Talking games with "normie" coworkers / students / fellows

[Light1000]

Recount your experiences in this thread. I'll start:

Spoiler

In my Junior year of High School (2023-2024) I had a class where one day the teacher gave us an survey assignment to learn sorting data.
There were a few topics but I chose videogames because I was very personally interested in learning what the rest of the people in the class played. For reference, this class had freshman to seniors, people born from approximately 2006-2009 or so.
I put in 3 questions asking the participants first, second, and third favorite game respectively.

Spoiler

As you can see, most of the class just listed whatever online game they play the most. So my conclusion is that pretty much the vast majority of people around me do not seriously play videogames but rather just whatever online live-service game is most popular at the moment. I feel like I'm getting a bit pretentious here so please let me know if there's any data which can challenge this assertion.
Further comparison: This is example data the teacher gave us from an older survey which was presumably conducted in ~2008. (?)

Spoiler

So I guess the situation hasn't changed too much.

More anecdotal samples:
-During the survey-taking part in class, I heard a few students think aloud "CPRG? JRPG? Character Action game? What is that" on the genre question. (results not included because they were not useful)
-At one time the topic of Spiderman came up in a discussion, (different class) and I was asked if I played Spiderman 2 on the PS5. I said no and they asked "well, what are you playing then?" I didn't want to say I was playing Ninja Gaiden (NES) so I just let the question fade.
-I was walking with my water bottle that has a sticker of Jack Frost on it. A random guy walked up to me and said "Dude do you play SMT?" (paraphrased) and I said yeah then he walked off.

[Sumez]

people born from approximately 2006-2009 or so

[BryanM]

> Be me.
> Be in early grade school.
> Mention you're playing Forgotten Worlds on the Genesis to some guy.
> They say 'Oh I played that.'
> Get excited because you think you might have found someone to talk about video games with.
> Finally beat Forgotten Worlds without having to use the continue cheat. 1CC, finally!
> Excitedly tell the guy about it.
> He says something like "Oh, that's great."
> He avoids eye contact and awkwardly looks away.
> Even my on-the-spectrum little sperg brain gets the message.
> Never speak to him again.
> Never speak to anyone again.

[vol.2]

> Mention you're playing Forgotten Worlds on the Genesis to some guy.

lol. Me in middle school being the only kid who knew what Ultima Underworld was.

I worked after school for the local farm stand guy that setup on the side of the road, and I saved my money so I could buy a new sound card to play CRPGs with better music

[NYN]

I didn't want to say I was playing Ninja Gaiden (NES) so I just let the question fade.

Ha! One gen's badge of pride is another one's shame. If those goofs would've laughed upon the answer, it would've been only over their own ignorance. This applies to multitudes.

[Lord British]

20 years ago there was major confusion about which Ninja Gaiden was being discussed at a given time. I remember several who were all into the Xbox but unaware of the NES game's existence. Ooh, the games I could have bought around that time.

[Lemnear]

In my small town, one of the stores that made the most money was the one that sold video games (there were two that competed with each other).
So, more or less, EVERYONE played. People knew what was ULTIMA, to quote a game that was mentioned here. Even "Japan Only" games were known... in its own small way, gaming culture has always existed here.
There was a time when even clothing stores had PS2 games for sale (even if they were always the same ones in all the windows XD).
Even things like ICO, Shadow of the Colossus or Orphen were known here.. or Folklore for PS3! Koudelka... Einhander, Rescue Force, there was everything, people had libraries with 100+ games!

Of course, the most famous ones were also... famous. For example, Tekken is still going strong here, even surpassing Street Fighter and there are tournaments every weekend in the local comic book store.

This culture also extends to TCGs and modeling, despite being a town with about 4000 inhabitants in the center. By the way, it goes beyond age, I met a gentleman in his 60s who played everything from Quantic Dreams or one in his 80s with a whole Flight Simulator station...

There would be a lot to say about the posted graphs, a sort of "Anthropology of Gaming" topic should be opened.
like why Ninja Gaiden is a constant on the SHMUPS forums/discords/YTchannels (along with stuff like Vanquish and Demon's Souls), why NG and not DMC? Why are mainstream games snubbed? etc. etc.

