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