Lavish artwork and a spectacular score makes the first voice acted Monkey Island a game worth playing by everyone.
User Rating: 10 | The Curse of Monkey Island PC
I have played all the monkey Island games to date, and I can remember when they all came out. I remember the agonising wait for Monkey Island 3, and what a reward it was when it finally came. A radical departure from teh first two games, while the point and click concept was still very much alive, the entire look and feel of the game had been changed. The score was in digital stereo (admittedly nothing compared to the 5.1 surround we have now, at the time was cutting edge), the character design was cartoony, but the backgrounds looked like they had been lovingly hand painted. The cutscenes were impressively rendered in 3D, and the art style means they have not aged badly. The interface changed dramatically from the SCUMM format of half the screen being taken up by inventory and verb tables, to an action coin that only appeared when you held the mouse pointer down. Three options could be selected, Talk (or eat, lick etc), examine, and manpulate. Inventory was selected by a right click, leaving the entire screen free. For the first time in a monkey island game, voice actors were used, as well as subtitles. Many of the voice actors remained through all of the games, or have returned for the recent episodic ones. The game comes with enough of a background for new-to-the-franchise players to start, and some nods to the existing fan base, including a trip back to a screenshot from the first monkey island. As well as returning favourites, there are some brilliantnew characters that have returned in later games.
Harking back to the old days of Monkey Island 2, there are two difficulty settings, normal and Mega Monkey.
The puzzle difficulty in both of these is fairly easy, although again, there are some irritating obtuse puzzle solutions. Generally there is no pixel sweeping, but one or two of the solutions feel like only a fan (or developer) would have got it.
Overall, I love this game, and definitely think it is the best of all of them. It definitely fits with the Odd Number rule (opposite to STar Trek's even number rule.) Even if you haven't played any of the Monkey Island games before, I recommend this one. I would possibly recommend it to people who don't like adventure games, as the writing is so good, and walkthroughs are so easy to get now. If you never play any of the others, this game is one to play.
