Tales of Monkey Island

The developers of the Wallace and Gromit Grand Adventures series are now providing a five part episodic adventure game based on the popular Monkey Island franchise.

While these games are available individually, PC owners can splash out and purchase Tales of Monkey Island, containing all five for around £25.

Yet again, you take the starring role as Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate, in an epic tale involving all the usual ingredients such as piracy, voodoo and lots of monkeys.  You'll meet up with old friends from the previous games, as well as new, well thought out characters that add depth and atmosphere to the experience.

In brief, and without any major spoilers:

Episode 1 is the "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal": Whilst fighting LeChuck on his ship, you accidentally release a voodoo pox that threatens to infect the whole Caribbean. After a spectacular explosion lands you on Flotsam Island, you and your pox infected hand have to find a way to change the direction of the mysterious winds that stop any ships from leaving.

Episode 2, "The Siege of Spinner Cay", finds you dodging pirate ships whilst travelling around a group of islands in an attempt to discover more about La Esponja Grande, a treasure that cure's the voodoo pox, which has now even infected your wife Elaine.

Episode 3, "Lair of the Leviathan" is almost exclusively played out in the smelly innards of a giant manatee.

Episode 4,   "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood" has you in a courtroom drama defending yourself from numerous charges that will result in your execution if you're found guilty.  There's also a dark and dramatic twist to look forward to.

Episode 5, The grand finale, "Rise of the Pirate God", is played out in both the real world and the land of pirates' afterlife, before culminating in an epic battle with an old enemy...

As with all episodic content, each chapter isn't too long, however they all work together to tell an epic and satisfying tale. Telltale Games have taken advantage of this, to finish each chapter with a huge cliff-hanger that makes you want to immediately play the next.

The PC controls are intuitive and easy to use, with perhaps the exception of the direction control whilst walking which can be fiddly at times. It's pretty frustrating as the only other real criticism of the game is that there's a lot of walking around to do, a shortcut system would have been appreciated, especially in the last episode.

Visuals are good, big and cartoony, and along with the excellent voice acting, music and sound effects, you're treated to a highly immersive gaming experience, indeed the whole production is very slick and genuinely has a cinematic feel to it.

Fans of the series should appreciate the humour:
At one point when speaking to a doctor, he says "I'll have to amputate" "Is that not a little rash?" "No, it's a very big rash!"

The game has digs at other adventure games where you have to go around picking everything up, even though you have no idea what to do with the items (as in Return to Mysterious Island 2).  There's a scene where you pick up a bucket, and a nearby character asks you what you want with it, and you reply that you don't know, but reckon it might be handy later, and he calls you a weirdo.  Love it!

This is actually another endearing point about this series, it shows that you don't need an overwhelming amount of rubbish lying around to be picked up and utilised to progress through a well written game.  Indeed it confirms suspicions that this is just an excuse for lazy game design by other teams.

Tales of Monkey Island's game-play is beautifully balanced between object puzzles, mazes, dialogue challenges, and more original ideas such as the scary pirate face competition.  While most puzzles are logical and solvable, there are a few where admittedly you may be tempted to seek a hint or two, but overall the game is well designed enough not to have you stuck for too long, and there shouldn't be any need to load and replay levels as it's very forgiving.

Once again, the Monkey Island team returns to the fray to show the others who the adventure design daddies are, by producing a top notch adventure series that really blows the competition out of the (shark infested) water.

Even the monkeys are cool, and I hate monkeys...