Vital Stats

Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Online: None

Developer: Telltale
Games
Publisher: Telltale
Games
ESRB Rating: E
Release Date: 7/7/09

Platforms

• PC
• Wii (upcoming)

Like an infatuated zombie pirate, The Monkey Island series has returned from parts unknown to perform unspeakable acts on your brains. It’s pushing eight years since the last installment, which was less well received than its three predecessors, so you may be wondering if this is a revival or betrayal of the brand.

Along with Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island more or less defined what adventure games were and could be. From its point-and-click beginnings through its seemingly fatal foray into 3d, the franchise’s eight-year run more or less bookended the relevance of the entire adventure genre.

Creator Ron Gilbert left the development house well before the end of the series, and faded from public view along with franchise and genre. However, all three are again on the rise, eerily in tandem. Gilbert is working for Hothead Games and delivering the Penny Arcade Expo keynote, the adventure genre has found new life in episodic content, and Telltale games just released the first episode in their new Tales of Monkey Island series: The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

Players control Guybrush Threepwood (mighty pirate) in his continuing altercation with the ghost zombie demon dread pirate LeChuck over the affections of governor Elaine Marley. In true Threepwood fashion, Guybrush screws it up, destroys Elaine’s ship, and washes up on an unknown island.

The game itself is classic adventure fare, for weal and woe. You’ll spend the first episode solving object puzzles as you engage in a little light piracy, attempt to acquire a ship, and figure out a way to get it off the island. It’s pretty much Monkey Island de rigueur and Telltale Games has clearly gone to some effort to make series veterans feel at home.

Maybe I can use this sword to slice
the head off this beer—no, that didn’t work.
Ok. Maybe I’m supposed to…

In terms of gameplay, this means that this first Monkey Island episode sticks close to the tropes that defined the adventure genre. You can make a cyclical flowchart to describe the play process. Start by scouring the island for puzzles and the fobs that will help you solve them. Once you’re fairly convinced that you have everything you could possibly need, try using the items to solve the puzzle. Step three is simple: fail. You may repeat step three as many times as you like before you start worrying that you missed an important item somewhere and you revisit step 1. It makes for frustrating gameplay, but can be just as rewarding when you divine the solution. That’s just the price of entry for playing adventure games, though. If you enjoy (or at least are inured to) the struggle against this kind of object puzzle, then Launch of the Screaming Narwhal won’t disappoint.

It helps that Telltale Games has learned a few things from their previous genre entries. Puzzle-critical items are generally salient and sit in places onscreen that will draw your eye. There aren’t overly many either, which winnows the red herrings during the puzzle solving process. Both these tricks help cut down on the pointless fumbling in the dark that scourged adventure games in the 90′s without upsetting the core formula that defines the genre.

Even if you do get stuck, Telltale has posted an official walkthrough of the game on their website, and there’s an adjustable-frequency in game hint system that controls how often Threepwood will think about the puzzles out loud. In short, although Telltale has tried to keep the adventure flavor in this new Monkey Island title, they’ve balanced it against the accessibility issues that arguably snuffed the genre in the first place. This, combined with the game’s four-hour brevity will make it appealing to both casual players and genre fans. Some abuse-scarred adventure veterans may feel the game is overly easy for all that, but confusing user-adjustable difficulty for hamstringing a genre is just the Stockholm syndrome talking.

LeChuck! You’re, um, looking well.

Tales of Monkey Island sticks with Telltale’s usual 3d visual style, which also happens to cleave to the standard set in Escape From Monkey Island. That is to say it lacks the visual richness you’d expect from a sprite-based game, but doesn’t make any meaningful use of the 3d for gameplay purposes outside a slightly awkward mouse control scheme. It never looks bad and makes for smooth graphical performance, but isn’t visually striking either. The flat visual texture does make one important contribution, however. It helps the puzzle-critical items stand out and generally facilitates the gameplay experience.

Not that gameplay or even art are really the defining traits of the Monkey Island brand. No, Monkey Island is all about the writing, and Launch of the Screaming Narwhal has captured much of the charm and comedy that defined the series in its heyday. Actually not just captured, but bound in indentured servitude and forced to do most of the heavy lifting around the jokes. This first episode constantly references earlier series entries and outright revisits several old jokes. This forgivable in light of the eight year fallow period and the game’s obvious mission to bring neophytes up to speed while simultaneously offering fanservice to series devotees. Just be aware that if this is your first Monkey Island, some of the jokes won’t stop to say hello as they zip past.

The parts that are new (as well as the smooth integration and tweaks to the homage) augur well for the writing as a whole. New characters are smartly written caricatures in the spirit of the series, and are both funny and strange. Even the labels on environment objects update as Guybrush evaluates them for resulting comedy gold. It’s pun-heavy and slapstick, and all delivered with familiar voice talent.

All in all, the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island showcases that Telltale Games both knows the venerable series and is a capable steward of its legacy. The game bears the flaws of its genre, but mitigates them with simplicity and brevity. Although it plunders the series history a bit overmuch, the writing is sharp and delivered by seasoned voice actors. To wit, it’s a competent Monkey Island game.

What It Costs: $35 (season preorder only for now, likely $9 once they price it per episode)

What It’s Worth:
•To The Hardcore: $10 (buy)
•To The Genre Fan: $10 (buy)
•To The Casual: $10 (buy)