Nerd Mentality

REVIEW: Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal

Posted September 3rd 2009 by Gareth Trinkwon.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a decade since Lucasarts brought the world a new installment in the Monkey Island series. Known for its witty humor, talking skulls and adventure on the high seas, Monkey Island has been a cult classic amongst PC gamers since the early '90s. The series stars Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate, as he continues his everlasting battle against the evil zombie pirate Le Chuck and attempts to rescue the love of his life, Elaine Marley. Now, thanks to new developer TellTale Games, the series is making a grand return in the form of five separately sold episodes: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, The Siege of Spinner Cay, Lair of the Leviathan, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood and Rise of the Pirate God. I'd love to tell you about all of them, but I'm afraid I'm limited to the first episode for now. So let's get this Screaming Narwhal started.

For those die-hard Monkey Island fans that are worried about a different developer taking over the series, or that the game's episodic nature will make it shallow or cheapen the story, let me put your mind at rest. This is just as much a Monkey Island game as any other in the series. The story continues on from the previous game, Escape From Monkey Island, with Guybrush (voiced by Dominic Armato) again attempting to rescue his wife from Le Chuck. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal begins with Guybrush finding himself with a zombie-infected hand and stranded on Flotsam island, a sparsely populated place with a mysterious and suspicious weather system that prevents anyone from leaving. Without trying to spoil too much, it's up to Guybrush to enchant his cutlass with root beer, search for buried treasure, battle an insane French surgeon, commandeer a ship and return to the high seas with a barrel of grog. And hopefully all before bed time.

Newcomers to the series shouldn't need too much background information to get a jist of what's happening in the story, though they'll definitely miss a lot of the inside jokes. Old characters make cameo appearances, and Guybrush seems to think every skeleton he sees might be his (other) arch-nemesis the evil, mighty demonic skull, Murray. Guybrush also references some of the events that happened in previous games, such as his stints on Melee Island and endless run-ins with the mysterious voodoo lady that's always more than willing to help him out.

The game's control system is a bit of a mish-mash of previous games in the series. Earlier Monkey Island titles were entirely mouse-driven, and you simply clicked where you wanted Guybrush to walk, look, interact, etc. The fourth game, probably due to it being co-developed for a console release, had a more archaic keyboard-based control scheme that never felt particularly intuitive. Tales of Monkey Island has the best of both worlds by giving you control over Guybrush's movement using the keyboard, and actions being performed by the mouse. It's not quite the same as the old point-and-click adventure style, but it's close enough. You can forego the keyboard entirely and use the mouse to move Guybrush around by holding the left mouse button. It takes a little getting used to, and felt more than a little awkward to me. The WASD + Mouse set up is more than sufficient.

I was originally a little disappointed at first that Tales would be 3D. The previous game, Escape from Monkey Island, was the first time the series went 3D and was a huge disappointment after playing through the beautifully drawn interactive cartoon that was Monkey Island 3. Characters looked incredibly basic, and the environments were made up of blurry backgrounds stitched together. The resulting game looked and felt like it should have skipped the third dimension entirely and kept to the series' roots. Luckily videogame graphics have moved on significantly since then, and Tales does look pretty damn good. The game has a simplified, blocky art style, and looks and feels like a true MI title. The character designs have moved on a little bit too. Guybrush has clearly aged a bit, and is now sporting a rather fetching pirate goatee.

Overall Comments

Whether you're a die-hard Monkey Island fan, a point-and-click adventure enthusiast, or just somebody that enjoys swashbuckling while exchanging witty insults, I'd definitely suggest giving this one a go. The game has been split into episodes, and at $7 a pop, you really don't have much to lose in at least trying the first one. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is a fine installment to the Monkey Island series, and while it's not particularly long, you'll be able to download the next episode in no time. And with a cliff-hanger like the one at the end of Narwhal, you'll find it hard to resist.

Tags: TellTale Games, LucasArts, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, Tales of Monkey Island

Posted in: Reviews, Gaming

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