Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Tales of Monkey Island

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So my life has been absurdly crazy right now - I'm neck-deep in a full time grad program, and I'm working part time (although it feels like full time) at my graduate fellowship position. I've logged into WoW for a total of... I'd say 30 minutes or so, in the past 6 weeks. Which is both good and bad, I've found. I determined that I miss a grand total of two things - healing in general, and my guildmates. I don't necessarily need to raid, or do hard modes, or follow the latest patch notes, or even level an alt by questing. I just want to heal stuff. That's what I really miss. Just give me a quick 5 man to mindlessly heal and I'll be happy. :P And of course, my guildmates. I've been so busy that I've barely had time to respond to posts on our forum. It's a bummer.

HOWEVER. I *have* found some time to dabble in other random, short-term games, like Tales of Monkey Island by Telltale Games.

I'm halfway through the second episode (there are five total). It's amazingly awesome. I've laughed out loud too many times to count while playing this game, and that's saying something. I've never even played any of the old ones (I didn't even KNOW that there was an original game until a friend told me), but I was able to just jump right in and have a blast (I also got the entire series for $5 as opposed to $35 - they had a sweet deal on the weekend of Talk Like a Pirate Day).

I practically have a crush on the main character, Guybrush Threepwood (mighty pirate!!). He's so unassuming, yet simultaneously swashbuckling, and it's the most charming thing.

Shut up. I also had a crush on Link at one point in my life, too. So what.

Some of the puzzles can get a little bit tricky, but most of them you should be able to figure out on your own. I think so far I've had to look up maybe three or four things, and some of that was just me being impatient. The puzzles are challenging for sure, but nothing that will make you repeatedly frustrated. The controls can also be a little wonky - same with the camera angles. But everything else more than makes up for these small deficiencies. Great music, too.

You all should check it out asap. There's a demo on the website!

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2 remarks:

Ophelie said...

Monkey Island is awesome! Seen a few people talk about it recently (I think two of the games went on sale on Steam), makes me want to dig out my old copies and play them again.

jeffo said...

The Monkey Island series is hysterically funny. My wife once printed out from a site the list of all the swordfighting insults -- not to cheat, she just wanted to have them.

Another good one if it's available anywhere is Grim Fandango. A very amusing and entertaining game.