by Gregory Gay - 09.29.09
Tales of Monkey Island has shown us an older and questionably wiser Guybrush Threepwood in one of the gravest situations of his career. He’s being chased around by a deadly (and beautiful) bounty hunter, his hand has been cut off, his wife is off on an adventure with his worst enemy, and the deadly pox continues to affect every person that he meets. To top all of this off, the last episode concluded with his ship being swallowed by a giant manatee. Yeah, I bet that career as a mighty pirate doesn’t sound quite so glamorous now.
Hey kids, this is a review of the third episode of the Tales of Monkey Island series. Since I’ve already dedicated a couple of thousand of words to the games, I’m not going to cover all of the basics again. If you have no idea what this series is about, go back and read the review of the first game.
This episode, Lair of the Leviathan is the third of five in the series. It’s the middle hump, if you will. Storyline-wise, this could go two ways. In the worst case, the game could have been horribly boring, a chance to coast for a while before an eventful close. Sean Vanaman and Joe Pinney , the writers on this particular episode, gave us the opposite. Lair is the most exciting episode yet, and the story runs at a speedy pace. Ultimately, this is both a good and a bad thing. You might think that being swallowed by a manatee might be a massive inconvenience, but you actually get out of his stomach pretty quickly. Me, I like the more-exciting pace, I like never being forced to linger. Lair of the Leviathan seems to have a lot of little puzzles designed to keep you pushing forward. The problem with this approach, which is relatively minor, come when you have to wrestle with a larger puzzle. Because the story seems like it is intended to keep you moving, the more difficult or lengthy puzzles throw off the flow. This is kind of to be expected, story pacing is a difficult thing to get right when pressed against the very design of adventure games. Problem solving is a slower process than punching faces, after all. When it comes down to it, even though the brain-twisting puzzles slow things down, the effect isn’t enough to aggravate.
Why not? Because the puzzles are so freaking good. Lair of the Leviathan has some of the best puzzles to come out of the company to date. It’s hard to go into much detail without spoiling things, but there are a number of situations that arose where I had one of those immensely satisfying “eureka” moments. To give just one example, there is a scene where you need to learn something from a person back on Floatsam Island. The issue? Good ol’ Guybrush will be killed if he sets foot back on the island. Oh, and the boat you’re on isn’t going to leave the spot where it’s anchored. Bit of a bind. How can you get back to Floatsam? Here’s a hint – you already know that one of the characters can possess others. You just might be able to use her power. It might not sound like much when I describe it, but working out how to solve the puzzle was kind of thrilling. We also get to see a new puzzle type that I ended up enjoying quite a bit. 
Remember the pirate insult system from the original Secret of Monkey Island? Where you’d run around collecting insults to beat other pirates? Lair adds a few puzzles based on a system that is quite similar. At times, you’ll have to intimidate people or out-weird them by showing your best “pirate face.” To make this face, you’ll have to choose a combination of settings for four attributes. To fill in those options, you’ll have to ask the characters that you meet to make faces at you. Again, it sounds a little stupid when I type it out like that, but it’s pretty damn amusing in the game.
As should be kinda obvious by this point, I’m a tad bit enamored with the game. I’m an adventure game fanatic, and Tales has been hitting all of the right notes. It isn’t just the puzzles and story, though they are the most important two parts. All of the writing is spectacular. The characters are incredibly entertaining, and I have to try every dialogue option just to see where the conversation goes. Older Monkey Island fans will be particularly thrilled to see the demonic skull Murray return. His utter hatred of Guybrush is delightful. I also dig the art direction (which is vaguely similar to Wind Waker), and I love the music. So, is there anything I don’t like about this game? Anything at all?
All right, yeah, there is one major elephant remaining in the room. It has been three episodes now and I still can’t get past the controls. For those of you that haven’t played Tales or the Wallace & Gromit series, the newer Telltale games use a fully 3D environment and don’t fix the camera angle. To let you really explore your environments, the developers have ditched the traditional point-and-click. You still point at and click on items, but movement is controlled with the keypad. You can also click and drag your body around a couple of axes. I wouldn’t recommend trying it. I found the click-and-drag method to be way too cumbersome to actually use. The keyboard controls are functional, but still feel kind of clunky. Honestly, I understand the idea, they want to give you more freedom to move around and investigate the environment. The implementation just isn’t the most graceful that I’ve ever seen.
Lair of the Leviathan is the middle hump in this Tales season. The developers have nailed down their formula, and I’m really digging the results. These guys writes funny games, and Tales of Monkey Island shows a company at their peak. The jokes are sharp, the dialogue is biting, and the voice actors deliver it all perfectly. It comes down to this – if you’re an adventure fanatic or an old-school Monkey Island fan, you should already have a subscription to this. People who dig a bit of humor in their games should definitely grab the demo and give it a go.
Honestly, Telltale probably won’t take home any game of the year awards and that’s okay. They don’t need to revolutionize the world, they get so much support from me because they are so consistent. Nobody delivers a more solid adventure game, month after month, then these guys. I can’t wait for the next episode.
