Shiver your timbers and give us a great big pirate argh, because our beloved Guybrush Threepwood is back for yet another swashbuckling tale of daring adventures and whimsical one-liners in the latest rendition of the Monkey Island franchise.
In Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, you once again command the character Guybrush Threepwood, a wannabe pirate with high hopes and a skeletal physique. With your trusty rusted saber and broken compass by your side, you are determined in your quest to find your beloved Elaine. However, this is no easy task with the dreaded zombie pirate, Le Chuck, closely following your every move, awaiting his chance to forever condemn you to the cold embrace of Davy Jones’s locker!
Though the game still follows the sarcastic essence that granted the franchise such a trusted following, it strays from its original recipe and adds a few well deserved flavours of its own. The most scrumptious of these flavors has to be the fact that the new game is the first in a series of five! The creators at Telltale Games have decided to change the essence of the game from a singular platform to a series, allowing fans of the series to now pilot Guybrush and all his ridiculous antics through numerous strange situations. The first episode, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, is merely the start of what promises to be a huge amount of monkey goodness and is filled with more ridiculous reunions and awkward actors than you can handle.
All of these awkward, yet colorful actors, are the inhabitants of Flotsam Island …your first port of call. They’re a stranger bunch than Guybrush had imagined, and include an enigmatic newspaper salesman, a fear-inducing pirate with a love for handcrafted glass unicorns and a delirious doctor with an unsettling desire to be a ballerina.
After your ship is destroyed thanks to your skillful wielding of a voodoo root beer incantation, you find yourself awaking on a strange beach…impervious to your surroundings and with nothing but sand-filled pockets. It is your goal during the first episode to find a ship and get back on the high seas to pursue your Elaine and the scallywag Le Chuck. The Screaming Narwhal just so happens to be the name of the malformed vessel that will ferry you away from the island and put you back on the path of righteousness and back into the arms of your bonny lass.
Your tool through the entire game is your mouse. The creators have done away with the keyboard, and made all your actions (including movement) now possible through the mouse. By holding down the left button your character is able to be guided in a direction and moving the mouse will lead him in that direction. Although this might sound troublesome at first, it actually becomes rather enjoyable after a while. And it’s not long, before you have the hang of the game and are gallivanting your way through the heart of Monkey Island!
Fun Factor
The game is so fun on such a basic level that even a 7 year old would be able to put Guybrush through his paces. Although the game does get rather challenging at some points, it’s never challenging to the extent that you feel you’re stuck. The flow is constant, and the game balances being fun with being challenging perfectly.
Visuals
Telltale Games have given Guybrush a new sleek look in full cartoonish 3D, and the bubbly look of the characters and terrain allows the player to feel like he is in the true essence of the fairytale world of Monkey Island.
Story
At the end of the first episode you are left desperately wondering what humour filled adventure Guybrush will get up to next and whether or not he will ever defeat Le Chuck and find his way back to his beloved Elaine.
Sound
The voice over work is immaculate and the dry-humour that is Guybrush Threepwood’s persona is spot on. Although it doesn’t quite live up to the brilliant comedy of its forerunners, it does give players enough humour to keep the laughing and intrigued.
Originality
It’s always hard to resurrect a franchise, especially after such a long time, but Telltale Games have definitely succeeded in breathing life back into a series that everyone thought had been forgotten.
Longevity
Although the game is short and would take a skilled adventurer not more than a mere 4 hours to finish, the fact that it is the first in a series of five, puts a smile on any Monkey Island fan’s face. Why? Because you know you have 4 more games coming up.
Bottom line
Monkey Island is back and the game we all treasured as pirate loving adolescents has finally returned. So there is no reason for any fan of the series not to get knee deep in some swashbuckling adventures and get back to the heart of a once forgotten franchise. Aaaaaaaaargh! Guybrush Threepwood be back!
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