Tales of Monkey Island - Windows / Wii (2009)
PC Cover
Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
The story begins in media res, with Guybrush having completed a quest for a mysterious voodoo root. Elaine and him run into LeChuck, whom they almost defeat - except instead of killing him, they accidentally end up summoning all of his evil energy and dispersing it throughout the Caribbean. This affliction, known as the Pox of LeChuck, begins infecting all of the other pirates, causing them to become even more dangerous and enraged. Furthermore, the disease inflicts Guybrush's left hand, causing it to develop a mind of its own. Even more bizarrely, LeChuck regains his mortal form, and actually begins to help Guybrush and Elaine on their search. Their only clue lies in a mystical artifact called "La Esponja Grande", which is told to mitigate the curse. And so, Guybrush begins another adventure to hunt it down.
Tales of Monkey Island is the first step into true 3D for the series. At first it looks like a bit of a mixed bag - the environments look excellent, but the character models are noticeably low-poly and plasticy. Telltale realizes that adventure game fans might not have super powerful rigs and have designed their games to work on low spec systems, in addition to allow easy porting to consoles. Still, even though it's not the prettiest in stills, most of those concerns fade away when you see it in action - it's extremely well animated, with the numerous facial expressions and body movements greatly enhancing the dialogue scenes.
The other vaguely controversial move is the control scheme. It's not completely keyboard-based like Escape from Monkey Island, but it's not entirely point n' click either. Instead, you use the cursor to interact with objects, while you move with the keyboard (or nunchuck.) There is an option to hold down the mouse button and direct Guybrush by pointing him in different directions, but it's clumsy and not recommended at all. Players of first-person shooters will be right at home, since it's easy to use the ASWD configuration to walk around, but those unaccustomed to the set-up will probably be annoyed. Telltale's official explanation is that it's extremely difficult to implement a purely point n' click interface when you have dynamic environments. And they're right - the camera scrolls and follows Guybrush as he moves around, potentially making it difficult to point to location that's offscreen.
Like all of Telltale's games, Tales of Monkey Island is released episodically, with a new chapter released approximately once a month. While their previous games were largely standalone episodes with some recurring themes, each chapter of Tales is a smaller chunk of a larger narrative. It's not that different than the structure of the previous games, it just happens that each ends on some kind of cliffhanger, to whet the appetite and give gamers something to look forward to.
The first chapter, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, takes place in Flotsam Island, where Guybrush is shipwrecked after his initial encounter with LeChuck. The island is afflicted with a strange condition, where strong winds make it impossible for anything to escape. Furthermore, an eccentric scientist named Marquis de Singe takes a particular interest in Guybrush's infected hand, to the point where it becomes a dangerous obsession. It's up to Guybrush to find out the source of the winds, eliminate them, and gain possession of a ship - the Screaming Narwhal of the title. Here, he is also guided by the Voodoo Lady to hunt down the long-missing Coronado De Cava, an explorer who supposedly knows the location of La Esponja Grande.
The second chapter, The Siege at Spinner Cay, begins with Guybrush and his partner, Captain Winslow, under attack by a bounty hunter named Morgan LeFlay. Sent by de Singe to retrieve Guybrush's hand, LeFlay is a huge Guybrush fangirl, gushing while simultaneously attacking him. After evading her (but losing his hand in the process, being replaced with an appropriately piratey hook), Guybrush ends up at Spinner Cay, a small grouping of islands and home to a race of androgynous merfolk called Vaycaylians. Here he runs into Elaine and LeChuck, who are arguing with another faction of pirates, driven mad by the pox, over the Vaycaylians' mystical artifacts. The peaceful talks soon erupt into chaos, and Guybrush must find a way to fend off their attacks, while learning more about the location of DeCava. One of the best parts of this chapter is where Guybrush gives LeChuck a lesson in adventure puzzle logic, slowly walking him through all of the steps to figure out what to do. ("If I stick this in there, then it looks like a cow. Do I need a cow?")
The third chapter, Lair of the Leviathan, is largely set in the stomach of a gigantic manatee, who swallowed Guybrush and his ship, along with LeFlay. Conveniently, he happens upon De Cava, as well as the rest of his crewmates, who have set up their own society deeper in the belly of the bast. Guybrush needs to guide the manatee to the Mantee Mating Grounds, where La Esponja Grande apparently resides, but its cochlea (the part of the inner ear which aids in navigation) is damaged, resulting in the first major quest of the chapter. After guiding the manatee and escaping from its insides, he must somehow find a way to distract the female manatee guarding their treasure.
This chapter in particular is filled with outstanding moments. In order to get initiated with the crew, you need to best one of the men by making scary (more like stupid) faces. Functionally, it's a very easy puzzle, since you just need to walk around and look at other things (and talk to other people) to get inspired, and all you need to do is not use the same expressions more than once to win. It's remarkably dumb, but watching it all play out is gleefully ludicrous. It's even better when you need to scare one of the other crew members by mimicking the expression of the person he fears most - Sister Agnes, Director of Discipline.
