As you might guess from interviews with one person and another, when a well-established franchise like Monkey Island makes its way onto the now-gen platforms, there are certain reservations that fans of that franchise will understandably have.  Will the brilliance of the earlier games be preserved?  Will they 'get the band back together' like some overly sentimental reunion TV programme hosted by Justin Lee Collins. 

Tales of Monkey Island promised to bring us back to the enchanted, peculiar and occasionally confounding world of charismatic-but-inept pirate Guybrush Threepwood, to convey the mystery, intrigue and atmosphere of the Caribbean in the days of people who swash their buckles with gusto.  But did they achieve that?  Telltale Games picked up Monkey Island with a mixed reception.  Most were pleased that they were to be given a fresh opportunity to set sail towards Monkey Island while others worried that Telltale might defecate on a Dalí.  Find out what's what after the click.


The game opens out with what would seem to be the finale of another game: a confrontation between Guybrush and the zombie pirate LeChuck, inexplicably back from the dead once more and getting up to no good with some cute simians.  Guybrush's nemesis has had many guises in previous games: a ghost, a zombie, a demon, a zombie-pirate-demon and... well, that's pretty much it, but when Guybrush goes in for the kill at the start of Tales, LeChuck takes on his most shocking incarnation - human form!  And he seems quite nice as well.  This is all much too unsettling.  On top of this, by releasing the dreaded evil from LeChuck, it has manifested itself as a plague that has swept across the Caribbean and infected everyone, including Guybrush's feisty wife, Elaine Marley.  Your mission, guided by the Voodoo Lady who crops up in each game, is simple: get hold of voodoo-sucking magical artifact, Esponja Grande (the big sponge) and rid the world of the pox of LeChuck.  Of course, this is a much boiled-down summary of your goal, which is hindered at pretty much every turn by all imaginable obstacles from labyrinthine jungles to lovesick giant manatees. 

Revealing too much about the twists and turns that shape the course of the game would impair your enjoyment of the product, so that's about all I'll give you, but the storyline really is epic, I mean, you get four cliffhangers, after all.  But it's well written and the voice acting is pretty much faultless, compelling and between them produce laugh-out-loud moments aplenty, and I'm not the kind of person who laughs easily.  The wit and sharpness of the writing, along with some well-laid gags will have even the most sour-faced old miseries raising a grin, unless there's something seriously wrong with them.  If anyone plays this game without so much as a smile, get them to a hospital, they may be dead.

The whole game is a great balancing act between gratifying fans of the series by dropping in nods to former games ("how appropriate, you fight like a cow") and roping in the uninitiated to swells the ranks of mighty pirates.  This takes some shrewd writing and it's pulled off immaculately, ensuring smiles all around.  Also, the game is still a point-and-click adventure at heart and so is quite limited in its scope of gameplay.  I don't really think that Tales brings you anything you haven't already seen or played before, but takes a series of satisfyingly well-implemented new spins on classic Monkey Island fare.  Where once you had insult sword fighting, you have a giggle-inducing feature known as 'face off'; where you previously trekked through catacombs using a map made up of song lyrics sung by your dead parents as skeletons in a dream, (remember that one?) here you guide Guybrush by taking audible cues.  This is not to say that you don't get stuck.  If you've played every other game in the series as I have, there will still be moments where you are left scratching your head in that pleasing 'I'm playing an adventure game' kind of way.  I think it averaged about once for each chapter, for me.

To look at, Tales of Monkey Island isn't the most stunning of games.  It pushes no boundaries with its visuals, but it's solid and modest, employing some great depth-of-field and lighting effects without being ostentatious or putting too much emphasis on it.  Graphically, it's executed with the reserved restraint of a silent brooding genius; you feel that the game could very well pull off spectacular, flashy epic battles with a cast of thousands, and at times it comes close, but it doesn't simply because it doesn't need to.  This is not Michael Bay's Transformers, it's Transformers - The Movie off of 1986 and if you don't know what I mean by that reference, then first off, shame on you, and going on, I mean that instead of "that amazing-looking robot just bashed the crap out of that other amazing-looking robot in an amazing-looking battle", you get "Megatron just attacked Jazz, I bet Optimus isn't going to be happy about that."  Content over spectacle, people.   The art style is reminiscent of the cartoony feel developed for Curse of Monkey Island, but inflated into 3D.  You can imagine the models as plushies quite easily - and wouldn't we just all want to take Guybrush to bed with us each night.  Right. 

While Escape from Monkey Island (the fourth in the series) was the first to take into the third dimension, it did so clumsily and made something of a mess of the feel of the game.  Tales feels a great deal smoother to play, but still retains some awkwardness of control.  If you play with the mouse, then you're stuck holding the left mouse button down all the while you want Guybrush to move.  Holding the button and dragging a little direction arrow around can feel a little odd on your first few plays, but you kind-of get used to it, along with the feeling that you might be doing some serious damage to your wrist.  If you're playing on the keyboard, then you're constantly switching between keyboard and mouse in order to access the inventory and interact with objects and people.  Whether you believe that pixel-hunting was a good or bad thing in past games, it has been addressed here.  If you're stuck and unsure in an area, you can hold down F4 and see anything that you can interact with be highlighted.  This is a nice little feature that helps ease adventure game initiates into the flow, but is also a useful tool to make sure a place really is empty.  On top of that, you've got a hints system where you can choose in the options screen how often Guybrush will say something to nudge you in the right direction.  Just like the highlighting, it's up to you whether you use it, harking back to the days of Monkey Lite and Mega Monkey. 

You won't experience Tales of Monkey Island as it was for me and many like me.  Being released in monthly episodes means that you can't just play chapter after chapter and complete the game in one go, though that would be inadvisable anyway.  Having a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter was very clever and compelling.  I really looked forward to the next episode.  I mean, I looked forward to the game anyway; if Shattered Horizon was the game that Saber changed operating systems for, then this is the game I got a whole new PC for.  The narrative pushed itself along nicely and at the denoument, the strands picked up throughout the game came together nicely, also borrowing from the lore of Monkey Island games to give an ending that was pleasing to newcomers and fans alike.  There's some really well put-together moments in the game as well; playing Tales is definitely an enjoyable journey that takes you all over the place: a whole new batch of islands to explore, some new creatures to get to know inside and out and a host of new characters, some of whom you get to develop something of an attachment to along the way.  This is where Tales of Monkey Island differs from its predecessors: the writing feels a great deal more in touch with the fleshing out of characters and provoking an emotional response by familiarising the player with them and then involving them in the drama.  It feels so much more dramatic than past games and to my mind benefits from this.  It feels as though Monkey Island has grown up as I have done.  Whether this means that in my 80s, Guybrush will be swashbuckling his way around a nursing home with an enchanted voodoo walking stick while I'm sitting in a wheelchair with a tartan blanket separating my laptop from my legs, then all the better for me.