A brand new tale in the
world of Monkey Island is coming out, and I’m hoping for a fun
old style adventure game in the vein of the original series. I went
ahead and pre-purchased all five episodes. But, before starting to
play episode one, I decided to refresh my memory on that which came
before. I started at the beginning in Secret of Monkey Island.

Installing

As with Monkey Island
1, I have Monkey Island 2 on 3.5″ floppy disks. I was able to
get the game files and install them using the included installer.
The installer believes that you are installing from a floppy drive,
not a hard disc, and there is not an easy way to switch discs during
the install. I addressed this by putting all the disk files in a single
directory. That way I only mapped one drive to the folder with all
the data files and the install was off and running.

Running the Game

To
run the game, I went straight to the SCUMMVM software that I used
with Monkey Island 1. SCUMMVM is a tool for running old games, as
long as you have a data file. It is named after the SCUMM engine which
was used to create the original Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and
other LucasArts titles.

One of the great things
about SCUMMVM is that you only have to enter the copy protection on
the first run. After that, the game goes directly into “restore”
mode and lets you jump into a saved game without having to go through
the copy protection again. The bad thing about this is that, if you
want to start the game over, perhaps to choose the “lite path”
there isn’t a way to do it.

I ran the game, quit the
game, and ran the game again to start over from the beginning. I have
no idea why that worked or if there is a hidden “restart”
key in the game.

Do you know any
songs that are not about my ex-Girlfriend?

The story starts out with
our Hero, Guybrush Threepwood, on Scabb Island. He is once again bragging
about his victory against the Ghost Pirate LeChuck while letting us
know that he wants to find the treasure of Big Whoop. He gets mugged
by Largo LaGrande, a bully on the island and is stuck penniless looking
for a way to free himself from Scabb Island. Since Guybrush can’t
leave, Scabb Island is a great consolidated way to introduce us to
the game mechanics. Guybrush will walk around and talk to people,
looking for information on Largo and Big Whoop. The Voodoo Lady pops
back up to ask for help creating a Voodoo doll to destroy Largo.

You
just need four things to create a voodoo doll: something from the
dead, something from the thread, something from the head, and something
from the body. Get those for things from Largo, and you can attack
him on his own terms. He’ll leave the island, but not before stealing
LeChuck’s beard from Guybrush, thus creating the Zombie Pirate LeChuck.
When did that beard get into Guybrush’s inventory?

So, now LeChuck is alive,
sort of, and after Guybrush. What is he to do? The Voodoo Lady tells
you to find the map to the treasure of Big Whoop. I remembered a lot
more of this game than I did the previous one, and got through it
with only a single hint near the end.

You’ll charter a ship and
start to investigate the tri-island area. Booty Island is in constant
Mardi Gras; Elaine is governor and you get to go to a costume party.
Phatt Island is less fun, and you end up in jail for a bit. There
is a lot of travel between islands, especially if you don’t know the
solutions already. The game makes great use of multiple locations,
and keeps them consistently interesting.

Eventually, you’ll get
a bunch of map pieces, visit LeChuck’s fortress, then go onto Dinky
Island to get Big Whoop and a final battle with LeChuck, loaded with
Star Wars references.

Choosing the Easy
Route

The
game has an easy path, for game reviewers or beginners, which bypasses
most of the puzzles. I never played this route before, but decided
to partake in it for the purposes of this review. After playing the
game the hard way, this approach took a few hours to plow through.
It is an abbreviated version of the game, but you still get the gist.
The puzzles are either cut out or bypassed. Instead of chasing a map
piece all around an island, you just pick it up. Instead of becoming
a spitting master, you just ask for help and the puzzle goes away.
I think this was a brilliant approach that helps make the game more
accessible to beginners in the adventure genre. If more games did
this, maybe we’d have a larger populating of adventure gamers.

What Next?

If Sleepaway Camp has the
most shocking ending in the history of horror movies, Monkey Island
2 has the weirdest ending in the history of video games. It is unclear
what the meaning is, and unclear how Ron Gilbert intended to resolve
the story. Future Monkey Island game designers tried to resolve it,
each in their own ways, but none so satisfactorily that we still don’t
yearn for the secret that still lies in Ron’s mind.

At the time of this writing,
the second episode of Tales of Monkey Island was just released, and
I’m still two games behind before I start playing the episodes. I
always forget if it is Curse or Escape that comes next; but I plan
to play the third game next, whichever one that may be. Part 3 introduces
a new designer, and the feel of the series changes a bit. But, I still
remember enjoying them immensely.

System Requirements

PC:

• Computer: IBM and 100%
  compatibles
• MS-DOS 3.0 or higher
• CPU: 286/10MHz minimum
• 640KB memory
• Graphics Card: 256 color
  VGA/MCGA
• Sound Card: Adlib, Sound
  Blaster, and internal speaker supported
• Input Device: Mouse
  supported
• 9 MB of free hard disk
  space

Mac:

• Apple Macintosh and
  100% compatibles
• Operating System Mac
  O/S version 6.0.7 or higher
• CPU: 16MHz 68020 or
  higher
• 2MB RAM
• Graphics Card: 256 color
  13″ or larger display required