However, Fortnite is the most relaxing PVP game out there, I have to say that.

[BryanM]

there was everything, people had libraries with 100+ games!

'ole sailing the seas, eh? Also used game shops were incredible back then - BRE Software had a 'Buy 2 gets 1 free buy 3 get 2 free' deal. $30 would get you $250 worth of product if you had bought them new. I remember them liquidating their Saturn product at $50 a console and $10 a game. Unfortunately by the time I had some money and got around to deciding to pull the trigger, they were gone.

Was so hyped to try Fighter's Megamix, Shining Force 3, Panzer Dragoon 2, etc. But I missed the window and now I never have and might never will.

Standards have gotten nuts. Genshin Impact has an annual budget of $500 million a year, which puts it over a $2 billion game. There's a 'joke' with Grand Theft Auto 6 that we'll build AGI that can make any kind of current videogame and better, before it finally comes out. Everything just kind of has to consolidate into one game or franchise, because really how many more copies of the same exact game with reskinned aesthetics do you need.

Checking out games people have made for the Pico-8 really kind of brings back the sense of magic of those old days: lots of jank, but it's simple and fun to see what ideas people had.

like why Ninja Gaiden is a constant on the SHMUPS forums/discords/YTchannels (along with stuff like Vanquish and Demon's Souls), why NG and not DMC? Why are mainstream games snubbed? etc. etc.

I saw a trailer for a new indie game inspired by Metal Slug the other day. The art+animation was ace, but the game didn't look like I'd have fun playing it. (It's normal for people to need some work on some skills. Which is actually something I find charming about indie games - the strengths and shortcomings of actual human beings.)

I just wanted to mention that to have something to say. Really the reasons are pretty obvious.

[Lemnear]

there was everything, people had libraries with 100+ games!

'ole sailing the seas, eh? Also used game shops were incredible back then - BRE Software had a 'Buy 2 gets 1 free buy 3 get 2 free' deal. $30 would get you $250 worth of product if you had bought them new. I remember them liquidating their Saturn product at $50 a console and $10 a game. Unfortunately by the time I had some money and got around to deciding to pull the trigger, they were gone.

Was so hyped to try Fighter's Megamix, Shining Force 3, Panzer Dragoon 2, etc. But I missed the window and now I never have and might never will.

Standards have gotten nuts. Genshin Impact has an annual budget of $500 million a year, which puts it over a $2 billion game. There's a 'joke' with Grand Theft Auto 6 that we'll build AGI that can make any kind of current videogame and better, before it finally comes out. Everything just kind of has to consolidate into one game or franchise, because really how many more copies of the same exact game with reskinned aesthetics do you need.

Checking out games people have made for the Pico-8 really kind of brings back the sense of magic of those old days: lots of jank, but it's simple and fun to see what ideas people had.

like why Ninja Gaiden is a constant on the SHMUPS forums/discords/YTchannels (along with stuff like Vanquish and Demon's Souls), why NG and not DMC? Why are mainstream games snubbed? etc. etc.

I saw a trailer for a new indie game inspired by Metal Slug the other day. The art+animation was ace, but the game didn't look like I'd have fun playing it. (It's normal for people to need some work on some skills. Which is actually something I find charming about indie games - the strengths and shortcomings of actual human beings.)

I just wanted to mention that to have something to say. Really the reasons are pretty obvious.

well games today have virtually no loading though, so it's incorrect. But that the screen is full of indicators everywhere yes...or that it has continuous updates so each game takes up an INFINITE space.

Anyway looking at the 2008 list...at the time it all seemed good but if you look at it today, it's actually shit even that stuff.

