Monkey Island is awesome. Though I’ve only played the first and the third, I loved them and definitely plan on playing the rest soon.

Telltale, the guys who did a great job resurrecting Sam & Max, took on the slightly harder task of reviving Monkey Island. I wasn’t sure if they’d actually get it right.

Read on to see if they nailed it, or if i just wasted $35 on crap (nah, i didn’t)!

Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Date of Release: July 7 2009
Platform: PC (downloadable either on the telltale website or Steam), Wii (Wiiware)

Genre: Point-And-Click Adventure game
Players: 1

(NOTE: I will only review this episode, the rest I’ll wait until they all come out to review the game as a whole)

Looks and Sounds
You have water, beaches, pirates, ships, monkeys (none of them three-headed though)… Everything you need for Monkey Island. The game has pretty much the same kind of look as previous Monkey Island games. I was quite skeptical about the 3D style here, but after some time playing it just felt right. It works, the animation is quite good and the characters look fine. The character design is  a bit repetitive (there are some exceptions, of course), but overall it’s quite well done in the graphical aspect. Not the best-looking game around, of course, but the style is what’s important here, and they nailed it.

Sound-wise I have no problem with it. The music is standard Monkey Island fare (which is a good thing), and the voice acting is quite solid. Some lines could be delivered a bit better, but overall it’s well done.

Story
The game starts straight with a confrontation with Zombie Pirate LeChuck in the middle of the Ocean. You’re making a special weapon to get rid of him once and for all. One ingredient left: Fizzy Root Beer. You finish the weapon and use it on LeChuck(there’s a really weird plot twist here, which I won’t mention since it’s so surprising). Because of random things that happened on the ship while  you were making the weapon, the ship explodes, leaving you on a piece of debris floating until you reach an island. You finally reach Flotsam Island. And your hand has turned green and possessed (constantly hitting people/Guybrush, making rude gestures). You find out that you can’t leave Flotsam Island because of the wind (which is always blowing towards the island), and you have nothing on you.

So this episode makes you get ahold of a ship, find how to leave Flotsam Island and find how to cure Guybrush’s possessed hand.

During the quest you find a few old and new characters, references to older games, some good pop culture references (some that I knew would be said before they actually said them…. I mean, the answer is so obvious when someone asks you “What is the word?”), and awesome humor. The story-telling is no different from previous Monkey Island games and keeps that weird property about it where even things that don’t make sense end up making sense. The dialogue is great, always trying to make you laugh.

Overall the story is shaping up nicely, though we’ll be sure once more episodes will have been released.

Gameplay
The gameplay is classic point-and-click style. Though this time movement is controlled with the keyboard(you can control it with a mouse but strangely it sucks) using the arrows or the WADS keys(double clicking on an object makes you run towards it, and holding Shift makes you run normally). Clicking on something will make you examine it, or if possible use it. Clicking on someone will start a conversation. Moving your mouse cursor to the right side of the screen calls up the inventory (if you click on the part that appears).

In the inventory, you can click the magnifying glass to examine what you have (or click the object to hold it and put it on the magnifying glass), click on an item to pick it up and click outside to use it on something, or pick it up to put it in one of the 2 combine slots. Putting 2 compatible items in the combine slots will make new items require to solve puzzles.

Conversations give clues about what to do next, or what you can do. You can choose what to say, and different choices will illicit different reactions. Some comedic moments give you plenty of choices, but they all have the same effect. Talking is what you’ll be doing most here.

The puzzles basically require rubbing everything you have against everything around oyu until something works… or some really random thinking. There’s always a logic behind everything, and sometimes it’s just random. This aspect is very well done, and when you think about each puzzle you realize how logical it was.

Overall the gameplay is great. If you’ve ever liked point-and-click adventures, you’ll love this for sure.

Overall
This is great. Sadly there’s not a lot of gameplay to be had from a lone chapter(about 2-3 hours to beat it, unless you really get stuck), but this is building up to be a great series of episodes.

Telltale did a great job of capturing the feel of old Monkey Island games, the humor is spot on (with great pop culture references and references to old Monkey Island games and characters), the music is definitely the right style  and it looks like a Monkey Island game should look like. I was skeptical about Telltale handling this game(they got Sam and Max right, but I wasn’t sure they’d get Monkey Island right), but they did a great job.

The puzzles are great and require some out of the box thinking for sure, and there’s a great sense of accomplishment for getting them right. Some are just plain weird and require to just be as random as possible or to actually think really hard as to what you have to do.

Overall great game, can’t wait for the next episodes.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Great classic gameplay
- Humor is awesome
- Great puzzles
- Great dialog
- Feels just like any older Monkey Island game
- Story seems to be shaping up well

Cons
- A chapter is a bit short
- No replayability (unless you wait a few years, or replay an episode before the next one comes)

The Save Factor
A bit different here. The episodes aren’t sold seperately, so I’ll go with a Save Factor for the whole game instead of individual episodes.

So with a starting price of $35, Tales of Monkey Island has a Save Factor of:
$35 (Well worth the full price)

Creepy voodoo lady wants you to buy the game!

jobocan Games, impressions, PC, Review, wii