Hello all,

I have question for you all, do you feel that Monkey Island 3 and 4 were good sequels to Monkey Island 1 and 2?

Myself, well I did enjoy Monkey Island 3 very much, I was really looking out for a sequel so that helped in its favour.
And while it was good I did feel something was missing, though the cartoon graphics were great.

Monkey Island 4, I have to be honest, I don't like this game so much as I like its predecessors.
While it wasn't graphically ugly I would have preferred a more tradional mouse and click instead of the somewhat 'actiony' direct control we got now.
Also, the story wasn't as well developed and felt very forced IMO.

I actually never finished this game as I got tired of it during the Monkey Combat part.

While I like the ending in MI3 I do hope Ron Gilbert will one day make his own Monkey Island 3, and FINALLY reveal what the secret of Monkey Island now exactly is.
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Ghost wrote:

That's an interesting question. Personally I was sceptic to Monkey Island 3 when it was released. The reason was that it was so graphically different to the former games. Beside this, the interface was brand new as well. However, after spending some time playing the game (many years later), I found that I enjoyed it a lot. Lot's of good humour and plenty of puzzles to sort out. Still, I think they (the developers) should have stuck more to the old recipe of Monkey Island 1 & 2.

Anyway, I think Monkey Island 3 is a good sequel and an entertaining game.

As for Monkey Island 4 though.. Well, I tried it once and I was very disappointed. I didn't like the controls, the graphics, or the overall atmosphere. Managed to play for about 15 minutes, then I gave up.
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It was similar for me too with MI3. I played it quickly on release but then didn't continue. I later came back to the game and really enjoyed it. I think that when it was released I had just played through MI 1 and 2 and the third was slightly too different for me to get into at the time, but now, as PG said, it is a good sequel, enjoyable, entertaining and in the spirit of the series.

Also in a similar way I've not played MI4 that much. I installed it when I bought he game, had a quick play with the game but then haven't played it since. I should really give it another go now as it's the only one I've not played through and completed. It is quite a departure from the previous games in the series though.
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Hello P G and Harrison,

I was interested to see what the state of the Monkey Island fan community was and what their reaction was to Monkey Island 3 and 4.
Its nice to see that like a lot of other Lucasart franchise fans it is still a very lively place despite the years.

Monkey Island 3 seems to be well accepted but like you two, Monkey Island 4 is a little less well received, probably due to the gameplay and the atmosphere.
Someone on Mobygames said that Monkey Island 4 had become the victim of what it made fun of; commercialism.
I have to agree on that one.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island: LeChuck's Revenge are pretty much timeless, and Monkey Island 3 might also grow into that status, but Monkey Island 4 really feels like an unnecessary expansion to the series.
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This often happens with any series or franchise, be it books, films or games.

The popularity of the first few make the creator/developer/publisher want to continue on with another sequel. Sadly this often ends up with the last sequel in a series being a victim of the series own success.

When creating the story for most things the creator has a roadmap outlining where they want the story to go, and as a series evolves the fans get more into the characters, storylines and mythology. But often a forced sequel due to success will have to be written after the end of the creator's original story outlines and roadmap, and will then be in danger of changing something fundamental that will ruin the series for dedicated fans.

For me one of the worst at doing this was the fifth book in the Douglas Adam's Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy". The fourth book ended nicely and wrapped everything up, and another book wasn't needed... but it was still written and in my view altered the ideas of the original 4 books too much with a very negative ending.
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Hello Harrison,

I heard the same happened with the Rama series, as a result I only got Rendezvous with Rama, and as it was fun to read I don't want to spoil the experience.

In Monkey Island's case, perhaps they should have put the series to rest after Monkey Island 3, Guybrush and Elaine finally got together, LeChuck was defeated and the newly wedded couple fared into the evening sun.
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MI3 was great, MI4 sucked ass.

At the time, Simon the Sorceror (AGA) was my fav'. It came out at Christmas - arrived from DataGem during the Christmas hols after waiting 3 long months - and it had such gorgeous lovely snow-scene graphics, and it was funny, and it had some good puzzles. I've played it a few times...and even editted some of the conversations as the text is stored as plain text in the game files.

Hook had a good atmosphere, enjoyed that one.

I played the Beneath A Steel Sky demo to death, but only got around to playing the game a few years ago when it got released as freeware. Massively disappointed. Why was the dead body of Anita found piled in a closet under the garden shed? Lord knows.

CodeName Hell Squad was good, played that on the emu.
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I just loved the 2 first Simon adventures, very funny, I even preferred it to MI
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Blasphemy, blasphemy, kill in the infidel!

Heh, I read in one of my old PC mags that the talky version had one of the actors of Red Dwarf.
Also, wasn't Simon the Sorcerer not developed by the same people who also made the Elvia 1 and 2 RPG FP games and Waxworks?


Hello burns flipper,

You mean her body in the locker of the radiation suits right?
I guess Lamb wanted to hide her body, she might not have any status but the fact that people can die near the reactor of radiation poisoning isn't good advertisement.

Still need to CodeName Hell Squad, Wasted Dreams and Napalm also.
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I had the 2 Simon games in german for PC.
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