"Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!"
I rarely write about games here but the last couple of weeks, I’ve been playing the new Monkey Island game, Tales of Monkey Island. ^_^
Not sure how many of you might remember the series since it was 9 years since the previous game. The usual recurring characters are back, along with some new ones. The game opens with Guybrush trying to rescue his wife Elaine from the undead pirate LeChuck. But instead, he accidentally turns LeChuck human and releases a voodoo pox all over the Carribean. Oops. XD So, Guybrush spends much of the game trying to fix that while pursued by a mad scientist and a pirate hunter.
There’s lots of humor as usual. XD And plenty of silly things that you can try just to see what happens. Like making small talk when you should be trying to stop the villain. I think this is possibly the game where I’ve laughed the most ever. Things got kind of dark towards the end though. It’s been a long time since I’ve played some of the older games but I would say this is the darkest out of all the Monkey Island games. I enjoyed it overall but I’m not completely sure how I feel about the plot twists in the last couple of chapters. o_O;;
Here’s a trailer. (Might contain some spoilers since it covers most of the chapters.)
If you liked the old Monkey Island games or adventure games, I’d recommend checking this out. :-) The developer, Telltale Games, has demos available on their site. Unlike the older games, this one is available primarily as a download and is split into 5 chapters. But you can get a disc version later on if you buy it from Telltale. It’s also available on Amazon and Steam. And there’s a Wii version available as downloads, too.
Other thoughts…
I found Tales of Monkey Island to be easier than the older Monkey Island games. Due to the chapter format, each part had limited locations available. Also, inventory was limited to 15 items and when you started a new chapter, items that were no longer needed would disappear. So, you weren’t likely to have lots of items that were no longer useful or that you wouldn’t need for a long time. There was a setting for how often you got hints and even with it turned down, the only place where I was stuck enough to look for a walkthrough was chapter 4.
It could have used a better tutorial and/or list of controls though since there’s no manual due to it being a download game. The click and drag method of moving Guybrush in the tutorial just didn’t work very well and they never mentioned that you could also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to make him walk, which was much easier. The opening in the first chapter was set on a ship during a storm and trying to get through that scene with the mouse was awful due to the moving ship. It also didn’t help that the inventory screen flies in from the right; I accidentally opened and closed that thing so many times trying to play through the scene for the first time. -_- Also, the tutorial never explained that you were supposed to hit Esc to get to the main menu so you could save your game.
And now, I’m contemplating Monkey Island cosplay since I’m still fond of the games after all these years. I don’t want to crossplay for this though and there aren’t many female characters. I’m leaning towards one of the new characters, the pirate hunter Morgan LeFlay. She’s a big fan of Guybrush but doesn’t let that get in the way of doing her job. And I loved the swordfight she and Guybrush had when they first met at the beginning of chapter 2. :-D Maybe, I’ll do this for NYCC/NYAF.
Not sure how many of you might remember the series since it was 9 years since the previous game. The usual recurring characters are back, along with some new ones. The game opens with Guybrush trying to rescue his wife Elaine from the undead pirate LeChuck. But instead, he accidentally turns LeChuck human and releases a voodoo pox all over the Carribean. Oops. XD So, Guybrush spends much of the game trying to fix that while pursued by a mad scientist and a pirate hunter.
There’s lots of humor as usual. XD And plenty of silly things that you can try just to see what happens. Like making small talk when you should be trying to stop the villain. I think this is possibly the game where I’ve laughed the most ever. Things got kind of dark towards the end though. It’s been a long time since I’ve played some of the older games but I would say this is the darkest out of all the Monkey Island games. I enjoyed it overall but I’m not completely sure how I feel about the plot twists in the last couple of chapters. o_O;;
Here’s a trailer. (Might contain some spoilers since it covers most of the chapters.)
Click to viewIf you liked the old Monkey Island games or adventure games, I’d recommend checking this out. :-) The developer, Telltale Games, has demos available on their site. Unlike the older games, this one is available primarily as a download and is split into 5 chapters. But you can get a disc version later on if you buy it from Telltale. It’s also available on Amazon and Steam. And there’s a Wii version available as downloads, too.
Other thoughts…
I found Tales of Monkey Island to be easier than the older Monkey Island games. Due to the chapter format, each part had limited locations available. Also, inventory was limited to 15 items and when you started a new chapter, items that were no longer needed would disappear. So, you weren’t likely to have lots of items that were no longer useful or that you wouldn’t need for a long time. There was a setting for how often you got hints and even with it turned down, the only place where I was stuck enough to look for a walkthrough was chapter 4.
It could have used a better tutorial and/or list of controls though since there’s no manual due to it being a download game. The click and drag method of moving Guybrush in the tutorial just didn’t work very well and they never mentioned that you could also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to make him walk, which was much easier. The opening in the first chapter was set on a ship during a storm and trying to get through that scene with the mouse was awful due to the moving ship. It also didn’t help that the inventory screen flies in from the right; I accidentally opened and closed that thing so many times trying to play through the scene for the first time. -_- Also, the tutorial never explained that you were supposed to hit Esc to get to the main menu so you could save your game.
And now, I’m contemplating Monkey Island cosplay since I’m still fond of the games after all these years. I don’t want to crossplay for this though and there aren’t many female characters. I’m leaning towards one of the new characters, the pirate hunter Morgan LeFlay. She’s a big fan of Guybrush but doesn’t let that get in the way of doing her job. And I loved the swordfight she and Guybrush had when they first met at the beginning of chapter 2. :-D Maybe, I’ll do this for NYCC/NYAF.