Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island Review

As most everyone familiar with my oeuvre is aware, I’m not a big fan of the original Monkey Island series. No specific reason, just find them sophomoric. Unfortunately, some fans (and even some developers) tend to take such information personally rather than professionally, but I guess that comes with the territory. So when I heard that one of my favorite developers, Bill Tiller, previously of Lucas Arts, was working on game called Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, well let’s just say the information elicited a large…sigh.

But on the other hand, Bill Tiller was the mastermind responsible for the delightful (and, I hope, someday to be concluded) A Vampyre Story, one of my favorite games of the past few years which only coincidentally featured the most luscious, delectable undead female character of all time – Mona de Lafitte (not that I am particularly enamored with her, just saying).

Actually, it is somewhat surprising that Autumn Moon would even consider developing a game so similar to the Monkey Island series as Bill seems to have put himself over a barrel of monkeys. In a classic ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ scenario, it is inevitable that every reviewer will unfavorably compare the game to the classic series (not to mention the myopic, slavering LucasArts fanatics who over-praise the original Monkey Island series at the expense of other games) and if, by chance, the game could go head-to-paw with the original Monkey Island games, then the response would be, “Well, Bill did after all work on Curse of Monkey Island,” in other words, damned if you do.

Ghost Pirates is ambitious from the get-go by featuring not one, not two, but three protagonists – each of whom can be controlled during various parts of the game. Papa Doc Mystère, who rules Vooju Island with his deep Caribbean accent; Blue Belly, a cowardly cook who is hoping to plunder enough loot to pay for braces for his sister and buxom pirate Captain Jane Starling whose exotic, sultry voice is supplied by the talented Lani Minella. Yes, that Lani Minella, best known for voicing teenage sleuth Nancy Drew. Damn Lani, who knew?

One of the repercussions of Queen Zimbi’s – Papa Doc’s double-dealing wife – decision to team-up with Captain Green Beard (who really does have a green beard unlike, say, Blue Beard who did not have a blue beard, but was rumored to have blue ‘cannon’ balls) and overthrow Captain Flint, the king of the pirates, and turn his crew into zombies is that our three protagonists temporarily find themselves ‘dead’.

But death is only a state of mind in Vooju Island as Papa Doc had the foresight to cast a spell that allows the trio to come back to life, but only after they have completed several tasks. In the meantime, they must learn to function as ghosts, replete with all of the obvious restrictions – no one can see you, you can’t physically move anything, etc. – in their attempt to retake Vooju Island.

Though none of the characters are as endearing as were Mona and her sidekick Froderick from A Vampyre Story, Bill does seem to have a talent for creating not only strong main characters but also an equally robust supporting cast, which is impressive when you consider that many of these characters are only present for a scene or two.

The game opens with a catchy, out-of-tune drinking song – sung by whom else but drunken pirates – that repeats frequently throughout the game. The lyrics are initially difficult to understand, but your patience will be rewarded.

The interface is simple to master: hold down the left mouse button over an object, choose between hand, eyes, or mouth icons (to interact, examine, or speak) and then release the mouse button. Pressing on the tab key highlights all of the ‘hot spots’ on the screen (which I have to admit, I am finding more useful as I get older). If you played A Vampyre Story, then you will be familiar with the unique inventory system that allows you to put the ‘idea’ of an object in your inventory until the time when your character needs to retrieve it for a specific puzzle solution.

None of the puzzles are particularly difficult, which keeps the game humming along at a nice pace, but dialogue trees do at times seem to sprout eternally, especially as many of the numerous one-liners fall flat and feel forced – especially the ‘sexual’ exchanges between Blue Belly and Jane – and while there are a few laughs in the game, their effectiveness could have been maximized if the developers hadn’t felt the need to try and milk every single line of dialogue into either a one-liner or a sarcastic comment. One problematic area though is a ‘charades’ puzzle which is poorly designed and smacks of a ‘can we outdo Monkey Island insult sword fighting’ attitude.

The graphics, as they are in every Autumn Moon game, are absolutely gorgeous featuring beautiful hand-painted backgrounds, ambient animations in almost every scene and magnificent cut-scenes. I did though get the impression that some areas towards the end of the game had a rushed, incomplete feel to them and that reaction is what has colored my outlook of the entire game.

Much as every scene of A Vampyre Story seemed, to me, like a labor of love, that feeling seems absent for much of Ghost Pirates. Yes, it is a quality game with high-end graphics and superb voice-acting, but it also seems to be pretty much ‘by-the-numbers’ let’s get this finished and hope we get better distribution and make more money than we did with Dreamcatcher so we can move on to our next project type of game. Probably I’m assuming too much, but it could also be that I’m still smitten by the promise of a repeat visit from the alluring Mona de Lafitte.

System Requirements:

• Windows XP or Vista
• 1.6 GHz CPU
• 1 GB RAM
• 256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (NVidia GeForce FX generation, ATI Radeon 9500)
• 4 GB of free hard disk space
• DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card