As a child born in the early 80’s with one of the first PCs in the house, I played all the classic games from that era. As some might say, the early 90’s were the golden age for adventure games and I think I’d have to agree. I played Loom, the two Indiana Jones games, the Dig, Full Throttle etc. So when I heard a couple of months ago that they were releasing new Monkey Island games, I like many other 20 somethings had a little piddle on the kitchen floor in excitement.
If nothing else, I’m going to buy the new Monkey Island games just to show my support. I’ve been waiting for a new game to play for the past 10+ years and the first day they released Tales of Monkey Island, Episode 1, I picked it up off Steam.
I’m not sure about the episodic format that Telltale and other developers like to use these days, I think I’d rather them just put them all together in one game. I’m not sure what it achieves, its not like you can buy the games separately. I now have 5 TOMI games in my steam list and I can only play one of them. I have to wait 5 months in order to play them all. If they needed more time to polish the games, I could’ve waited. As it is, I’ve paid them $35 for a promise. They get the money in advance and I get to wait for another 4 months.
Any game that gets my wife half interested in playing is a winner in my book. To my surprise and pleasure, TOMI is one of the only games where she’s shown half an interest. She doesn’t like the pressure in games; doesn’t like time limits nor the threat of death. Even though it got terrible reviews, she really liked playing American McGee’s Grimm because there was no pressure and she was able to butt stomp and stink up children to her hearts content. As with all other MI games, there is no threat of dying so you can wander around reveling in the atmosphere that comes with any good MI game. There has also been several times that TOMI has made us both chuckle and that’s nice. Despite not being a multiplayer, we’ve been able to play as a team, solving the puzzles (not insanely difficult or frustrating) and enjoying the storyline (even though I had to give some back story as we were going along).
I didn’t really like the looks of the new Guybrush model but its growing on me slightly. The little goatee doesn’t do him any justice but thanks to Dominic Armato’s dulcet tones, Guybrush is instantly familiar.
The island was interesting if a little bit small, the characters were full of… character, but there wasn’t a three headed monkey to be found. I’m looking forward to the next one – there have been hints that some characters may appear who fans will recognize; including Stan and someone with a grudge and a sword (although that could be nearly anyone Guybrush has bumped into in the past).
