The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a remake of the popular Lucas Art point and click adventure game which was released back in 1990. The remake was released in mid-2009 on PC, Mac, PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. The game is set in the Caribbean at the time of pirates. You play as Guy Threepwood - a guy who dreams of becoming a pirate.

This game is set in a third person perspective point and click style gameplay. You are able to explore around the world and interact with objects in a couple of different ways, such as inspecting them, picking them up, pushing or pulling for example, whilst you are also able to interact with other NPCs in the game through multiple dialogue options. The game has no death scenes in it for your character; game play is heavily focused on puzzles and exploring. The puzzles in The Secret of Monkey Island are in adventure style; and make no sense what so ever until you finally figure it out, then it becomes clear as day, but all of the puzzles are fun to take part in. Personally my favourite would be the pirate insulting duels. This was the first game in a long while that actually had me taking notes on a pen and paper! None of the puzzles are really time based, so you can spend as much time as you want on them without being penalized.

What I really liked about The Secret of Monkey Island is that you can either play the game in the remastered settings with the higher quality art style, or you can actually play it in the classic pixel style that the original game was based on, you can do this on a scene by scene basis too. The art style of the remastered edition looks really good though, lots of vibrant colours and some really nice looking background environments.

As this was my first experience with The Secret of Monkey Island I wasn't sure what to expect from it story wise, but I was pleasantly surprised when there is a whole load of humour added into the plot. Every single character I ran into had an extremely memorable persona. I don't want to spoil any of the story since the game is essentially the story, but it is captivating and interesting right until the end.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is completely voice acted, and done really well. Even the none main characters are voice acted, such as bar dwellers and town folk which was a nice touch, much of the sound track is also the same, just remastered to a higher quality.

This is another game that completely baffled me at parts, whether it be on some of the puzzles or just knowing where to go next to progress the story; which resulted in me looking up the guide, to be honest I am not sure how you are supposed to figure some of it but it has been done by plenty of others! I was really immersed in the story of the game and didn't want to lose too much time faffing around with not knowing where to go so I was happy to look up the answers this time.

Each of the game's scenes has plenty of objects that you can interact with, most will end up with Guy giving some sort of witty remark towards them, and there are also lots of NPCs which you can talk with to get more out of the plot and some of the side stories going off in the game too.

The Secret of Monkey Island took me ten hours to complete; this was with the aid of a guide at parts, and following up all dialog options with NPCs to get the most out of the lore; I thought this was a pretty good length for the game considering I actually thought it would be a lot shorter given my past experience of point and click games. Given that the story is linear and that there is only one ending to the game, there is no reason to replay it through a second time though.

Given that this is a remastered edition of the game, it works fine on the newer operating systems, and I was able to play at 4K resolutions perfectly fine. I encountered minor problems with the controls in the game, and the scroll wheel functionality when choosing which action to take on objects stopping randomly - but this was easily worked around by using the keyboard shortcuts. An odd issue which has been reported is that for some reason the game refuses to run when being installed on a 3 TB hard drive, so that may be something to consider if you are purchasing it and you only have a 3 TB drive.

The Secret of Monkey Island is often referred to as the pinnacle of point and click adventure games, and this series is what spawned many more of the greats we have today, and rightly so. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of my time playing this game, and the story is absolutely brilliant and I cannot wait to get stuck into the rest of the series. The low price of £6, 99 on Steam makes The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition a serious contender for a must play title.


Tom's Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/32360

Monkey Island. If you know what this name means, you've got this game already. 10/10

English:

Oh boy, what can i say? Monkey Island is a game that EVERY gamer MUST play, and this is the perfect time to do it, with this remake. Personally, i'm not a huge fan of this version of the game, i prefer the classic version but, ehy, this is great anyway, and it brought my memories back to when i was a child. But you don't care about this, don't you? So let's keep going. The graphics are modern and beautiful, the gameplay is the classic one that these games invented at their time, and as always, is GREAT. The story is a lot engaging, and the UNIVERSE of this game... Oh god. I just love it, is so well done, with its lore, its characters, its jokes, its stereotypes, THE GROG... Just play it and you'll understand, wait the sales if you need it but PLAY IT. You'll thank me later ;)
(Sorry for my bad english)

And remember.. "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."

Italiano:

Oh, ragazzi, cosa c'è da dire? Monkey Island è un gioco che DEVE essere giocato da TUTTI i videogiocatori, e questo remake è l'occasione perfetta. Personalmente non vado PAZZO per questa versione del gioco, preferivo quella originale sotto certi aspetti ma, ehi, è comunque fantastico, e poi mi ha riportato con la mente a quando ero bambino. Ma a voi questo non interessa, giusto? La grafica è bella e moderna, la giocabilità è stupenda, il gameplay è quello classico del punta e clicca, inventato proprio da questi giochi ai loro tempi, la storia è avvincente e divertente e poi l'UNIVERSO di questo gioco è talmente ben fatto, con le sue battute, i suoi stereotipi, i personaggi, IL GROG... Giocatelo e basta, aspettate gli sconti se dovete ma, giocatelo. Poi mi ringrazierete ;)

E ricordatevi... "Mai pagare più di 20 dollari per un gioco del computer."

What can I say? this is by far the best point & click adventure game EVER. Brings me so many good memories of my childhood and this remake looks amazing!

Sometimes classics just don't hold up. I used to like a movie called The Adventures of Milo and Otis (a Westernized version of the Japanese movie 'A Kitten's Story'). It's a fun movie about a cat and a dog! They work together, solve crimes! Except there's all sorts of shady business concerning animal abuse around that film. I can't watch it anymore without wondering how many kittens and puppies died for this movie.

Now that you've got that wonderful nugget of information, I'm here to tell you that The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a classic that DOES hold up. It has no dead kittens in it. It has lots of ghosts, though. All those ghosts lovingly rendered in actual art graphics rather than those pixel art graphics that kids hate today. (If you like the pixel art graphics, all you have to do is press F10 and you will TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO 1990 IN VIDEO GAME FORM!) Part of the draw of the Special Edition is that it modernizes the 1990 classic for 2015 audiences - because who in the hell wants to play with a verb menu permanently glued to the bottom of the screen these days? It's like watching a movie in a theatre with an uncomfortable mask on. That may fly in The Bad Old Days, but this is 2015 and I have MONITOR REAL ESTATE. There's also a built-in hint system if you get stuck on the puzzles. Just hammer the H button. The H button stands for "Help, Hi! Here Hi Ham Hin Hthis Hcomputer Hgame, Hand Hi Hhave Hno Hidea Hwhere Hto Hgo!"

As for the actual game itself? It's a pirate story with a wonderful atmosphere, interesting characters, and jokes coming out of the wazoo. But as for the progression and puzzles... well, they're not so hot. Half of the game is about gearing up for the big expedition, and then the other half quickly flys by. The puzzles range from 'fine' to 'irritating'. The best course of action when playing this is to take in the atmosphere and choose every dialogue option you can get. That means you get more jokes, and the puzzles aren't as tedious!

Anyway, this is one of the greats, and no animals die in this video game, so I am happy to say it'll be a thing you can treasure for some time.