No Halo of the past or present can hold a candle to Titanfall 2, Gears has not only aged badly (unlike RE4), but already at the time it was getting slapped by Vanquish, while Guitar Hero, DDR and Wii Sport were the equivalent of Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Roblox and Minecraft today.

there would also be a discussion to be made about Remakes and Remasters, where often the remakes get lower scores than the original on Metacritic while remaining unchanged and STILL being considered masterpieces.
Logically it should have at least the same score (for example Dead Space and its Remake both have 89, and the same thing for RE4 OG at 96 and the Remake at 93... but anyway we're there).
While others have 10-15 points less, for example practically all Final Fantasy...
Then there are rare almost absurd cases like Tales of Grace F, which went from 77 to 83, so it means that it was "rediscovered" and that at the time nobody gave a damn about it.

[BryanM]

well games today have virtually no loading though, so it's incorrect.

I think you might be particularly blessed to be living that kind of life. I envy ye, I does.

there would also be a discussion to be made about Remakes and Remasters, where often the remakes get lower scores than the original on Metacritic while remaining unchanged and STILL being considered masterpieces.
Logically it should have at least the same score (for example Dead Space and its Remake both have 89, and the same thing for RE4 OG at 96 and the Remake at 93... but anyway we're there).
While others have 10-15 points less, for example practically all Final Fantasy...
Then there are rare almost absurd cases like Tales of Grace F, which went from 77 to 83, so it means that it was "rediscovered" and that at the time nobody gave a damn about it.

Try not to get distracted by score numbers. They're a distraction. 'If you feel like playing this game again with a new coat of paint, it's a 100. If you don't, it's a 0.'

The latest round of Dragon Quest remakes have me particularly exhausted. Just make a new game in the retro style!

I guess I envy people who don't get bored of things, too. I have to constantly find new methods to keep the boredom fairy away. (I'd be very very surprised if there was a single other person on this forum who's ever read a webnovel. Just reams of free content just sitting there. If there's some kind of imaginary world you'd like to visit, some sicko out there's already written it and given it away for free.)

[vol.2]

Just make a new game in the retro style!

This brings me back to the release of the most recent Monkey Island game. Ron Gilbert spent the preceding 10 years teasing the community with amazing pixel art work in Thumbleweed Park and Dolores, and energizing the community of people who have been dreaming of a "true" Monkey Island 3 for their whole lives. Then he goes and releases a game with a slightly off-putting newfangled paper doll art style.

People (the oldbies) were so pissed off he actually started getting death threats in his blog comments and he had to shut comments down. Which is a real shame because I had some really fun moments interacting with him. My favorite thing that happened on the blog was the day he mentioned that he had purchased the domain historyofpants.com. I commented that it was just a 404, and why didn't he at least put up a picture of old-timey pants or something, which is still there to this day. Now that interaction will be lost forever.

[BryanM]

Then he goes and releases a game with a slightly off-putting newfangled paper doll art style.

Yeah, I heard about that one. Always loved how he refused to do any April Fools 'jokes' - those things were beaten into the ground very quickly and just aren't fun anymore. The funniest reference to them was red shirt guy #2 at Blizzcon asking if their game was an 'out of season April fool's joke.'

Trying to make something and talking to people about it is really hard. You pour hundreds and thousands of hours into something, you're hyper-invested in it, and everyone else isn't. There's an asymmetric balance of the scales there when it comes to emotions, there. One negative interaction can blow out your ability to do an entire day or two's worth of work.

There's always these kids asking for 'feedback' for their webnovel or whatever, and it always kills my heart these chowderheads would try to do something so horrible to themselves. When they could be doing something safer, like meth. (It's seriously just like asking someone if they like you. If you have to ask...) Nobody's a special snowflake, and if they want to write better stuff just read your own dog food, see what you feel needs to be better, and figure out how to get yourself over there. If you need other ideas on the philosophy of writing trash, read other people's guides/manifestos on the subject. (A big issue is a lot of people have is they don't even call their trash trash, they call it this weird thing 'art'. Like it's some kind of divine object, and not just bullshit to pass the time with. You can't eat a Star Wars, it has no intrinsic value. Well... at least you shouldn't eat a Star Wars.)

Ah, Ron might turn comments back on. Looks like he's been mulling it over this year.

... I still won't apologize for being mean to Hellgate:London. Game was bad and dunking on it with everybody is some of the most fun I've ever had relating to a game.

[orange808]

Speaking of comments, maybe he should add a LLM to moderate and automatically edit posts when they're submitted.

