At long last a happy return to the Monkey Island games. As you could probably tell from reading any other point and click adventure game reviews I have written, I am a huge fan of the series, and yes that does include the rather poor ‘Escape From Monkey Island’ which was released on the PC and PS2 what seems like an eternity ago. So when our illustrious Boss man gave me this opportunity I was literally bouncing in my seat as I waited for the download to complete. I double clicked the Icon on my desktop and a huge grin spread across my face as I heard that iconic theme music.
The game begins as excitingly as you could hope for, with our hapless hero GuyBrush Threepwood, the wannabe pirate and husband to Governor Elaine Marley Threepwood, about to end the long battle with his nemesis the ghost/zombie/demon/something or other voodoo type monster pirate LeChuck. Of course, in a typical Monkey Island turn of events the battle doesn’t turn out the way he planned and instead of killing LeChuck he removes his evil and turns him into an amiable human once more….However, there is a side effect with Guybrush’s hand being possessed by Lechucks evil ala Evil Dead. From there the adventure only gets weirder and a lot funnier as Guybrush must locate the rather secretive and elusive DeepGut on Flotsam Island, a strange place where ships can land but never leave because the winds always come to the island but never blow from it. I could go on with the story but I don’t want to spoil too much of it for you.
The game is a dream to play, the controls becoming second nature very quickly. My only problem was with the game stuttering but this was easily remedied by changing the graphical components of the game to a slightly lower setting. This is the first Monkey Island game (not including Escape from Monkey Island as it wasn’t strictly speaking a point and click adventure) to incorporate this feature and allows a greater range of PC users to play the game for as we all know, graphical capabilitues can vary from PC to PC. The story is amusing and never fails to keep you interested and the amount of dialogue will keep you playing again and again in order to hear all the game has to offer. The scenery and the animation of the characters is amazing, proving once again that realism does not always make a game better.
The length of the game, while not as long as previous Monkey Island games, is just enough to warrant the price tag of the download and if you take into account there are 5 episodes in total you can do far worse than this series of episodic gems. If you had asked me before I played this adventure, I would have complained and moaned about it not being available as a full game, but as it stands I couldn’t be happier with the way it has been produced. My only quibble is that it is not available on the Xbox 360 or the PS3 yet.
If you own a Wii or are happy to download games onto your PC then get your hands on this treasure as soon as you can, I promise you won’t be disappointed. A hearty set of tales indeed.
Next I will be reviewing part 2 – The Siege of Spinner Cay.
VideogameUK verdict: 8/10
