Monday, September 06, 2004
I know, I know, I'm REALLY late on this one... but ScummVM rocks. For the uninitiated, I'll try to explain this as quickly and simply as possible, so don't get any on me if I screw up the technical details.
Once upon a time, LucasArts didn't make Star Wars games. They were known for graphic adventure games. These were point-and-click sort of adventures where you investigated and interacted with puzzles, people and objects by, er, pointing and clicking. Believe me, they are a lot more fun than it sounds, primarily because LucasArts adventures had a very healthy dose of humour in them. And I loved them. The Monkey Island games are in my personal top 10, and stand with SimCity 2000 as the only non-console titles there (and seriously, Monkey Island 2's ending is the videogame Sixth Sense... really... I feel very strongly about this).
Where does ScummVM come in? Scumm was the sort of engine that ran all their 2D games. ScummVM is kinda likean emulator that allows you to play all those old Scumm games again... and unlike emulators, there's no real legal grey area about the "ROMs" here. Whereas it's highly unlikely (impossible?) that you legally have your entire NES collection in ROM format, ScummVM can play the data files from the old Scumm game CDs or floppies.
Since I have my original copies of Monkey Islands 1 & 2, Sam & Max, Full Throttle and The Dig, I've had a rather nice weekend. I finished Full Throttle first, their biker opus. I have a serious love/hate relationship with Full Throttle. On the one hand, it's inventive, clever, witty, and a kick-ass ride. On the other, it has lame-o minigame segments that just don't work (both in original format AND especially in ScummVM, which has trouble with them), is really short, and has a couple of stupid and illogical cheap bits. Overall, it's definitely one of the great ones. And though I'm kinda happy LucasArts killed the planned sequel since it probably wouldn't have been the same in 3D and without the original design team... I really would like to see more Full Throttle.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the best thing about ScummVM: It's portable. And I mean that in two ways. Yeah, there are Windows versions, and Mac OS X, and Linux, and oddball formats like Dreamcast and Xbox, but also... PocketPC, Smartphone and Palm OS. Observe!
Monkey Island in the palm of my hand. Bliss. Pure bliss.
Posted at 6:44 AM