I suggest replacing entire posts by injecting a Murray gif alongside generated commentary (in character) about the author with vague references to the redacted comment.

Risky, because it will probably encourage a lot of over the top posts.

[Austin]

... I still won't apologize for being mean to Hellgate:London. Game was bad and dunking on it with everybody is some of the most fun I've ever had relating to a game.

Damn, I liked that game, haha. Granted I only ever played it solo, but it was fun enough for what it was. Though I do remember when it was new, many people were disappointed by it.

[Lemnear]

Try not to get distracted by score numbers. They're a distraction. 'If you feel like playing this game again with a new coat of paint, it's a 100. If you don't, it's a 0.'

The latest round of Dragon Quest remakes have me particularly exhausted. Just make a new game in the retro style!

I guess I envy people who don't get bored of things, too. I have to constantly find new methods to keep the boredom fairy away. (I'd be very very surprised if there was a single other person on this forum who's ever read a webnovel. Just reams of free content just sitting there. If there's some kind of imaginary world you'd like to visit, some sicko out there's already written it and given it away for free.)

There was a time when these things didn't influence me, and my tastes prevailed.
Now it always seems that I have to justify my choices, and failing to do so, I have to fall back on the common denominator so as not to feel insulted or discriminated against...or isolated.

[Sumez]

This brings me back to the release of the most recent Monkey Island game. Ron Gilbert spent the preceding 10 years teasing the community with amazing pixel art work in Thumbleweed Park and Dolores, and energizing the community of people who have been dreaming of a "true" Monkey Island 3 for their whole lives. Then he goes and releases a game with a slightly off-putting newfangled paper doll art style.

People (the oldbies) were so pissed off he actually started getting death threats in his blog comments and he had to shut comments down. Which is a real shame because I had some really fun moments interacting with him. My favorite thing that happened on the blog was the day he mentioned that he had purchased the domain historyofpants.com. I commented that it was just a 404, and why didn't he at least put up a picture of old-timey pants or something, which is still there to this day. Now that interaction will be lost forever.

I don't have an issue with Return to Monke's art style as much as I have with Ron Gilbert's whole mindset that "he didn't want to make a retro throwback game", opting instead for something that he felt was more modern, ditching pretty much everything that defines the genre and made the original two Monkey Island so great in the first place.
IMO the game is a massive insult to fans of the series.

[orange808]

I don't have an issue with Return to Monke's art style as much as I have with Ron Gilbert's whole mindset that "he didn't want to make a retro throwback game", opting instead for something that he felt was more modern, ditching pretty much everything that defines the genre and made the original two Monkey Island so great in the first place.

That's funny, because I thought the game was a huge retro throwback in spirit. In fact, the entire experience is trapped inside a nostalgia box that Gilbert never tries to escape.

The game seemed deeply personal to me. I found the ending wistful, with Gilbert obviously lingering an extra moment in the theme park of his franchise. He almost seems to be pining for the days when they were making Monkey Island 2, the game was a headliner among big budget video games, and life wasn't set in stone. Those were heady days, Gilbert was young, and the rules were unwritten. There's also a bittersweet commentary on aging somewhere in there, as well.

What isn't there is a fresh new essential chapter in Threepwood's adventures: that boldly builds on the Monkey Island universe. After playing the game, I'm not convinced Gilbert has any more Monkey Island stories to tell (at least not right now).

The game engine and a fresh art style didn't bug me. Neither of those things saved the new game from feeling like retro throwback, because the entire game is boxed in by the lore of previous games. The game opened with a big red flag. When the hero's kids show up, it's usually a sign that franchise is taking a victory lap--and shifted into legacy mode.

[Sumez]

That's funny, because I thought the game was a huge retro throwback in spirit. In fact, the entire experience is trapped inside a nostalgia box that Gilbert never tries to escape.

You're right! Return is littered with so much throwback and legacy stuff, that trying to avoid the game coming across like a "retro thing" only feels even more comical.