Tales of Monkey Island: Episode 3 - Lair of the Leviathan is available now for the PC from the Telltale Games store and should be up on Steam soon. Tales of Monkey Island is only available on the PC in season pass form for $34.95. It will be available for WiiWare at some point in the near future for 1000 Wii Points. The PC version was played for this review.
For more information, see the official site.
I downloaded the free episode last weekend and my PC has trouble running it at a decent pace so I’ll finish that episode and download the other 4 on Wiiware. That way I’ll pay $40 for 5 episodes (one free and 4000 Nintendo Points) instead of $50.
Still, I’m having a blast with the 1st episode.
EdEN - 09.29.09 12:03 pm
This episode was amazing, 10/10.
As for the controls, I’m finally getting used to them, I think I only forgot it wasn’t a point and click one or two times during this episode, and effortlessly manuvered Guybrush via the click and drag method the rest of the time. Usually you’re within distance of the object you want to click on, or its simply a short walk to it, so it doesn’t come up much.
Getting players to walk long distances in this game would be a bad idea, the more click and point they can have, the better. I prefer the click and drag over movement keys for the rest, just because you can produce a more fluent movement of Guybrush with it once you get the knack.
OldSchoolC - 09.30.09 2:11 pm
“Honestly, Telltale probably won’t take home any game of the year awards and that’s okay. They don’t need to revolutionize the world, they get so much support from me because they are so consistent.”
I’m going to say something unpopular, but heartfelt. This is not a troll post, hear me out.
It was really sad that I predicted the quote above, or something substantially like it, would be the “sum up” of the review. It’s honestly been the same with all Telltale-adopted classic series. I love them, because I love the worlds and characters of Monkey Island (and Sam and Max). But it seems nearly every reviewer has the same feeling I do–these games are not 10/10 classics. They’re consistent, 7/10 or 8/10 workmanlike episodes. And the sad part is that I think Telltale is ok with that. And so are we. Should we be satisfied with that?
Yes, these games are like an old friend come to visit. Nobody dislikes such a visit. But that old friend has started to never surprise you, at least not in quite the way he did long ago(Monkey Island 1, 2, etc). Sure, you still laugh at his jokes, but the laughs are now polite because you’ve heard the jokes before. Eventually, sometimes you can just sit in silence with that old friend and enjoy his company in silence, in familiarity. While that might give us a sense of security, is it what we look for in a game? Should we be satisfied with that?
The jokes are in the right place, the writing is a careful mix of fan service, dada-ist humor, and workmanlike storytelling. But it all feels so…predictable. Like the risks of deviation are too great. Like the makers are just as much fans as we are, and are just as afraid of screwing it all up. So they don’t take any real chances. Are they satisfied with that?
This has been how I’ve felt about both major Telltale remakes, Sam and Max and Monkey Island. And it’s a strange feeling, because, as I said, I love these characters. I buy all these games. But damn it, every time I sit down to play, I end up frustrated. I want someone to push the characters to the limit, and imbue them with genius. Even if it’s not the same type of genius as Tim Schafer or Ron Gilbert. Even if there’s a large chance of failure, I want them to try. Figure out something new that we haven’t seen before. Because the surest way these characters will die is creative starvation.
I know many of you won’t agree with me. But please think about it. Try to remember Monkey Island or Monkey Island 2. Sam & Max Hit the Road. Not the jokes, not the references, but the *feeling* you got playing that for the first time. Where a frame of animation could leave you rolling on the floor, and you never knew what would come next. Where the writing constantly surprised you with controlled surreality, and not random absurdism. I haven’t had that feeling in a long time, but the Telltale games are close, but only close enough to remind me what I’m missing… Sometimes, I wish they weren’t.
George - 09.30.09 8:27 pm
@George - a well thought-out comment like that could never be confused for trolling. Incidentally, I don’t think anything will ever feel like Sam & Max Hit the Road did, and that makes me very sad.
Jamie Love - 09.30.09 8:45 pm
@George:
Definitely not trolling. I sometimes agree with you. There is more that could be done, and they don’t take any more risks than they have to.
I’d rather have these episodes than nothing, but yes, Telltale could be taking much bigger risks.
Gregory Gay - 09.30.09 11:34 pm
*Sniffle*. That made me so sad, George. I felt the same playing Sam and Max Season 1 - the humour was there, it was consistent with Sam and Max’s world, but it just wasn’t poetic or surprising. I can’t fault Telltale for that either - they’re doing their best.
Chris Lepine - 10.02.09 2:06 pm
It’s not so much that TTG don’t want to make games as consistently classic as those, or is incapable - it’s just that their business model really doesn’t allow for it. Of course, the question then is why use that business model - and the answer is because that’s the model that allows these games to me made right now.
The good news is that they are getting better and better at working within said model, and the stuff they are producing feels to me that it’s getting closer and closer to those classic games, especially this latest episode.
SurplusGamer - 10.02.09 10:05 pm