First episode of Tales of Monkey Island out today!


Woot!

SMI:SE is out soon too, I'm getting that on release day.

Lechuck, schmechuck!

The fifth installment in the famed Monkey Island franchise is here, not in the form of a boxed-set game but in the form of episodic adventures. Hoist your colors, brandish your root-beer drenched cutlass and... oy there matey! What in Davy Jones' cabinet hinges happened to your hand?

From its amusing art style to its excellent voice acting to its excentric puzzles, Tales of Monkey Island : Launch of the Screaming Narwhal does not disappoint! While it perhaps does not herald a new age of adventure gaming, it is a stalwart and amusing venture in the world of Monkey Island. Set after a unexistent fifth adventure, we join Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate (tm) as he sails in on the disease-ridden and all too voodooly contagious Lechuck to once again save the day, and save his bony lass Elayne. Oh and some monkeys.

Needless to say, true to himself, Master Threepwood manages once more to find trouble. A few explosions later, you are left stranded on the wind-trapped island of Flotsam.

Time to prove to its filthy population who's the greatest pirate in the Carribeans.

The gameplay is all you would expect from a point-and-click adventure. Chit-chat with the locals, horde in tons of objects each wilder than the last, to solve a wide variety of puzzles. More akin to Monkey Island 4, you will control Guybrush using your keyboard arrows (or awsd), or by holding down the left mouse button and sliding your mouse. While the later option takes some getting used to and seems at first clumsy, you will discover that it works well enough. Again much like MI4 and unlike the first three titles in the series, you only have to click on items and watch Guybrush do what he does best, rather than determine his actions through a list of verbs. Through and through it works well and the navigation through Flotsam island is a breeze.

The graphics are lush and beautiful, true to the beauty of the Monkey Island franchise. Facial animations are surprisingly clean. Textures, shadows and lighting give the game a beautiful not-quite-cel-shaded, not-quite-full-3d appearance. Though it looks excellent even on the lower graphical settings (1-3) you will encounter a handful of quirks in the world designs. Though they do not scream for attention, you are likely to glimpse seams amongst the dirt paths of the jungle, or missing polygons on one character model or another. Hardly enough to distract from the beautiful settings and excellent animations.

The ambient sounds and score both absorb you into the world of Monkey Island as it did in past titles. Our beloved voice actors from MI3 and MI4 are back to voice their respective characters once more, offering a quality prestation.

The puzzles themselves require flair, attention to detail and even sound and most importantly clumsy curiosity true to the man himself. Intuitive, comical and challenging, they are likely to keep you trapped on the Flotsam sands for a nice handful of hours.

I for one am looking forward to the next episode!

Grog! Grog! Grog!

Did you write this review?

I'm interested in this game. But I'm not so sure about the graphics and animation. From what I've seen so far in previews that it looks rather dated and the animation looks rather stiff. Still, hardly matters for a game like this.

Ya I was bored and wrote that

I'm no aspiring reviewer.

And I guess I agree with you the animations are somewhat stiff but I thought they worked well for the Monkey Island cartoon-esque style.

I wouldn't say the graphics are that dated because they are meant to be very cartoony.