I do enjoy Monkey Island going a bit outside of the simplistic "fun pirate story" narrative, and being about something more, and I think Monkey Island 1 and 2 both managed to do that even if they were more subtle about it. I absolutely love the batshit ending to MI2, which perfectly seals the themes of the game. But the way he tried to do the whole meta thing in Return just felt extremely condesending to the player, IMO.

But at the end of the day, the biggest failure of the game was that he straight up avoided having fun convoluted traditional adventure game puzzles in the game. Something that's completely inherent to the genre that the original series remains probably the most important classic example of. That was just a straight-up sucker punch.

[orange808]

But at the end of the day, the biggest failure of the game was that he straight up avoided having fun convoluted traditional adventure game puzzles in the game. Something that's completely inherent to the genre that the original series remains probably the most important classic example of. That was just a straight-up sucker punch.

Fair enough.

That's a difficult tightrope of game design, especially when you're hoping to sell a lot of copies.

It makes some sense with Gilbert. The real meat of his career happened after the early golden age of LucasArts--and he shifted towards a younger audience with a lot of his games afterwards. The new Monkey Island follows the sensibilities of Putt Putt, Freddi Fish, and Pajama Sam more than the early days of LucasArts. I assume his design philosophy evolved over time and the new game is just: who Gilbert is.

Back to story, though... I found more than just nostalgia in the new game. Gilbert's love for his characters and universe are real. And he did pen a love letter to the games and fans. I don't think Gilbert intentionally punched anyone. This is just where he's at now.

[vol.2]

But at the end of the day, the biggest failure of the game was that he straight up avoided having fun convoluted traditional adventure game puzzles in the game. Something that's completely inherent to the genre that the original series remains probably the most important classic example of. That was just a straight-up sucker punch.

That's true. I didn't get that amazing feeling like when I first drugged the piranha poodles with the laced meat. There should have been a real "hard mode" with alternate puzzles for real adventure gamers. The only part I got hung up on in the whole game was the kitchen part on the ship. Even then it only took me one frustrating afternoon to work out. MI M2 both took me weeks of head scratching and cursing, but made me laugh so hard when I finally figured it out.

I still disagree about the art style. I think it would have been a much better experience if it had been pixel art. I'm not some die hard pixel art only person or anything. I love seeing fancy new graphics on a modern thing or any of the stages in between. However, I also really like pixel art, and I believe that it carries a certain emotional feeling with it that exists outside of nostalgia; a kind of simpler and uncomplicated feeling that succeeds by giving the player only a very judicial amount of visual information. The fact that newer players who never experienced 16 bit PC adventure gaming in it's heyday attests to the enduring qualities of the artform.

Monkey Island isn't just one of many old pixel art PC games that made it into the modern era, it's arguably "the" defining pixel art game of the aesthetic, or at least in a very short list of them. In spite of the games that have come in between, part of the magic present in those first two games is indelibly linked to the aesthetics of pixel art and the feeling that only they can conjure. Making Return not pixel art was a huge missed opportunity. The paper doll art that Gilbert went with is lovely in and of itself, but choosing to go in that direction robbed the game of a gestalt with the first two games. The result is that it's "a new Monkey Island game" and not "the true Monkey Island 3."

Ah, Ron might turn comments back on. Looks like he's been mulling it over this year.

That would honestly make me pretty happy. I definitely feel bad about what he must have been put through with all the horrible comments. I have to admit I wanted to post some critical things about the art style of RTMI, but of course I'd never do something like that on an artist's blog, and I was upset about people losing their cool like that. Nerd rage is scary.

At this point though, the fervor has died down and I think most people will be able to behave themselves.

[orange808]

I still disagree about the art style. I think it would have been a much better experience if it had been pixel art. I'm not some die hard pixel art only person or anything. I love seeing fancy new graphics on a modern thing or any of the stages in between. However, I also really like pixel art, and I believe that it carries a certain emotional feeling with it that exists outside of nostalgia; a kind of simpler and uncomplicated feeling that succeeds by giving the player only a very judicial amount of visual information. The fact that newer players who never experienced 16 bit PC adventure gaming in it's heyday attests to the enduring qualities of the artform.

