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Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal review
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Yo ho ho and a bottle of, uh... magical root beer.
I've never been much of an impulse buyer when it comes to video games. Usually I like to explore a game a little before I buy it: read some reviews, check out a demo, rent it through GameFly, or maybe just wait for the price to drop a little. It's a short list of titles that I've been willing to shill out full price for immediately; the only one that comes to mind in the past few years is BioShock, which I actually went to the trouble of pre-ordering back in 2007 because of my obsession with its predecessor, System Shock 2.
And now, in the year 2009, a similar love affair with a long-dormant series (one I've documented in pastarticles) has led me to pre-order Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island, the first episode of which finally arrived the other day. It bears the title Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, and after playing through it in one marathon session (with only a brief break to eat some spaghetti) I can finally come out and say whether it's been worth the solid month of anticipation.
In a word, yes. The game delivers exactly the kind of loving fan service I was hoping for in a compact, well-formulated dose, with only a few minor flaws to blunt my already-ravenous hunger for the next episode's release.
Hell, even the game's credits are enough to bring back fuzzy memories for dedicated Monkey Island fans like myself. Notable series veterans like writer Dave Grossman, composer Michael Land, and voice actor Dominic Armato (voice of protagonist Guybrush Threepwood) have returned for the new installments. Even series co-creator Ron Gilbert is listed as "visiting professor of Monkeyology." It's no surprise, then, that the game is packed with subtle references to its legendary LucasArts forerunners, including a mention of the SCUMM engine, an appearance by Chuck the Plant, and the inclusion of classic dialogue options like "I'm selling these fine leather jackets" and "look behind you, a three-headed monkey!" Of the series' recurring characters, only the frantic, arm-flailing salesman Stan is conspicuously absent, though a passing references hints at an appearance in the not-to-distant future. The others - Guybrush, his wife Elaine, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck, and the full-figured and mysterious Voodoo Lady - all play important roles in the story. Clearly, Telltale at least understands who (and what) fans of the series expect to see in a Monkey Island game, and are willing to cater accordingly.
The plot of Screaming Narwhal, like that of any good sequel, skillfully mixes familiarity and originality. We open on the sinister LeChuck, sacrificing a monkey in a forbidden voodoo ceremony so that he can obtain mastery over the seas and marry Elaine. Guybrush arrives on the scene just in time with a recipe for a root beer-coated cutlass that'll finish off LeChuck once and for all, but he characteristically bungles it, returning LeChuck to life and setting off an explosion that sends him hurtling into the briny deep. When he wakes up, he's marooned on Flotsam Island, whose freakish, constantly inward-blowing winds have kept all of its inhabitants trapped for years. He spends the rest of the episode trying to escape the island, all the while battling the perfidious Pox of LeChuck, which makes his hand act like the possessed appendage from Evil Dead II, to the point where it punches our hapless hero in the face whenever he makes a particularly gruesome pun. By the time the episode comes to an end, Guybrush has, as per usual, succeeded despite all odds (and his own ineptitude.) He restores the winds to normal, learns how to control his cursed hand (grog and a mystical sponge, don't ask) and escapes the island... only to end the game with a sword pressed to his throat. Some things never change.
In between, Guybrush has to solve a series of puzzles using only his wits, the other inhabitants of the island, and a small inventory of items. As in all Monkey Island games, these puzzles often sound exciting and dangerous but usually end up having an amusingly anti-climactic resolution. For example, Guybrush's first task on Flotsam Island is to stir up some piratey stories for a local news service by starting a fight, seizing a ship, and digging up some buried treasure (a set of tasks that closely mimics The Three Trials from the very first Monkey Island.) Sounds like the stuff that swashbuckling legend, but without giving too much away the bar fight is started completely by accident, the ship is a rickety, cobbled-together wreck, and the treasure is not a chest full of gold doubloons but an ultra-rare action figure. The game's other tasks are equally bizarre, ranging from destroying a set of glass unicorns to escaping the office of a crazed French quack with the help of an electro-shockable monkey. For the most part, the puzzles are creatively and logically put together, and a lot of fun to figure out (one exception being the double appearance of the "find your way through the jungle maze" chestnut.) On the other hand, they do tend to be a little easy; I never got stuck for more than a few minutes on any of them and finished the game in under three hours. Also, some solutions will feel a little arbitrary or counter-intuitive, though a far greater number (especially figuring out a rather irregular use for a wheel of cheese) will have you wearing the self-satisfied grin that defines a great adventure game.
But not everything about this game will make you grin, with self-satisfaction or otherwise. I was both alarmed and confused to find that the game's controls are pretty much broken, no small feat for a genre that's founded on a simple "point where you want to go and click on it" premise. Indeed, Telltale itself utilized a very basic version of the point-and-click system in their Sam & Max games (you could only interact with any object in two ways, unless you used another item on it) and it worked just fine, so I'm not at all sure why they decided to fix what was most definitely not broken and change over to a system whereby you click-and-drag to move in the direction you want. Not only is this control scheme uncomfortable (you have to hold down both mouses buttons to run, which starts to hurt pretty quickly), but it goes against years of adventure game intuition, and I just couldn't get used to it. It also feels a bit buggy: sometimes Guybrush just spins in a circle, or doesn't respond at all. Oddly enough, you can still just click to move between objects (and double click on them to run) so the click-and-drag system only comes into play when you've got nothing but scenery around you, or you want to exit a screen altogether. I sincerely hope Telltale will make some changes to these controls in the next episode, because as it stands they're the only glaring flaw in an otherwise excellent game. In the past, they've been good about adapting to consumer demand in-between episodes, so I'm still holding out hope.
Though the control problems are pretty unforgivable, it's the only real fly in the soup. In addition to the aforementioned story and puzzles, the game looks and sounds excellent. The caricaturized, Pixar-like Telltale animation style fits in well with the exaggerated lunacy of the Monkey Island universe, especially for Guybrush's bizarre hairstyle and freakishly lanky frame, and the range of facial expressions, even on minor characters, is impressive. Michael Land's score, as always, captures the serene tropical rhythms of the Caribbean, and my only complaints in regards to the voice work is that Elaine sounds a little too much like Super Nanny, and the fellow playing LeChuck goes a little too far over the top, even for an evil ghost pirate. Still, these are mere blips on the radar compared to Armato's consistently excellent readings for Guybrush, which perfectly capture the strange mix of posturing incompetence and naive innocence that fans have come to know and love in the character.
While it may not last long, and it's not exactly perfect, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal ends up being pretty much what it should be: the triumphant return of a cherished franchise. If Telltale can work out a few kinks in time for the next episode, they may have a classic on their hands.
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