I'm sure I haven't mentioned this to the people at Giantbomb; I am a
gigantic Monkey Island fan. I first played Monkey Island at the tender
age of 8 in 1990. Although I was young, I instantly fell in love with
the atmosphere, story, humor, and characters. Sure, I may not have
understood all of the jokes but something about the game clicked with
me, whether it was the inside jokes such as the Loom reference(a game I
actually played before Monkey Island) and the sequence in the stump
where it asks you to insert disc #23, 47, etc.(yes, even at the young
age of 8 actually understood the joke) or the various hilarious
characters such as the Head of a Navigator. After beating the game
several times that year, I eagerly awaited Monkey Island 2.
When Monkey Island 2 came out, I was more excited than I had ever been
before; hell, I was probably more excited about this than any game I
had ever received/heard about in the past. I beat Monkey Island 2 the
day it came out, and several more times over the following years. Then
came Curse of Monkey Island; I was actually scared that a third entry
in the series would never come out but to my surprise, it did. Sure, I
didn't like Curse as much as 1 or 2 but it's still a classic and a game
I constantly revisit. Escape, however, was a different story. I was
excited to hear that a 4th entry in the series was coming but the 3d
aspect scared me. I decided to purchase it anyway, played it for maybe
an hour and then never touched it again. Escape, although a better than
average game, was an abomination in the Monkey Island franchise; it's
the ginger kid of a family and doesn't deserve to be called the fourth
entry in the series. After Escape, I didn't really care if I ever saw
another Monkey Island game.
Years later, I changed my opinion on whether I wanted to see a new
Monkey Island. The adventure genre had been dying for years and I was
yerning for another great and humorous experience in the Monkey Island
series. I almost crapped myself when I heard that Telltale was doing an
episodic Monkey Island game and I promptly went to their website and
pre-ordered it. Well, it came out today, I've beaten it, and here are
my thoughts.
I've played a few Telltale games in the past; Sam & Max never
really interested me, I could care less about Strongbad, and Walace and
Gromit is uninteresting. I knew Telltale had the chops to create
something spectacular and after playing Chapter 1, it looks like they
will deliver with with Tales of Monkey Island.
Everything you love about the original Monkey Island games is here.
Almost all of the jokes are spot on, the characters are
interesting(especially the doctor and Van Winslow), and the entire
chapter is a great entry in what's sure to be a fantastic experience.
Dominic Armato and the rest of the voice cast did as good of a job in
this game as they did with Curse. I have heard some complaints around
the net about the visuals, in fact, I was one of those that complained.
I would still like to have seen the new game in 2D, but the 3D visuals
grew on me and by the end of the game I felt that the art-style
perfectly matched the style of the previous games.
Do I have any complaints? I do have a few. The controls are a little
strange as you can choose between standard WASD FPS style controls and
a new type of point and click system; actually it's more like click and
point. Basically you select Guybrush with the left mouse button,
slightly move it in the direction you wish to walk to and let go when
you get there. After the first 30 minutes, it feels pretty natural but
the standard point and click control scheme would have worked better.
Another complaint deals with character models. All of the characters
look fine but minor characters look fairly generic. I wanted to see
more diversity and artistic style in character design; I want Telltale
to get a little more crazy which they may actually do with the chapters
proceeding this one. The last complaint I have deals with the puzzles.
For the most part, they are fine but I feel like they are a bit easy.
There was only one point in the game that I got stuck but it was
actually a pretty simple puzzle that I was making more difficult than
it needed to be, perhaps because that's what I'm used to in classic
point and click adventure games.
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is
exactly what Monkey Island needed, a shot in the arm. Sure, it has a
few quirks and annoyances but all of the stuff that really matters is
intact. How would I place it against the other games? Well, it's a much
better game than Escape and is close to the quality of Curse but it's
not quite there yet. But this is only the beginning of Tales and I
expect more greatness to come.
