Review: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (Xbox 360, PC)
As I mentioned in my review of “Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal“, I am new to the whole Monkey Island franchise. Not to say I’m new to adventure games, I just somehow missed this series the first time around.
It was great to be able to catch up on a game that I’ve been wanting to play for several years. I also wanted to be able to be able to compare both the original and Special Edition, so I played through both versions. The original on PC and SE on the Xbox 360.
“The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition” takes the classic LucasArts adventure game and gives it a graphical overhaul, as well as all new voice acting. The writing still holds up to this day. It is laugh out loud funny on several occasions, and the new voice cast did a great job bringing these great characters to life.
The point and click interface works flawlessly when you are on the PC and using a mouse. Playing it on the 360 is a little trickier. You use the analog stick to move the cursor across the screen, which is pretty cumbersome. They did add the ability to use the d-pad as a shortcut to the various interactions. This is very useful since it makes it a little more functional.
"Special Edition Graphics"
The new graphics are a mixed bag. The backgounds are beautiful. They look like paintings, and I really enjoyed their style. However, I was not too fond of the redesigned characters. They have a very similar hard angled / carved out of wood look like the new Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoons.
The text is also pretty hard to read sometimes. In the original, all the text appears below the action. In the remake, all the text choices appear in white. This makes them incredibly hard to read in a few scenes.
I also have a little bit of an issue with the animation. With the original graphics, everything moves as you would expect. However, when you apply those same animations with the same number of frames to the new graphics, it makes it look wonky. I know in this type of remake they almost always do a one to one with the animation (see the HD remake of Street Fighter II: Turbo), but it looks wrong with high res graphics.
"Original Graphics"
One of the coolest features is the ability to switch between the original and new graphics simply by hitting the back button. Sometimes, I ended up doing this to read the text when it was one of those hard to read scenes I mentioned above. It also allows you, if you are so inclined, to play through the game both ways. Pretty convenient considering there are two endings.
All in all, “The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition” is a great adventure game by any standard. I would recommend it to those who loved the original or if you are new to the franchise. It is even a good jumping on point if you are new to the genre.
I just hope that this leads to more Special Editions and re-releases of these great classics.
Tags: adventure games, comedy, Lucasarts, Monkey Island, Point and Click, The Secret of Monkey Island
This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:58 am
MrColinP says:While I’m jazzed that there’s a version of the old game that people can easily access and play, I really don’t care for the updated graphics at all (and that’s the version most people will be playing, I’m sure).
Too bad about the joystick control- I always thought that was a really lazy way to port an adventure game to console. Wouldn’t it make more sense to move the character with the stick and press a button when he’s next to whatever you want him to interact with?
There’s a group of guys showing LucasArts how they should have made this game. Check out these test renders they did of Monkey Island 2 backgrounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPaH8oIJd7g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUE-aYJG_Js
There’s also a patch you can use to get rid of Guybrush’s stupid haircut in this game:
http://www.mixnmojo.com/php/news/showfile.php?id=3542&category=lucasartsnews
August 14th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I have no idea what is up with the Guybrush design in this game. Looks a lot better with that hair patch.
Also, wow. Those links for the rendering of the backgrounds looks amazing. They should hire these guys to help them do a SE of Monkey Island 2.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Michelle says:Fantastic. You know I’ve never played any of the original Monkey Island games, but this just sold it to me:
“One of the coolest features is the ability to switch between the original and new graphics simply by hitting the back button.”
That’s just made it a must buy in my eyes - will be picking this up, what a wonderful little feature to include.