Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan Review

The third chapter in the Tales of Monkey Island series once again picks up directly where we left Guybrush at the end of the second chapter, about to get swallowed by a giant man-eating manatee. Well, he DOES get swallowed by it, and their ship ends up getting stuck in what appears to be the giant Manatee's ear.

Once again, I'm playing on the PC, and while the controls are not perfect, I'm getting more and more adapted to them. I still wish I could point and click for movement, but I honestly didn't even think too much about using WASD to move this time.

Now, let's talk a bit about the story, I'll try not to give too much away. After all of this searching throughout the past two chapters, you finally get to meet De Cava inside the Manatee and find out that he's crazy, You also get to meet DeCava's crew, who all have some pretty funny personalities, and there's also a very special appearance by somebody you might all remember from one of the other Monkey Island games. Needless to say, there's a nice amount of new characters in this Chapter.

However, the strong point of any monkey island game is the humor, and this is prevalent throughout. I'd actually have to say this is the funniest chapter yet. Without giving too much away, you get to make crazy pirate faces, give people voodoo-wedgies, and get to talk in manatee using a manatee horn. that last one is actually pretty funny, cause you only have a pre-set amount of phrases, and a lot of them are fairly ridiculous.

The length of the game is about the same as the past two chapters, clocking in at about 3-4 hours, 2 hours if you really know what you're doing. The ending cliffhanger in his one isn't quite as big as the past two, but it gets the job done, and leaves me anticipating the fourth Chapter of the game.

Overall, Lair of the Leviathan is the strongest in the "Tales" series thus far, and it delivers on pretty much everything you're looking for in a Monkey Island game, while being thoroughly enjoyable throughout for old fans and new fans alike.

For this, I give Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan a 5 out of 5

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay Review

I had played the second chapter of Tales of Monkey Island a while ago, but I haven't had the chance to review it. Now, with the third chapter coming out I figured I'd review the second one before it's too late. Once again, I'm playing the PC version.

The second chapter picks up directly where the first one left off, which is good since the first game had a giant cliffhanger. It's nice to have an immediate answer to the question at the end of the first episode. We get introduced to some new characters, and without giving too much away... we also see and old one re-invented.

The story is a bit more large-scale than the first game, and since you now have the Screaming Narhwal, you can go more places than just the main island, Spinner Cay. Of course, this is probobly done just to make it feel as big as the old Monkey Island games, and it works nicely, even though looking at it for how much content is actually there, there's not an incredible amount of content and the game might take you 3-4 hours to finish.

The game still uses the same control scheme as the first game, which I hated at first, and it's still kind of awkward, but it's growing on me. That's not to say I wouldn't prefer the old style point-n-click controls, but this is a good alternative. The comedy is just as witty and refreshing, and I might even be inclined to say I laughed more at this chapter than the first one, not to mention early on in the game you get a book of fish jokes that, if you ever get stuck on a puzzle and don't know what to do, instead of quitting the game, you can just open up your book of fish jokes to get a new one!

Now let's talk about the puzzles. Most of the puzzles in the game are good, but some of them are just stretching it, and didn't really give you that many hints to solve them. For example, in one puzzle early on you can make two pirates turn around by pointing in a direction, and in order to solve it you need to have them do a staring contest and then make them turn around, so they turn in the right direction. These kinds of puzzles don't let you use your wit to solve them, making you just mess around until you accidentally figure it out. There's not many of these kinds of puzzles, but it's still annoying that some of them are there.

Overall, Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2 is a charming, fun, and funny game, even if it does have a few stupid puzzles or a slightly unwieldy control scheme, and I recommend it to anybody who's a fan of the series or anyone who just wants a good laugh.

I give Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay a 4 out of 5.

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal Review

Tales of Monkey Island, as some of you may know, is a re-boot of the classic monkey island franchise. Like most adventure games today, it's episodic, and it's made by Telltale Games, who have pretty much dominated the adventure game market recently, and have a handful of staff that used to work at Lucasarts.

I played the game on PC, however it's also available for download in the Wii. As always, you play as Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™, and yes, they use that trademark symbol jokingly in the subtitles yet again. You start off aboard your ship and have to solve a puzzle to try and save Elaine. After that's finished, you're presented with a nice looking title screen, accompanied by the classic Monkey Island theme we all know and love. Then you end up on Flotsom Island, an island that has it's winds blowing inward, so no ships can leave from it, meaning you're stuck there. You spend the game trying to find your way off of Flotsom, and get into many various pirate acts.

The story in the game is fairly good, but the game really benefits from it's characters. Over the course of the game, you'll meet up with a local reporter that you try and impress with your pirate acts, a pirate glassblower who blows glass unicorns, a crazed doctor who wants to cut off your hand, and many others. These characters are all appropriately voice acted, and are fairly over-the-top. Not to mention, the facial expressions on both Guybrush and the other characters are simply FANTASTIC, and really add a lot of life to the game.

The only bad thing I can say about the game is it's controls. Instead of having standard point and click controls, they either let you walk around using the mouse, by clicking and holding in a direction, or you can walk around using WASD. Both methods aren't particularly good, however I did get used to moving around with WASD after a while.

The game will take you about 2 hours to beat if you don't get stuck, and don't skip past the dialogue, Which I find is a good length for an episodic game. I did manage to get stuck a couple times, however this was just due to me over-thinking what I was supposed to do. Some of the puzzles take a stretch of the imagination, while others are pretty simplistic.

Overall, Tales of Monkey Island stays faithful to the franchise, and is funny enough on it's own, without relying on references of past games for it's jokes. It's a genuinely great adventure game, and worth checking out if you like pirates, or adventure games, or if you just want to play a funny game.

I give Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal a 4 out of 5