And then there's Murray. He pops here again, and serve more of a useful function than his gratuitous (but still funny) cameo back in Escape from Monkey Island. While in the belly of the manatee, you come across a stranded crew who've used the opportunity to take a nice, relaxing vacation. The three of them are so contently deluded that they somehow refuse to believe that the fourth, a guy named Santino, actually died a long time ago and is now a mere skeleton. You'll need to switch his skull with Murray, in an attempt to get him to do you a favor...until he double crosses you, anyway. It's also amusing how you later learn that Santino actually was a pretty awesome dude - it makes me wonder if you'll somehow meet him later on, even though it'd probably ruin the mystery.
Then there's the manatee flirting. Once you've made it to the manatee breeding grounds, you need to lure the female manatee out of her cave. The male manatee is too frightened to do anything, so you need to teach yourself their language to get them hooked up. However, the only guide you have is a travel book, filled with stock phrases. The female manatee will say something threatening - you need to pick one of those fairly neutral sentences to make it sound like you're being coy. It's an inventive play off the insult swordfighting, even though it's not quite as funny.
The fourth chapter, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, returns the action back to Flotsam Island, where Guybrush is brought in front of a courtroom under various trumped up charges. After disproving all of the witness, Guybrush still has to face up to his most grievous charge - the spreading of the pox of LeChuck. Elaine is a key witness, but unfortunately the pox has driven her to near madness, and she insists on fighting with Morgan. Furthermore, Guybrush learns that La Esponja Grande needs to be charged before it's of any use, requiring some more item gathering and questing to find the appropriate recipe.
This chapter sees the return of Stan, who appears as the prosecutor for the trial and seems to exist solely to take advantage of the resulting drama to sell unlicensed toys. While most of the locations are the same as the first chapter, the island is now dark, and a few new areas are available, including the courthouse and the bar Club 41 It's also quite a dramatic chapter, something which the series has never pulled off successfully before, with a helluva cliffhanger ending.
The fifth chapter, Rise of the Pirate God, is tentatively scheduled to be released in late November or early December.
The puzzles are some of the best of the series, if only because they're clever without being obtusely difficult. There's sort of a built-in hint system where Guybrush will make comments about the situation as you wonder around, so it least it'll help point you in the right direction. The plot and writing is definitely a step up from Escape from Monkey Island. The dialogue still isn't quite as funny as the older games, but the inspired situations and puzzles more than make up for it. The voice acting still sparkles, utilizing most of the cast members from Curse of Monkey Island, with the exception of LeChuck. His new voice is appropriate, seeing as how he's not as sneeringly evil as he used to be.
The characters are much better written though, especially with the romantic subplot. Guybrush's love affair with Elaine was always kind of a joke in the first three games...until they ended up married by the end of it. By the time the fourth game rolled around, Guybrush was clearly henpecked, and Elaine was kinda bitchy - that's such a worn out theme that it's just not funny. Elaine's more restrained, less mean and more of a capable woman who can clearly take care of herself, as evidenced in the first game. And she's actually pretty charming too, as evidenced by the one scene where you can make Guybrush try to say "no" in a dozen different ways, only to end up conceding after exhausting all of them. It also helps that her British voice actress from Curse is back.
And then there's Morgan LeFlay, easily one of the most memorable cast members in the series, who plays a fairly sizable role in this one. Most of her charm is carried through the outstanding animation and overly enthusiastic voice actor, and it's hard to be too scared of her when she's so damned chipper. One of the most amusing sections is where Guybrush and Morgan must pretend they're married, and need to answer a bunch of intimate questions based on some random things she mumbled when passed out.
There are still some issues though. Take de Singe, and compare him to Ozzie Mandrill, the villain of Escape from Monkey Island. He was one of that game's weaker links, with his only major characteristic, other than being evil and cranky, was randomly sticking the names of Australian animals into his speech, which also wasn't very funny. Like Mandrill, he's just another ethnic stereotype, this time a super gay Frenchman. Still, it's not all bad - the part in the first chapter where you need to coerce a monkey to free you from his operation table is pretty inspired, and his squeaky/shrill voice acting is slightly funny.
Plus, due to the pace which Telltale needs to crank these out, some of the assets get reused a bit too often. The first chapter features not one, but TWO puzzles where you need to navigate through a jungle maze, similar to the Treasure Trial from the first game. In the second chapter...you come across an almost identical looking maze! Thankfully there's no more puzzle to solve, but you still need to wander around. The same maze pops up again in the fourth chapter, but at least there's a twist. Per usual protocol, you're given a map, but you can fold and refold it, altering reality so you can navigate successfully through the maze. Still, the reuse of locations - and character models for nearly all of the NPCs - is one of the game's biggest weakness.