I don't recall the specifics of new Monkey Island game much and I suppose that alone is an indictment of the game. With that said, I do not remember the game's visuals being cluttered or overcomplicated as I played.

I'm not really sure what you want in terms of pixel art, either. I assume you wanted EGA? I think the golden age of LucasArts adventure games happened in VGA. At that point, it wasn't really pixel art to me. VGA was simply the vassal that delivered the Warner Bros and Disney inspired animation of the LucasArts animated style.

Also, if we're going full nostalgia, where is Sound Blaster midi soundtrack?

Monkey Island isn't just one of many old pixel art PC games that made it into the modern era, it's arguably "the" defining pixel art game of the aesthetic, or at least in a very short list of them. In spite of the games that have come in between, part of the magic present in those first two games is indelibly linked to the aesthetics of pixel art and the feeling that only they can conjure. Making Return not pixel art was a huge missed opportunity. The paper doll art that Gilbert went with is lovely in and of itself, but choosing to go in that direction robbed the game of a gestalt with the first two games. The result is that it's "a new Monkey Island game" and not "the true Monkey Island 3."

Once again, is it really the pixel art? Or is it just a general art design malfunction?

I had two hangups with the general design aesthetic. First of all, I think the art style made it more difficult for the characters to emote. The classic VGA art of LucasArts animation was much more expressive to my eye. The second problem is that I barely recognized the characters. They didn't look like themselves.

It's not really the paper dolls, it's just that they look wrong and they aren't nearly as animated and expressive as the characters I saw in MI2. It looks undercooked.

For me LucasArts was about the entire package. At the height of their powers, they had fully voiced high quality animation with excellent atmosphere from "golden age" Warner Bros cartoon style backgrounds and environments. I apologize, but I don't remember the artist's name that inspired it. You can instantly see the drop off if you watch anything Chuck Jones attempted afterwards, though. (That's something Jones himself lamented in later years. Those backgrounds and environments made a huge difference and the cost cutting of the 1960's and 1970's animation look rubbish by comparison to the WB golden years.) LucasArts did it on purpose, of course. They knew that was genius and they wanted that kind of style in their own games.

At least for the characters, the animation isn't as strong in the new Monkey Island and it's disappointing. LucasArts set a high bar.

[BryanM]

Since we're on an adventure game nostalgia trip, maybe some of you would enjoy Stair Quest. It's exactly like King's Quest, but with a couple more stairs thrown in.

$0 game, so the value proposition is infinity eh.

Damn, I liked that game, haha. Granted I only ever played it solo, but it was fun enough for what it was. Though I do remember when it was new, many people were disappointed by it.

I wanted to like it a lot myself, but they came up short in almost all of the ways. There are brief moments of joy like when my Summoner got ahold of an eel gun, and the little eels wiggle in the air and then bite onto monsters, and they pile up and you can see the rate of their life bar going down accelerates as more and more of the little guys attach to them... Ah, could have been really special.

There's a huge essay of things that were fundamentally wrong-minded, but one of the more subtle ones is the reward system itself. Something a lot of people don't appreciate is the 'miracle of diablo' - the controls for combat AND managing your inventory are one and the same. It's rare when two different types of games (combat and inventory management are two different games. Or 'subgames' if you wanna be pedantic. Which I usually do, but not in this case.) can overlap so much.

Inventory management in Hellgate is awkward. From picking things up to filtering through what's worth keeping. (A task not made any smoother thanks to the Feed system.) Something more like Monster Hunter where you perform all your inventory stuff in town would have been a better approach. (Heck, ditching Diablo-esque stats altogether also would have been a better idea. We all get too attached to ideas that aren't great, like that guy who put a giant mechanical spider in Wild Wild West or the guy who thinks the Maggot Lair is a fun kind of level to have in videogames. If they had started with the foundation of a fun shooting game and elaborated from there, it'd have been so much better.)

A lot of the guys are/were making another action RPG recently, and it sounded completely awful, conceptually. It's a bit of a bummer when old groundbreaking teams from the past can't compete with ever-rising modern standards, or even with the standards of the late 1990's...

