07/02/2018

The Curse of Monkey Island

The Monkeys are listening.




Would you look at that? Another point and click adventure game finds its way onto the 1001 list - my favourite genre, don't you know?

LucasArts adventures have been cropping up in this list frequently, and they tend not to disappoint so it would seem that the third Monkey Island title, headed by those who were behind Full Throttle, is more of the same and then some.

The Curse of Monkey Island is, so I read, not as fondly remembered as the first two titles, but still has plenty to offer players, especially in the looks department. This twenty-year-old game has not been given an HD re-release of any kind, and it looks like it could have been released twenty minutes ago.

But how does it play? Like a twenty-year-old point and click adventure title? What's going on? Should I have played and completed the previous instalments? I should get going and work towards answering these questions, really.




Fun Times


No expense was spared when it came to giving this game a lick of paint, was it? From the very start, players are treated to what is usually described as 'Disney-esque' animation of our hero, Guybrush Threepwood, adrift at sea in a dodgem.

What happened to him? I don't know. He sums it up in his journal to set the scene, but it doesn't set everything. No matter, we'll take it and run, as we have to, because these opening cutscenes just keep going.




Hopefully, The Curse of Monkey Island can keep the pace with these jokes, rather than blowing them all inside the first five minutes. We're (re)introduced to our nemesis, the zombie pirate LeChuck, and our love interest Elaine, who both seem to be more capable than we are.

It isn't too long after this that we can play, with our first task to escape LeChuck's ship.




By this point in point and click adventure gaming history, HUDs and menus are no more, freeing up the screen so that we can focus on the damn impressive artwork on display. Not only are the characters stylised and animated well, but the backgrounds can stand on their own too.

If you haven't worked it out by now, the left mouse button does a lot of the more immediate work, but when you need to give specific instructions to Guybrush, you can bring up a Full Throttle inspired floating menu with various options, including taking, talking and looking.




Interacting with characters often opens up far more dialogue than you thought you'd get, with options ranging from the obvious to the absurd. Fans wouldn't call The Curse of Monkey Island the most well written of the series, but the writing is fine by me so far.




The voicework matches the tone of the writing and the look of the game too, with everything coming together to give a solid experience.

Should you have the brains and/or the patience to work out what to do...




Frustrations


Yeas, once again, my main gripe with point and clicks comes charging in: sometimes, I just get stumped.

There are generally no consequences for simply trying something, say to use one object to interact with another or to combine two objects in your inventory but to hear Guybrush say the same thing over and over as you fail to find the right combination can be a right pain.




After taking over the cannon, you end up sinking the ship, and find yourself in the treasure room, with everything ripe for the taking, but Guybrush wanted none of it. Nothing was interesting to him. It was interesting to me - a sinking ship and a rubber ring, I mean, 'Hello?' - but none of my answers was the right answer.

There was only one place to go from here: The Internet.




Silly me for thinking you could use balloons to float up to the hole in the top of the room. Clearly, the answer was to cut a porthole with a diamond rink, thus ensuring that the ship sinks to the bottom of the deep blue sea as you make your escape via a flipping rubber ring...




Final Word


It got better, did The Curse of Monkey Island. What I mean by that is that after faffing about for far too long, I ended with a joke-filled cutscene, ready for Part II, if and when I get around to playing it.

For all it does right - the look, the feel, the sound, the writing - The Curse of Monkey Island is still a point and click adventure and I am still God awful at them. A lot of them make the list of games that I ought to get around and finish so that I at least see where the story goes (and I have absolutely no idea where we are with this one so I might have to go back a game or two first), but I simply need a guide to do so, and at that point I might as well just watch it.

According to a quick skim of YouTube, it'll take the best part of an afternoon to go through the game, assuming you know it all. Assuming you're a blithering idiot like me, albeit one with persistence in wanting to finish on your own steam, it'll take a while longer and will likely give you plenty of good times.

The moments of 'ah, damn, of course that thing interacts with that one' really do give a nice hit of feel-good chemicals, but if you're not getting enough of them, and your system is full of rage, then I don't think there's much here that can save you.

If the fans don't think it's the best, then maybe it's simply one game too far. I have no idea. I'm going to have to put in more time and effort into this series to know for sure.




Fun Facts


Some elements of the game were such a hit with testers that later chapters were rewritten to include more of them, including Murray the talking skull, an item/character with all kinds of uses.

The Curse of Monkey Island, developed by LucasArts, first released in 1997.
Version played: PC, 1997.