only going to reply to this one so I can see how thin it will get!

me too

Damn straight =) and you too SM ! i quite liked the emi ending meself.. :) you have to sit there whilst they are having giant monkey kombat and think about mi1, and if you ever envisioned it turning out this way ! heh i have to wonder tho, why they apparently change the word hell to heck, but leave in 'Bastard' and 'Bugger' heh :) also guybrush says F***ing at one point doesnt he.. cept its bleeped out :)

I agree with what you wrote, Spaff! I enjoyed playing EMI! The only letdown of the entire game was the Monkey Kombat. When you have to fill an entire A4 page with spidery but precise handwriting to get past a part in the game, you know that something's wrong! :)

Good on ya Spaff! I agree. however I think EMI was a mainstream game, rather than something to please us fans. I did enjoy EMI, but it seemed a little too aimed at the mainstream for my liking. well, at least good sales from one game provide funding for them to create their best adventures (which tend not to sell so well)

For the longest time (most of the games we consider "classics") adventure games WERE the mainstream. They've only really been made a "niche" market by the media ("omigod Grim Fandango was so good but nobody wants it adventure games are dead!!"). Well there are other reasons too. Heh. Also: I've now officially heard that EMI is "too mainstream, I would have preferred a game for us fans" as well as "way too much for the fans. 'outsiders' arent even going to get the jokes." Not to sound mean or anything but Gwaaaaaah! Where's C Shutt, anyway? he'd like this discussion.

I don't agree with you at all! OK so I didn't actually read the article yet but I'm sure I will disagree once I have! :)

Remember when CMI was new and it was totally the odd one out? People complained because it was too much like Monkey 1! Now that they go and try something new with the series people complain because its not the same as the first games! There are many things that CMI (not to mention MI1 and 2) did right that EMI did wrong, but that applies the other way around as well. I expected this comment thread to be full of angry readers with torches and Frankenstein rakes come to sacrifice Spaff to the lactose intolerant volcano god... maybe none of them have woken up yet?

Spaff, I applaude you! :) Personally I thought EMI was better than CMI in every way, especially the story and the sarcastic humour.

I think EMI is a great game and there's no doubt about it. It won some awards. Altough I didn't liked the story. For e.g. that Big Robot (that reminds me Power Rangers) thing.

It sucked!! j/k, I agree too. The only bad thing about (I didn't like) was the bumping in the wall and running 200k in the other direction.

I kinda agree with you. my only problem with the game was the fact that Guybrush looked a bit to young. In MI2 he got a beard wich i though made him look older and it would have been fun to see Guybrush with a beard again=)

I'm glad we are getting a discussion on this, its something that id like to see discussed:) hopefully it woung get too massive (in whihc case it wil have to move to the forums)

I partly agree with you. The game certainly wasn't bad, and saying "it sux" is stupid. But i was still a little dissapointed with it. Not because of "conituity" (i loved CMI because it was quite different from previous 2 games) or graphic, but because i simply didn't enjoy it as much as other games (TLJ, Dott, Discworld2, MI3, etc.).

I completely agree with you James. In fact, I like EMI much more than CMI.

I'm totaly Agree with you Spaff. Thats what I Exacly thinking. Congratulations. :)

I personally thought EMI was superior in every way to TLJ. I assume it's a matter of personal opinion, and thus I do not see what issues people have with it.