[vol.2]

I'm not really sure what you want in terms of pixel art, either. I assume you wanted EGA?

While I do love the EGA Monkey Island, I played it in VGA and I agree that era of Lucasarts is their most iconic. And it is pixel art. I'm going to be a bit lazy here because I have this sneaking suspicion that you are being somewhat contrarian and you actually do already know what pixel art is, but if you genuinely do not, here's the wikipedia article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

The TLDR is that it is generally drawn pixel by pixel (or using pixel manipulation tools) in software designed to create frames this way.

The early 90s 256 VGA games, especially the adventure stuff like Lucasarts and Sierra, can be seen as the quintessential height of the original pixel art era (before it became an artform distinct from other forms of digital artwork). Where the line exactly gets draw tends to be a topic of debate, but that line only becomes blurry (to some people) in the late 90s/ early 2000s.

Once again, is it really the pixel art? Or is it just a general art design malfunction?

I had two hangups with the general design aesthetic. First of all, I think the art style made it more difficult for the characters to emote. The classic VGA art of LucasArts animation was much more expressive to my eye. The second problem is that I barely recognized the characters. They didn't look like themselves.

It's not really the paper dolls, it's just that they look wrong and they aren't nearly as animated and expressive as the characters I saw in MI2. It looks undercooked.

You're right about the limitations on the new art style; I don't think it lends itself well to character expression. While I don't think that the old pixel art stuff was a whole lot better at showing individual reactions to specific situations, it does (pixel art) have a much more complete set of idioms around handling that kind of emotional content in games, like the sound design (which you mentioned) and several kinds of graphical cues. Again, I think that it's the gestalt of pixel art that could have added so much to Return, and I still feel that it was a huge missed opportunity.

I don't disagree that the new style had it's own set of issues, but it's not really and either/or situation. I feel that Return would have benefitted from a pixel art presentation, outside of the poor puzzle challenges.

For me LucasArts was about the entire package. At the height of their powers, they had fully voiced high quality animation with excellent atmosphere from "golden age" Warner Bros cartoon style backgrounds and environments. I apologize, but I don't remember the artist's name that inspired it. You can instantly see the drop off if you watch anything Chuck Jones attempted afterwards, though. (That's something Jones himself lamented in later years. Those backgrounds and environments made a huge difference and the cost cutting of the 1960's and 1970's animation look rubbish by comparison to the WB golden years.) LucasArts did it on purpose, of course. They knew that was genius and they wanted that kind of style in their own games.

At least for the characters, the animation isn't as strong in the new Monkey Island and it's disappointing. LucasArts set a high bar.

Of course Lucasarts had a special sauce and there's a whole book worth of interesting stuff to talk about when it comes to their production values and their impact on the industry, etc, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect a MI game in the 2020s to match that. Looking at individual aspects of the game and critiquing them is one thing, but you have to expect it to be a different package, no matter what that package looks like.

Part of the reason that the early LA games were so good is because they had a fairly consistent aesthetic, and the ecosystem they lived in supported itself. If anything, that only supports my assertion that pixel art could only have helped to tap into existing game language and make the experience more relatable. As it is, the new art style is simply alienating.

[orange808]

And it is pixel art. I'm going to be a bit lazy here because I have this sneaking suspicion that you are being somewhat contrarian and you actually do already know what pixel art is, but if you genuinely do not, here's the wikipedia article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

It's just a personal thing, I suppose.

PC assets in that era were almost cheating when a lot of other poor slobs were fighting pallete and hardware restrictions. (Although, hardware sprites were a worthwhile trade off elsewhere.)

It's also a nice thing to dev your assets directly on the target platform. Such a nice and tidy environment and pipeline. And such a dense pack of pixels! No interlacing, either. It's so clean!

No colors bleeding or other artifacts to worry about, either. No worries about what it will look like on an older blurry set. No worries at all, really. (Unless you plan to start pushing a lot of "sprites" around.)

Yeah. It's pixel art, but I make a distinction between PC and console graphics. VGA has so many colors and pixels. On a PC, we automatically assumed your monitor wasn't a piece of crap. If you can't read the font or see the details, you should get yourself a new monitor!

