Secret of Monkey Island

I've been playing The Secret of Monkey Island on the 360 for the last few days.  My virgin experience with the series.  I'm in love.

 

As I've mentioned before, I was never a pc gamer.  I didn't own a computer growing up.  Yet, I'm a big fan of these classic point-and-click adventure games.  In my limited experience with them (playing them at a friend's house for a few hours,), I have always been intrigued by them.

 

About 5 hours into the game I can see that all the praise this title has received has been well earned.  The writing is exemplary.  I have laughed out loud plenty of times.  The setting and atmosphere is also fantastic.  Since, like I said, this is the first time I play this series I was pretty surprised to see how much this game seemed to have influenced the Pirates of the Carribean movies.  Pretty cool.

 

One feature I absolutely love with this "Special Edition" is the ability to switch between the original version and the new version with HD graphics and audio.  I'm constantly changing between versions to compare them and the effect of the transition is very impressive.  Even though it is almost 20 years old, the original version's visuals have a lot of charm to them.  I'm actually looking forward to playing through this game again using just the original visuals.

 

Best Live Arcade game I have purchased in a while.  I hope they release the sequels.

 

Door-to-door flan salesman

The other day I was leaving my apartment and as I was locking my door I look down the hall and see a gentleman knocking on someone's door, about 3 doors down from me. He was holding a box and saying something towards the door. I could tell he was selling something. I begin walking in his direction just as he was giving up and moving to the next apartment. He sees me, and takes out a small container from his box and lifts it towards me. "Tengo flan!", he exclaims and stares at me as if I'm supposed to be very happy about this.

"Umm, no, gracias", I say, and continue on my way.

Are you kidding me? This guy was a door-to-door flan salesman? Home-made flans? Who buys flan from a complete stranger who walks up to their door? Isn't flan supposed to be refrigerated? It was all pretty bizarre.

I wonder what his success rate was?

P.S. - Gabe, I know you would have bought one if he knocked on your door.

Weekend notes

Had a pretty fun-filled weekend.

 

- On Friday we made it out to a karaoke bar in South Beach.  Wasn't planning on singing, but four cranberry-vodka's later I'm on stage with my sis belting out Santaria.  But the highlight was doing Bohemian Rhapsody as a quartet.  Wish there was video of that.  Or maybe I don't . . .

 

- Yesterday we went out to the Everglades to hit a few local dives.  Some really low-key hang out spots.  Cold beer, fried food and good music.  Can't beat that.  Tried some gator bites.  Very unique flavor.  Can't say I'm a fan of gator meat, but worth the experience.

 

- On the gaming front, some big news.  Gabe and I purchased our tickets to PAX!  So come September, we'll both be attending our first gaming convention.  We can bring live coverage from the show floor.  Can't wait!

 

- Didn't do much gaming this weekend.  I was at Best Buy and came close to purchasing something new.  I was between Red Faction or Fable II.  My will power actually kicked in and I didn't buy anything.   Just played some CoD4 and a bit of Dead Space (still trying to finish it on Impossible.  Almost done).

 

The Hangover

I don't think I mentioned it, but The Hangover is one of the funniest movies I have seen in years.

 

I was laughing from beginning to end.  The concept might have been done before (a bunch of friends go to Vegas for a bachelor party), but the execution is fantastic.  You don't see the "partying", you see the aftermath.  It is almost like Memento in a weird way.  The main characters have no recollection of what has happened (like the viewer) so you're piecing everything together along with them.

 

Do yourself a favor and go watch it.