2. December: The Saga of Threepwood
Continuing the Christmas feature I started yesterday, today I'll talk a bit LucasArts' classic point'n'click series Monkey Island. As most gamers know, particularly those with a salty seadog hidden inside, Monkey Island's main protagonist is Guybrush Threepwood, a pirate wannabe. Throughout the 4 games we followed our naive hero growing from amateur to master at piracy, earn and lose fortunes, marry his true love and battle against his nemesis, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck. Each of his misadventures were filled to the brim with witty humour and cunningly conceived puzzles, earning Monkey Island a reputation as one of the greatest in the genre and the cunning team behind it the masters.
I must admit, I never played Monkey Island up until I tracked down a copy of the third in the series this summer. Even as the intro played, I was completely awe-struck by the amazing humour, style and atmosphere of it all, completely paralysed for the rest of the game. Since then I bought the entire series off the Internet and am now happily playing it through.
The latest, and possibly last, entry in the Monkey Island series was Escape From Monkey Island, which hit the market in 2000, simultaneously appearing on PC and PS2, and since then the adventure game scene has been deathly quiet for LucasArts, former grand masters in the genre. Despite a few attempts at a revival, adventure games are now rarely used as physical releases for popular systems, something greatly lamented by fans. However, as I stated last night, there might be a solution to the dilemma: episodic gaming. The new trend of releasing episodes of games is perfect for experimenting with new ideas and basically for churning out all the things you wouldn't be able to sell in stores.
Telltale Games have already created more adventures for Steve Purcell's crime-fighting duo, Sam & Max, so reviving Guybrush and LeChuck for another adventure of swash-buckling excitement is a very logical step. But until we can celebrate the return of our great idol, there is still plenty of fun to be had in the classic games, so my advice: hunt down the entire series on eBay, arrange a computer in front of your bed and spend your Christmas holidays scouring the Spanish Maine in search of booty, grub and grog.
I must admit, I never played Monkey Island up until I tracked down a copy of the third in the series this summer. Even as the intro played, I was completely awe-struck by the amazing humour, style and atmosphere of it all, completely paralysed for the rest of the game. Since then I bought the entire series off the Internet and am now happily playing it through.
The latest, and possibly last, entry in the Monkey Island series was Escape From Monkey Island, which hit the market in 2000, simultaneously appearing on PC and PS2, and since then the adventure game scene has been deathly quiet for LucasArts, former grand masters in the genre. Despite a few attempts at a revival, adventure games are now rarely used as physical releases for popular systems, something greatly lamented by fans. However, as I stated last night, there might be a solution to the dilemma: episodic gaming. The new trend of releasing episodes of games is perfect for experimenting with new ideas and basically for churning out all the things you wouldn't be able to sell in stores.
Telltale Games have already created more adventures for Steve Purcell's crime-fighting duo, Sam & Max, so reviving Guybrush and LeChuck for another adventure of swash-buckling excitement is a very logical step. But until we can celebrate the return of our great idol, there is still plenty of fun to be had in the classic games, so my advice: hunt down the entire series on eBay, arrange a computer in front of your bed and spend your Christmas holidays scouring the Spanish Maine in search of booty, grub and grog.
posted by Niels Jakob at Saturday, December 02, 2006
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