How best to play the Monkey Island games

[dogen]

So I have Grim Fandango and Curse of Monkey Island already on PC, and I can play them ok-ish with ScummVM, or whatever patches are around. But err, I'd like to play the first two Monkey Island games some time in the near future, and I'm unsure which way to go about it.

I mean, I'd like to play them on PC, simple as that. But I dunno if they're available as freeware, through emulation, or whatever. Is that possible, or should I buy them and use Scumm VM too? I'm guessing that's best, but I thought I'd ask and get a reaction anyway.

Thanks.

[EvilBoris]

I imagine you'll have to buy them as they aren't freeware, depending on how upto date they are you can just run them off the disc or use scummVM.

[egparadigm]

ScummVM emulates them well. I happened across them on CD in a local charity shop along with BASS.

They aren't free - you'll have to buy them, unless you are a man of low moral fibre (pirate).

[dogen]

They aren't free - you'll have to buy them, unless you are a man of low moral fibre (pirate).

Found the Secret of Monkey Island thanks to google and running it with ScummVM. I dunno, if I get a chance to buy them at some point I just might. But this will do for the time being.

Yarr.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I have played SOMI 1 & 2 and is 3 and 4 worth bothering.

Is ScummVM good enough for 1680 X 1050 resolution display.

[egparadigm]

Play 3 - it's pretty good, despite not being made by Ron Gilbert. It has some great new characters like Murray - the disembodied skull.

4 is utter crap. Don't bother with it. Some of the puzzle solutions are inane.

[NekoFever]

Curse of Monkey Island looks really good for a SCUMM game. Excellent one as well. Escape was just a pain - I finished it but not without resorting to GameFAQs countless times, whereas with most of them (Sam & Max being a notable exception) I can work through the solutions eventually. One section in particular sticks out in my mind as being just painful.

If you want a 3D LucasArts adventure track down a copy of Grim Fandango. It's brilliant.

ScummVM is really the best way to play any of the SCUMM games. I've got every one of the games across PC and Mac, but with ScummVM I can run all of them on almost any platform. Windows, OS X, PSP, DS, PS2, and even the Dreamcast

Anyone else have some love for The Dig?

[babs]

Some shameless self-promotion, but I too love all things Lucas . If you get the first two, get the CD version with both on. The CD Audio for MI1 is worth buying it for alone.

4 was a shame, it wasn't great, but Monkey Kombat made me want to cry!

[Magnakai]

I'm surprised by the hate for number 4. Curse Of MI (3) was bitterly disappointing for me, as the writing took a plunge into the briny depths of cliché and middling to bad humour. Murray was by far the best thing to come out of that game. The swordfighting was a terrible, terrible mockery of the first game. It did look fairly nice though.

By contrast, I had literally no hope for number 4, so when it was a passable game I actually fairly enjoyed it. The series should've ended after the second one though. I still hope that Ron Gilbert will make the real Monkey Island 3.

[Magnakai]

As an addendum to that article, I'd highly recommend checking out Loom. One of the finest fantasy adventures ever crafted, imo.

[gunrock]

As an addendum to that article, I'd highly recommend checking out Loom. One of the finest fantasy adventures ever crafted, imo.

That's to be expected, Brian Moriarty was fantastic back when he was at Infocom.

[Magnakai]

Yeah, it's got a really Infocom-y feel, actually. It's also a nice change to play a Lucasarts game without that Wacky Humour.

[dogen]

Curse of Monkey Island looks really good for a SCUMM game. Excellent one as well...

Yeah, I played a decent chunk of MI3 a while back (before my PC died and I lost games saves and everything else), and the only real problem I noticed was the display of the ships trailing when traveling over the sea. Pretty painful to look at, but still playable.

That was a while back, so I dunno if ScummVM's been bettered since.