About Monkey Island
''The Secret of Monkey Island" is what started it
all off, released in 1990 it revolutionised the Adventure game on the home
computer as we knew it. It follows a young wannabe pirate named Guybrush Threepwood
in his quest to become a Pirate. (but you knew that already, didn’t you?)
What set this
game apart from anything else that came before it was the excellent humour!
Although looking dated by today’s standards... the humour and story still hold up,
in fact, SOMI is still considered by many as the best of the series.
Ok, about the
story... You start off on Melee Island, a small, unhappy (and slightly weird)
island deep in the Caribbean. There is a shortage of pirates because of a Ghost
Pirate roaming about the sea, causing terror and other general Ghost pirate
stuff. This would be the evil Ghost Pirate LeChuck who is also in love with the
lovely Elaine Marley, Governor of Melee Island.
Anyway, to
cut a long story short... boy meets girl, Ghost steals girl, boy sails after
girl, Ghost gets zapped, Boy gets girl and lives happily ever after, almost.
Ok, ok, not quite the story... but if you want to know about the story in depth
I really recommend playing the game
Monkey Island 2: LeChucks Revenge" finally appeared
two years after "The Secret of Monkey Island" in 1992. Much to
everyone’s surprise it was even better than the first! Funnier, bigger and
better looking. All the best traits of SOMI were there but enhanced, even the
music!
This chapter of the
story sees our hero Guybrush Threepwood boring people to death with his tale of
zapping the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, even though no one seems very interested (not
that they would believe him anyway!) he continues. Guybrush reveals that he is
here on Scabb Island (did I forget to mention Scabb Island? oops.. sorry)
looking for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop! One other small detail worth
mentioning is that LeChuck doesn’t feel like staying dead (hey, it didn’t stop
him the first time!) and so has been re-animated into a lovely rotting Zombie!
Guybrush
Thrushweed's quest for Big Whoop eventually takes him to a total of four
Caribbean islands (and one Zombie Pirates Fortress) before he finds Big Whoop!
Lets just say that this is one of the biggest adventure games I’ve ever seen.
Do you want to know what Big Whoop is? Do you REALLY want to know? Well tough..
go play the game ;-) Actually, you don’t really find out what Big Whoop is
until The Curse of Monkey Island.
The Curse of Monkey
Island" is the third Monkey Island game... and it is FANTASTIC! I know
there where a lot of concerns from fans about CMI, will it be as funny,
will the new style graphics be good for Monkey Island, will the voices be
right? The list goes on.
The voice of
Guybrush (by Dominic Armato) is perfect... I’ve read in an interview that he
said he IS Guybrush, well he was right! The humour remains faithful to the
first two games. From the moment the first chicken floated by Guybrush in the
intro... to the end sequence (Well, it was laughably short!) I was in
hysterics! It's the little things that make it so great, like the clock on
Plunder Island... it tells the right time and chimes the LeChuck tune. This is
one of the Arcade Sections. Featuring the voices of Gary Coleman (Arnold of Different
Strokes)! Dave Madden (Ruben Kincaid of The Partridge Family)! Alan Young
(Wilbur Post of Mr. Ed and 'Scrooge McDuck' from 'Duck Tales')! CMI also
features some great moments that I would class as 'classic' right up there with
the 'Ghost Dance' and 'Sword Fighting' from MI1 and the 'Skeleton Dance' in
MI2. The Pirate Ship Song is absolutely brilliant, as too is, erm... hmmmm,
well I`m sure I’ll think of another by the end of this page. The Pirate Ship
Song There was only really two disappointments in the whole of CMI. The first
was Stan, He didn’t move his arms right (yeah, yeah.. so I’m picky!) and I
didn’t feel his voice was fast enough. The other disappointment was the ending,
which was a little too short and un-interesting. But still, it doesn’t affect
the actual game that is a worthy addition to the Memoirs of Guybrush
Threepwood.
Oh, and one last
thing... THE MUSIC IS AMAZING!! The music is of such high quality that I find
it tough to choose a favourite tune. If only there was a CD Soundtrack ;-)