Sylocat said:
Am I the only one who couldn't understand a word of what he was saying in the accent? Someone post a transcript.
Ask and you shall recieve
A rough draft of a transcript cause I'm late for class
Tales of Monkey Island (This is a rough draft, please feel free to edit)
Having survived on table scraps for a number of years, the ninety's adventure game tradition is enjoying a bit of a resurgence on PC. The steam listings are getting quite bloated with "new view" adventure stuff like Sherlock Holmes vs "Kathelew" and Nancy Drew meets Mecha Godzilla. It's like, having polished off the buffet at Mr. PC's house hard core action titles are now mostly moved on to Mr. Console's homestead and given adventure games a chance to shoulder their way onto a chair, just in time for the sherry trifle. And if adventure games are coming back then Monkey Island's reappearance was inevitable. Because if adventure games were a nation, then Monkey Island would be on the fucking one dollar bill.
The second installment of the new "Tales of Monkey Island" episode recently came out, so I will review them in two ways. Firstly as a fan of the old series in my normal voice and secondly by their own merits in an ridiculous Irish accent. Monkey Island was part of my childhood. I had the first two on my Amiga. I don't suppose you embryos would remember those times when a game like Monkey Island 2 came on 12 floppy disks and playing it was like operating an old fashioned switch board. The first two games are still timelessly imaginative sparkling and very very funny and therefore have no place in this review.
The problem with the later installments is the usual one when a series has been in cryogenics for a few years. Is that the new developers are almost always fans. So in their eagerness to show "Respect" for their beloved franchise they prefer to lavish it in tongue baths in place of any significant evolution. In the second episode of Tales of Monkey Island a character whistles a snatch of music from Monkey Island 2, which might have been kind of cool if he had not then said, "Gee I wonder where that music's from? Hmm Hmm wink wink slurp slurp tongue bath." I'm reminded of a cat showing affection to its owner by gobbing a dead bird onto his rug.
Oh faith and begora, look at this lovely pirate game I've honestly never heard of. You play a pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. Cuh, what a silly name, who accidentally releases an evil plague upon all his pirate chums or somethin'. I wasn't really paying attention 'cause I was thinking about potatoes at the time. Sadly the situation can't be resolved by murder like with most games and protestants. So the game play revolves around exploration, dialogues, and harvesting every loose object from the four corners of the map and rubbing them all against everythin' else. Have to say, I'm not a big fan of the push-me pull-me mouse movement control. As I was sayin' to my wife Moira the other day, Navigating a 3D environment with a 2D interface is like standing outside the livin' room window and trying to teach your dog to do his poos on the newspaper.
Guybrush Threepwood, named after a combination of a PG Wodehouse character and the deluxe paint file extension, was made out in the original game as a loveable every-lad. Whose determination to be a pirate was strong enough to overpower his weakness, incompetence, hopeless naivety and sveltish girlish figure. In the new series he often seems alarmingly competent, which comes to a head in one particularly cringe worthy episode. When he meets his number one fan, who breathlessly lists his achievements throughout the series and paints the words "Author Surrogate" across the sky in blazing green letters. All characters are free to develop, but in a story that sells itself on wit, a status upgrade can be all that changes a loveable underdog into a smug wise-cracking tosser.
Ooh, shiver me shamrocks, there's some clever puzzle solvin' to be had here to be sure. *There was this one way?* where he gets strapped to a chair and use various signaling devices to a small monkey. But the clever bits are in a minority and there's an over-reliance on puzzle's no more complex then finding a weird shaped key to put in a corresponding hole. Which I think is cheatin' a bit. What is this, Resident Evil? And the inventory system is a bit poor. If you want to combine items, when your stuck and have rubbed every item you have on every standing object in the world, then this is all you have left. You have to go through the little square dance of draggin' both items onto a little combiney machine and pressing the on button. Don't see why we can't click one then the other, seems like that could save you some time which I could have spent beatin' me wife.
The action takes place over several islands, and the feel rather empty with most of the important objects and characters crammed together in one location. In Episode 2 you need to find bait and get your ship repaired. And on one island you find a bait and ship repair shop. It's lazy design dressed up like a joke that doesn't even make sense. Like puttin' a fake mustache on a cat's arse. God, what am I on about. Well speakin' of laziness, I genuinely thought that the three identical characters on the first island would turn out to be a joke. Like they're all the same fellow wearing different clothes. But no, it turns out they were all based on the same model and I wasn't supposed to notice.
The graphics in the early games were about as realistic as the low resolution could get, lending the humor a subversive quality that I feel the more cartoony are style diminishes. That might sound like an elitist oldbie reaching for excuses, and that's probably because it is. Tales of Monkey Island certainly has it's moments and it's ultimately harmless. But really what is the point of it? Monkey Island 2 was tight enough alone to stand as a classic. It even attempted to end in a way that would ensure no more sequels. Because everything after that would be a slimy white burst of fan wank circling the shower drain. And if you really loved the franchise, you'd understand that. OK, it was a bit sad, but some stories need sad endings. Would Romeo and Juliet have been greatly improved by a sequel where they both spring to life and go on a motorcycle tour of the Mediterranean? Sadly we live in a world where some people cannot be dissuaded from bad ideas, like spending half a review doing an offensively bad accent. Guinness, Leprechauns, Rosie, Trillion etc
~cutekittenkyti
