Shiver me timbers
While I'm busy getting my swash on, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck kidnaps my babe, Mêlée's gorgeous governor, Elaine Marley, and takes her to the shadowy Monkey Island. It’s up to me to get a ship and a crew together, and save my lassie from LeChuck’s shocking subterranean lair.
Perspective's always the first to go after a night on the grog
The fun in Monkey Island definitely lies in the exploring and it’s non-linear story telling. It doesn't matter in what order Guybrush completes his tasks, so I never feel excessively bullied through the plot, and can explore the game world at will.
You gotta troll with it
Another key strength is that Guybrush doesn't die as a result of taking a wrong course of action. This is always a bonus when you’re cheek to cheek with crazy ass cannibals, voodoo goons and curious conversations.
You fail. Go to jail
Thanks to game developer Ron Gilbert's vision, The Secret of Monkey Island still feels vibrant and skillfully paced. Classic enough to spawn three sequels, all of the titles in the series have now been collected together and revamped with some pretty pretty HD graphics in one special edition.
A rude tavern, then...
Its slow pace may send kids brought up on Call of Duty and Halo into fits of impatience, but I can’t imagine anyone you know who wouldn’t want this for Christmas.
...and now
“Please? Pretty please? Please, pretty please, with sugar on top?” ®
Reg Hardware will be revisiting memorable titles from gaming's illustrious past every fortnight
Developer LucasArts
Platforms PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Mac
Year of release 1990
More Info LucasArts' Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition site
The Secret of Monkey Island
COMMENTS
I'm selling these fine leather jackets
It's worth mentioning that the special editions that have been recently released do NOT contain all of the sequels, only the first two games (and if you count the Tales Of Monkey Island episodes, we're lucky enough to have had four sequels now :) ).
It's also worth mentioning the single biggest change to the Special Edition games too, the fact that they've had vocals added! Dominic Armato and the rest of the crew were brought in to voice them retrospectively.
The first two are still two of the best games ever made. The third is very good, but I prefer not to think about the fourth :( Monkey Kombat especially ruined that game for me.
Oh and while you can't die as a result of your course of actions, you can die as a result of your *inaction*. Ten minutes is a long time to hold your breath, but not always long enough... ;)
Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!
This game really was my favorite as a child and still remains playable today. I know most of the story off the top of my head and yet it still manages to make me laugh.
Getting captured repeatedly by the cannibals remains, for me, one of the best sequences of laughs ever.
"I'm not sure which is more confusing, how you keep escaping, or why you keep coming back"
I could handle the slow pace and adventure puzzles, and the design is great.
What I could never stand is the way the text is delivered at a speed for someone with a reading age of about 6 (even if you can speed it up by repeated key-bashing, it becomes tiresome). When you have to click on half-a-dozen different characters to find the one who furthers the plot, and the others just repeat the same 'witty' conversation between themselves, whichever one you click on, over and over, I just give up.
But what about...
How could you forget the insult sword fighting?
eg:
Q: People fall at my feet when they see me coming.
A: Even BEFORE they smell your breath?
Genius!
I've spoken with apes more polite then you!
Utter brilliance
I remember many a late night stuffing disk after disk into my Amiga (until I got that massive 20mb hdd). This game was (and still is) the best adventure game ever made. Better than Day Of The Tentacle, better than Simon The Sorcerer and better than Flight Of The Amazon Queen.
My pal got the iPhone version with updated visuals, but he still reverted to the original graphics 'cos they're soooo much better. If you find the right SCUMMvm you can pretty much play this (and others) on any device. Sheer heaven.
"You make me want to puke!"
"You make me think somebody already did!"
