A brand new tale in the
world of Monkey Island is out. After a short walk down memory lane,
I sat down to play the Tales of Monkey Island series. Tales of Monkey
Island is a single story released as five episodes over the course
of six months. I was happy to have an old school style adventure game
for today’s world, but unfortunately the game lacked some of
the polish I’d expect from a non-episodic adventure.

Get the Game Running

When
playing the older games today, getting them to run was an adventure
of its own. I wouldn’t have expected any issues with such a
brand new game, but alas I did have one serious issue. My game machine
is not powerful enough to run the game at full capacity. I had to
knock the quality setting down from 6, the default, to 3 before I
could get beyond the title screen. TOMI comes with no documentation;
not even a PDF. It was only through trial and error I was able to
find the quality setting and change the setting. This took about an
hour, because moving the mouse smoothly across the title screen was
not possible at any setting higher than 6. It was a jagged movement,
as if the screen only had 6 pixels.

Once I figured that out
that initial problem, I was able to start the game, things went much
smoother. Thankfully each new episode was able to ‘find’
my settings from the previous episode and I did not go through the
same setting nightmare each time.

There
is an interesting option in the settings named hint frequency. I wish
some documentation would tell me what that means, but I assumed this
somehow related to in-game hints. I turned it all the way down in
hopes of making the games more challenging. By my estimate I spent
5-8 hours on each chapter, slightly more than the estimated 2-4 hours
per chapter. I only turned the hints higher at one point in Episode
5 when I was ungodly stuck. It turns out my issue there was a missed
screen exit. Once I discovered that exit, I was able to easily solve
the puzzle at hand. At some points in the game you do have to walk
right at the screen.

Getting around in the game
will be quite easy, especially if you’ve played other games
in the adventure genre. Unfortunately instead of pointing and clicking
to move around, you have to hold down the mouse button and move the
mouse. It aggravated my wrist occasionally, but for the most part
was not too bad. Beyond that, the game sports the traditional point
and click to interact with items.

Onto the Story
Already

The game starts out on
a ship, and in order to make it seem realistic the ship actually bobs
back and forth on the waves, moving both your view of the scenery
and the hotspots you need to click on to and fro. This is a cool effect
that you get used to pretty quickly, but I think they should have
introduced the game, and therefore the interface, in some other manner.

Guybrush
Threepwood, our hero, is getting ready to fight LeChuck, our villain,
with the Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu. Guybrush just needs to finish up
the voodoo spell, which doesn’t go as planned. LeChuck turns
into a human and his demon essence floats throughout the Caribbean
infecting pirates. Guybrush ends up on Flotsam Island with a cursed
hand. On Flotsam Island all winds blow towards the center of the island,
meaning no pirate can ever leave. It is up to Guybrush to find a boat
and crew and to solve the wind problem so he can escape and find out
what happened to LeChuck and Elaine.

The game plays much like
a traditional adventure game. The puzzles are logical enough, often
based on using or combining inventory items that you collect along
the way. Some require more thought, such as solving the map puzzle
in Episode 1 and a different map puzzle again in Episode 4. I was
impressed with the amount of locations in each game, as I expected
them to be heavily watered down due to the time constraints of creating
an episodic adventure.

Guybrush’s search
will lead him to meet up with many old favorites such as Stan—now
a lawyer, The Voodoo Lady, and Murray the Demonic Skull. It also introduces
the best character to grace a Monkey Island game since Murray: Morgan
LeFlay, the female pirate hunter. Morgan, like you and I, is a fan
of Guybrush. You might even say she has a bit of a starry-eyed crush.
The two characters play off each other fantastically; in some cases,
it mirrors the interplay between Elaine and Guybrush from Escape from
Monkey Island.

Episode
1 focuses on Guybrush getting a boat and getting off of Flotsam Island.
Episodes 2 and 3 focus on Guybrush finding La Esponja Grande, a magic
voodoo talisman to help get rid of the Pox of LeChuck. Episode 4 focuses
on using La Esponja Grande in a Voodoo spell, and episode 5 finishes
off the story with a final showdown. Episode 5 has a real treat, where
you get to play Guybrush as a Ghost and a Zombie, mirroring the first
two incantations of LeChuck.

As with many stories, the
game raises more questions than answers. It calls into doubt the true
intentions of the Voodoo Lady, and she takes a much larger role than
in previous games. The characterization of Elaine seems to back flip
between the character we all know and love to someone with intentions
not quite as clear. Each episode progressively improved in gameplay
and story until Episode 5, where the characterization of Elaine slipped
and none of the questions raised were ever answered.

What Next?

In
Episode One you can find treasure maps on-line and explore the jungles
of Flotsam Island for more treasure. I thought that this was a great
way to add replay value and was disappointed this option was not introduced
in future episodes. Even so, while traversing the jungles using a
creative map system was fun the first time, it wasn’t enough
to get me to go through again. The first treasure was a special background
for your computer. I thought it was a novel attempt to add replay
value to the game and to provide additional benefit to the customers.

I guess now I go into the
waiting game. I’ll probably replay through the game, possibly
on a better computer with higher quality settings, around the time
that Tales of Monkey Island 2 comes out, and I hope there is a sequel.
I greatly enjoyed the adventure despite the questions it raised. I
hope it is leading somewhere and I look forward to joining Guybrush
on another adventure, hopefully next year.

System Requirements

• Windows XP/Vista
• Pentium 2.0 GHz + (3
  GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent recommended)
• 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended.)
• DirectX 8.1 sound device
• 64MB DirectX 8.1-compliant
  video card (128MB recommended)
• DirectX®: Version
  9.0c or better