The Secret of Monkey Island SE

For many gamers, there is certain feeling of loss for the games of today. A loss of innocence, a loss of imagination, a loss of indeed the very things that made us fall in love with games in the first place. When we all praised Goldeneye and Doom, claiming how FPS was the way forward, none of us knew what we were letting ourselves in for; the endless corridors, the bland grey and brown of the future, the muzzle flare that gets more attention to detail to it than the lump of meat holding the gun. What was sacrificed at the alter of realistic gunplay was the one thing that we know need now more than ever: the character. Thank monkey bladders, then, for The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition.


To be a pirate, you must also be a fowl smelling, grog swilling pig *hiccup*

Of course, Monkey Island is not a new game, it's a re-tooling of the original Lucas Arts adventure for the 1990's. That may immediately turn off a lot of players, but fear not my jaded modern chum, for this release comes with all new shiny graphics and voice acting, meaning that your contemporary little head won't be swarmed with jumbled pixels and walls of text. Unless you want to be swarmed by them, in which case hit the 'back' button on your 360 controller to see how far we've come, and realise that, hey, old graphics aren't that bad! Well, mostly not that bad, the new visual are definitely better, but if for some strange reason you like to be reminded that this game is 19 years old, go ahead and hit that button. You'll even get an achievement!

However hitting that button comes with a greater sacrifice than just hand painted backgrounds, you'll also lose the wonderful voice acting. Truly, you'll be hard pressed to find a group of actors more in love with the lines they're reading than in this game. Each line is delivered with such conviction, such great timing and such pizazz (I have no idea what that word means but it sounds good!) that you'll be chortling at every little gag and hoping the next line was as good as the last. Which it will be. Because this is Monkey Island.

But enough of all this frivolity, these features weren't in the original, so what of the game itself? Point and click gaming died a rather tragic death towards the end of the 90's, but when you play Monkey Island you'll wonder why. Yes, OK, some of the puzzles are a tad obtuse and yes, it's not exactly action packed, but the gameplay itself has charm. Who wants to wield a blade with motion plus when you can clash wits instead? Why master a reaction based lock picking game when you can give stylish confetti to a heavily armed clown? Fighting a troll in a one on one showdown has nothing on giving him something that will garner a lot of attention but is ultimately pointless. Monkey Island takes its slow approach to puzzle solving and uses it to create unique ideas and amusing scenarios.

Speaking of scenarios, I haven't really explained the premise of the title. You play as Guybrush Threepwood, a young miscreant who dreams of becoming a mighty pirate. You begin your quest on the island of Melee, seeking out the pirate masters who set you three tasks you must complete to become a pirate. From there, the story takes a few twists and turns as the Ghost Pirate LeChuck hatches a devious plan and only you, Guybrush Threepwood, can be bothered to thwart it! Along the way you'll encounter a marvellous mirage of witty characters and companions, including Stan, the second hand boat salesman (who is probably the 3rd or 4th most annoying character ever written) Meathook, the pirate who lost his hands to a terrible beast and a group of ferocious cannibals, who may or may not eat you, depending on you fat content. The adventure is always changing and full of wacky scenarios, each one more absurd and charming than the last. This isn't a game that suffers from lack of variety.

What it does suffer from a lack of, though, is replay value. Oh sure, there are a few achievements that may require a couple of playthroughs to get (beat it in under 3 hours, find the alternative ending) but ultimately this is one adventure that runs for about 6 hours and then it's over. There's not much incentive to replay it as you know all the puzzles and one liners, so it feels a bit silly to run through again. Part of me thinks that the developers knew this, and that's why it comes to XBLA with an 800 MSP price tag, to soften the blow, but despite this generous discount to a game that could have easily sold for 1200 it still hurts the game in the long run.

But before I conclude this review, let me say right now that this re-release comes with the best feature of any point and click game I have played in the past year or so, a built in hint system. Thank. God. This neat little feature takes all the frustrations out of some of the more bizarre puzzles and when you just can't be bothered to figure out what the hell the developer was thinking, being able to hold down 'x' to find out where to go is a downright miracle, and far easier than looking up GameFAQ's.

Overall, this re-release of a classic game-gone-by is completely worth your cash, and it gets a hearty recommendation over all the other titles currently available on XBLA at the same price. They don't make 'em like this any more, that's for sure.

Score: 9.0