In addition the PC release, Tales of Monkey Island have also been released on the Wii as downloadable WiiWare games. Unfortunately, Nintendo gamers get the hose on this one. The episodes are more expensive - the whole season was released for $35, but the Wii version require buying each individually for 1000 points, or $10 each. Each episode is released after its computer counterpart, usually by several weeks. The graphics obviously aren't as high resolution, but it also suffers from a choppier frame rate and stuttering graphics. Furthermore, due to the size restrictions of WiiWare games, all of the dialogue is heavily compressed, making it sound significantly worse. The control scheme practically seems made for the remote and nunchuck, but that's the only thing the Wii release has going in its favor.
MP3s Download here
Chapter 1 - Intro
The Siege at Spinner Cay
The Siege at Spinner Cay
The Siege at Spinner Cay
Lair of the Leviathan
Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
The Siege at Spinner Cay
The Siege at Spinner Cay
Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Lair of the Leviathan
Lair of the Leviathan
Lair of the Leviathan
The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
Miscellaneous
In the original disk version of Monkey Island, if you wandered around the forest a bit, you could eventually find a stump with a small opening in it. If Guybrush inspects it, he'll mention that it leads to a series of catacombs try to go in, and then the game asks you to insert "Disk 22". The game obviously never shipped on that many disks, so after paging through the requests for more absurdly high number disks, Guybrush just comments about how he'll have to skip that part of the game. This led to some confusion, as apparently some people didn't get the joke and thought they were missing disks, which was further corroborated by a credit in the ending for "Artwork for Disk 22". This joke was removed from the CD version, seeing how it didn't really make sense, as well as the Special Edition. Apparently Lucasarts got some calls about this, as referenced in a scene in Monkey Island 2 where Guybrush calls the LucasFilm Games Hint Line and asks who's responsible for "that damn stump joke."
It was referenced again in the Curse of Monkey Island, when Guybrush sticks his head through a hole and emerges out of the stump. Guybrush is still in high cartoony, high res rendition from the game, while the background is straight of the original VGA release. Guybrush comments on a herd of stunning well rendered jaguars off screen, and then ducks back in.
Grog
Grog is drink of choice of pirates all throughout the Caribbean. According to the Three Important Looking Pirates in the first game, grog consists of one or more of the following: kerosene, propylene glycol, artificial sweeteners, battery acid, rum, acetone, battery acid, red dye #2, scumm, axle grease and/or pepperoni. Despite its overly caustic nature, it can also be mixed into various other drinks, including grogatinis and grogaccinos.
Brilliantly, an Argentenian TV news show found this recipe posted on Facebook and thought that it was real. What fantastic journalism. (Youtube MP4 file)
Quotes
"I'm Guybrush Threepwood and I'm a _______."
Usually used as an introduction, the blank is usually filled with "mighty pirate", but choices include any number of wacky professions.
"Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!"
The traditional method of distracting people. Of course, at one point, there actually IS a three-headed monkey, whom everyone outside of Guybrush fails to notice.
"I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Another character introduction, first used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and has popped up in nearly every Lucasarts adventure game since.
"That's the second biggest ______ I've ever seen!"
A joke more or less ripped off from the TV show Get Smart, but funny nonetheless.
The First Meeting of Guybrush and Meathook
Guybrush: I'm a pirate, cannonball-head. Who are you?
Links
The SCUMM Bar A fantastic MI fan site.
The Secret of Monkey Island
Curse from Monkey Island
Curse from Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island marked the end of adventure gaming for Lucasarts, as they began to shift development towards legions of Star Wars licensed games. In 2005, Telltale Games was founded by several ex-Lucasarts staff They quickly grew into the niche of developing adventure games based on licensed properties, including Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures, and two seasons of Sam and Max: Freelance Police. In 2009, Telltale partnered with Lucasarts to create Tales of Monkey Island, a series of five downloadable chapters, released approximately once a month, to effectively create a brand new, fifth Monkey Island title. Some of the designers include David Grossman (from the first two Monkey Islands) and Michael Stemmle (from Escape from Monkey Island), amongst others. Ron Gilbert also acts as a consultant, and is given the title "Professor of Monkeyology" in the credits.
The Stump Joke
Meathook: My name's Meathook...and I think you've got a little attitude problem!
Guybrush: Well, I think you've got a little hair problem.
Meathook: Geeze! You just don't know when to quit, do you?
Guybrush: Obviously, neither did your barber.
The International House of Mojo A general Lucasarts fan site.
The World of Monkey Island Another fantastic MI fan site.
Monkey Island Wiki An extensive wiki.
The Grumpy Gamer Ron Gilbert's personal site.
Game Set Watch Monkey Island Retrospective A good look at the history behind the games.
Secret of Monkey Island Deleted Scenes Some dialogue found deep within the game code.