That attitude just didn't carry over to the console side. I suppose almost everything in that era was pixel art--unless you were dealing with an edge case vector game. So, I get it. On the other hand, the PC could host directly drawing whatever it is you need.

It gets a lot more tricky to make recognizable things with chunky big deformed elongated pixels and pallete handcuffs. To top it off, they have CD media? That's just ridiculous. They have more storage than they can (even) use--and I'm trying to cram this thing inside the rom... ... Grrrrr....

[vol.2]

That attitude just didn't carry over to the console side. I suppose almost everything in that era was pixel art--unless you were dealing with an edge case vector game. So, I get it. On the other hand, the PC could host directly drawing whatever it is you need.

It gets a lot more tricky to make recognizable things with chunky big deformed elongated pixels and pallete handcuffs. To top it off, they have CD media? That's just ridiculous. They have more storage than they can (even) use--and I'm trying to cram this thing inside the rom... ... Grrrrr....

I think yeah, it mostly was. It was a defining characteristic of older games. They didn't start calling it pixel art until there was something else around to distinguish it from. Of course, digital art existed quite early on, but they weren't making games with it, it was strictly in the world of desktop publishing at that point.

But also, consoles got CD-ROM drives before too long. I didn't have one until I got my PS1 in 1997, but they definitely existed. The Turbo CD came out in 1989 (and I was lucky enough to have a buddy who owned one). Honestly though, PCs mostly made use of CD-ROMs by providing cut scene movies and voice recordings and not as something substantively different from floppy disks. CDs were just cheaper to make and you needed fewer of them, so they made financial sense (in the same way that digital delivery makes more sense now).

[Lord British]

My dad hated video games and bought a Phillips CDI in 1992. SMH.

[vol.2]

My dad hated video games and bought a Phillips CDI in 1992. SMH.

I guess he at least found out that plumbers don't wear ties.

[Sumez]

The new Monkey Island follows the sensibilities of Putt Putt, Freddi Fish, and Pajama Sam more than the early days of LucasArts. I assume his design philosophy evolved over time and the new game is just: who Gilbert is.

I think that's true to some extend. But at the same time, Thimbleweed Park (which I guess was fully intended as a retro style game) had some of the best classic adventure game puzzles I've ever experienced. So he's still able to do it. And it's hard for me to think he did so reluctantly - you can tell the game was made with love.

Gilbert's love for his characters and universe are real. And he did pen a love letter to the games and fans. I don't think Gilbert intentionally punched anyone. This is just where he's at now.

Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to really grasp honestly. Because I definitely do not believe it's intentional either. But at the same time, if you want to give the series a loving send-off, it just comes across entirely tone deaf to me.

Yahtzee's review of the game addresses most of my thoughts on it incredibly well, especially the BS ending that it pulled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCtc81A60BE

I still disagree about the art style. I think it would have been a much better experience if it had been pixel art. I'm not some die hard pixel art only person or anything. I love seeing fancy new graphics on a modern thing or any of the stages in between. However, I also really like pixel art, and I believe that it carries a certain emotional feeling with it that exists outside of nostalgia; a kind of simpler and uncomplicated feeling that succeeds by giving the player only a very judicial amount of visual information. The fact that newer players who never experienced 16 bit PC adventure gaming in it's heyday attests to the enduring qualities of the artform.

Yeah, I agree with this. Pixel art carries with it a certain style that's not dissimilar to how specific instruments just give music a certain feel even if they might not produce the most complex sound. Distorted electric guitars wasn't an intended effect until an entire genre decided to embrace it. Also, low resolution art was a thing long before computers, so it makes sense that it has an appeal outside it as well.
And that's where I think Ron Gilbert's impression that pixel art is inherently a nostalgia thing already puts him on the wrong track, and he apparently has the same impression of puzzles.
Pixel art would have been better. Real high res 2D art akin to Curse of Monkey Island would have been better, too. I also don't mind the optional new art style of the Mi1 and 2 remakes, and think it would have been great for a new game. But at the end of the day I find Return's art style to be the least of its problems.