N-Philes

Tales of Monkey Island Impressions

Posted June 9th 2009 by Adam Glasgow.

Derrick, Jordan and I all had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the folks from Telltale Games, who were eager to show off their new episodic adventure: Tales of Monkey Island. Now try and keep up, there are two new Monkey Island games on the way. The first is a remake of the original game, completely redrawn, rescored, re-everythinged. And it looks great. Tales of Monkey Island, on the other hand, is a new addition to the series to be released starting in July on the PC and WiiWare, developed by Telltale (many of who have worked on previous Monkey Island games in the past). More after the break.

Traditionally, each episode in Telltale's games (Strongbad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Wallace and Gromit, Bone, Sam and Max) have been more or less standalone stories, with perhaps some kind of loose connective tissue linking them together. It was heavily accentuated that this would not be the case – this time each episode is more like a chapter in a book. Things tie up, to some extent, but for every question answered more are raised. There are some who aren't fans of the episodic game idea, but frankly I don't get what their problem is. You end up paying the same, total (or less), for a complete set of episodes as you would for a normal game. Plus, you have the option of quitting in the middle and not paying for the episodes you don't want to play if you decide you're not into it anymore.

Anyways, Tales seems to play like a classic adventure game; you navigate the world and click on items and NPCs to interact with them. The story picks up shortly after the last one ended, which should make long term fans feel right at home. The humor and style of the game seem to have been preserved very well, it really feels like a Monkey Island game as opposed to a spin off or side story. That being said, I'm not exactly wild about the visual style. I know the simplified 3D character models are a stylistic choice, and that's fine, but to me it almost just makes it feel aged as opposed to stylized. I do really like the backgrounds, though.

Overall I was pretty impressed with the game, it seems like it's going to be good fun. Its release date is set for July 7^th for the PC (and right around there for WiiWare), at which point you can buy each episode individually. The best way to go, though, if you have a PC, is to pre-order the whole thing. You get it at the discounted price of $35, each episode delivered digitally monthly. Plus they send you a collector's DVD with a slipcase painted by Steve Purcell, plus you get an additional Telltale Games episode (of your choice). Not a bad deal, I'm thinking.

Tags: PC, Wii, Tales of Monkey Island

Posted in: News, Gaming

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