Tales of Monkey Island

It’s been 9 years since we last saw Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™ in his swashbuckling, grog filled adventures and now Telltale Games, responsible for reviving Sam & Max, another beloved LucasArts franchise, takes us back to a Caribbean with talking skulls and three headed monkeys. Needless to say, living up to the legendary status of Monkey Island is not an easy task - let’s see how Telltale fared so far.

Getting the worst out of the way first, if you were longing to see something along the lines of the hand drawn graphics from Curse of the Monkey Island, you’re out of luck. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal features 3D graphics and even if character design is leagues above the previous game, it’s still not very fetching.

The worst offender here is the framerate, once again, Telltale couldn't get the console version working as well as the PC one, with a very unstable framerate that hurts the game quite a bit. On the bright side, animations and expressions do their job very well, adding to the overall comedy of the plot and making the characters more alive. Moving around is also handled like in the previous game, via the joystick or by cumbersomely dragging the cursor instead of the simple point and “click” mechanics, which would've been appreciated.

Every Monkey Island fan worth his or hers pieces of eight knows that humour is just as important to the series as the nonsensical puzzles and Telltale surely delivers in that department. Guybrush Threepwood, despite all his adventures still looks and acts like the unlikeliest person to be a pirate, the dialogue is razor sharp with lots of wit, there are plenty of references to the old games sure to delight fans and of course, the characters are teeming with charm and personality.

This is an ex-parrot! He has ceased to be!

There’s a peculiarity in the dialogue trees: the phrases you choose rarely if ever correspond to what Threepwood actually says. This is a double-edged blade: on one hand not only does it seems like you’re reading what our Mighty Pirate actually thinks before moderating his responses, it also keeps surprising players. On the other hand, it’s a “mechanic” that would work better if used more sporadically and most of the time regardless of what you choose the result is the same, removing any challenge from conversations. Still, the writing elicits responses that range from a forced smile to a good laugh, and just like in other Monkey Island games makes it a very entertaining and enjoyable experience. Every line of text is voiced by a great cast of voice actors and Dominic Armato returns to voice our hero alongside a familiar and very fitting soundtrack. Again, the Wii version doesn't quite hold up and the sound is quite compressed. Whether this is because of the size limit or not, it's a flaw and it's there.

The puzzles, usually bordering on the non-sensical, make you combine items for unexpected and often humorous results, making sure the player takes a good look at the inventory as well as everything and everyone on Floatsam Island. However, more challenge would be appreciated with the game’s mysteries only slightly tickling the brain - never enough to give a big sense of satisfaction for solving them. One particular puzzle that involves traversing a jungle is especially annoying and worst of all, you’ll have to pretty much do it a second time, feeling like it’s just there to pad the game’s length.

One can’t stop but wondering if the lack of challenge and boring jungle mazes aren’t a byproduct of the episodic nature of the game. Since this is the first episode, depending on the next ones it might be viewed as natural difficulty progression. This episode will take you about 3 hours to finish and there aren’t a lot of reasons for you to go back to it, but that’s pretty much how the genre rolls.

So did Telltale fill the shoes left behind for 9 years? Hard to say for sure yet. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is a good adventure game that mostly lives up to the series: the jokes are there and so is the series' feeling. But - considering the bad framerate and badly compressed audio the 1000 Wii Points this title costs may better be spent on the superior PC version. If it weren't for these issues we would've whole heartedly recommended Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, as it is, proceed with caution.

Comments

Mr_bogus Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 02:51 || Total Comments: 269

Huh? You can't just point & click using the remote?! Gotta use the analog stick to move the cursor around???? If that's really true, Wii Chess has just lost its floating trophy for "worst control decision ever".

Darkflame Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 04:25 || Total Comments: 1073

wtf ^_- They release it on the one (home) console able to point and click and dont support it? Weird.

Auntnadia Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 05:19 || Total Comments: 854

you can point and click if there is something to click on (an object or character)and the character will walk to it. if you double click, the character also sprints. the wiimote is still used to point. the maze section has been in every single monkey island game and this one is the least annoying of all of them in my opinion. and i also found the puzzles to make complete sense compared to previous outings, but maybe because i'm used to the genre. the lack of challenge is certainly because it's episodic. if you're stuck on an episode, you're unlikely to download the next one, which is only a month away.

Nathan Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 05:32 || Total Comments: 1138

This parrot is deceased!

Scythe3000 Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 || Total Comments: 204

"He's gone to meet his maker, He's pushing up daisies...This is a late Parrot!" hehe classic

LordVader Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 07:09 || Total Comments: 59

Even the PC version doesn't use point and click movement. You hold your mouse button and can steer Guybrush, and it works awfully. Alternatively you can use the arrow keys, which works better. And while the PC version is slightly better, I was still disappointed by the performance even on the lowest settings. I'll have to have a hard think about which version to buy. I've already spent 1000 points on the Wii version, but I could take the PC deal and still come off cheaper and have a boxed version at the end.

EEVILMURRAY Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 07:23 || Total Comments: 48

Is Murray back?

Tphi @ N-E Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 07:43 || Total Comments: 461

***Spoilers*** Not initially, but yes later on :)

EEVILMURRAY Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 08:14 || Total Comments: 48

That's what I like to hear.

Hellfire Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 07:40 || Total Comments: 822

Never did I say the PC version uses point and click. Auntnadia you can't use point and click alone to move around and while mazes are a part of monkey island, to me this one is by far the worst, not to mention that it's flat out bad. Again, even if you can oly get the Wii version this is a good game.

Auntnadia Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 16:59 || Total Comments: 854

sorry, you must have misread my comment. it was: "you can point and click if there is something to click on (an object or character)and the character will walk to it. if you double click, the character also sprints." the wii version is still good fun, but such shoddy work for 1000 wiipoints. i noticed a few times where guybrush moves across a whole screen without moving his legs. thats not the wii's processor, it's bad programming. and when you complete the chapter, the wii needs to be unplugged at the wall!!

Pesten Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 04:22 || Total Comments: 101

huh - that´s true. My Wii just froze after completing the game. This game was really short - 3 hours? I´m sure it didn´t last that long. And the framerate was horrible. Funny jokes - but not worth its wiipoints.

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