The Secret of Monkey Island

The Good
I enjoyed everything about this game, from the lush 2d graphics, to ultra reggae beats (although synth'd)

The Bad
I didn't like the fact that you could easily win this game by simply pressing CTRL+W that ruined it, as it was just too simple, and when you looked online or asked friends whther they had completed, so you could get a tip on a puzzle, they would go: "Oh I Simply pressed ctrl+W)

The Bottom Line
Whenever a list of best computer games of all time is created, rather few old titles pop up. The adventure games from the Monkey Island series always appear on such a list. The series has been a legend among adventure gamers since the release of The Secret of Monkey Island. Ron Gilbert, the creator of the series and the designer of this first game, has achieved a position akin to that of a demigod in the world of adventure games. Exactly what is the magic that attracts gamers again and again to see the misadventures of Guybrush Threepwood? Let us find out! Shiver me timbers and all that, mates, ‘cause Guybrush is here!

Guybrush, our antihero, arrives on Island of Mêlée to become a pirate. He finds out that all pirates on the island are too afraid to even sail because of an evil ghost pirate named LeChuck. Still, Guybrush starts his pirate initiation known as The Three Trials. Just when he finally masters the arts of thievery, sword fighting and treasure hunting, he hears that LeChuck has kidnapped the beautiful governor Elaine Marley whom he plans to marry. Guybrush, as any good hero is destined to do, now must find a way to the legendary Monkey Island and rescue Elaine.

The Secret of Monkey Island is released in 1990. While it may spot a dated look now, this is not necessarily a negative. The graphics are quite pretty even by today’s standard. Sure, they are pixelated, but who cares? Character animations are lively, and backgrounds are beautiful looking. The atmosphere is great--from the calm night scenes on Mêlée Island to the hot jungle climate on Monkey Island. There are 2 (actually 3) versions of the game released--the original Floppy Disk version in either 16 (EGA) or 256 (VGA) colors and the CD-ROM version. The interface in the CD-ROM version has been upgraded to the one used in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, in which the inventory objects are now visible as pictures and not as word descriptions as in the original.

The music in The Secret of Monkey Island is great. The tunes are ones that sticks in your head for weeks. The theme song of Monkey Island is simply a legend! The sound quality in the original version is not so good if you do not own a Roland soundcard (you just cannot do miracles with an AdLib soundcard). The CD-ROM version includes a fabulous CD audio soundtrack with new songs that are not heard in the original version. The CD can even be played in an ordinary CD music player. The CD-ROM version is available as part of the Monkey Island Madness CD in The LucasArts Archives Vol. III collection.

The graphics are fast and screen scrolling is smooth. The interface is a familiar one. You choose among the verbs to be used with a bar in the lower part of the screen. All objects have a default verb, which is activated with a right click. For example, when moving the cursor on a door, the interface automatically chooses “open” when you right click. The original version has 12 verbs that include some verbs which are very rarely used, such as “turn on” or “turn off”. In the CD-ROM version, the interface is changed to use only 9 verbs.

One of the greatest elements in this game is its nonlinear nature. For example, you can complete The Three Trials in any order you want. If you get stuck on one of them, you can always try another. There is always something to do or explore. The puzzles in this game are brilliant. They are designed in a manner that all puzzles in adventure games should strive. They are so well made that when you finally find the solution to them you have to hit your head against the wall thinking “Why did I not figure that out in the first place?”. The answers to the puzzles are always, more or less, logical. You cannot get stuck in the game just because you miss an object or a clue. Guybrush cannot die except for one place, so you can try everything!

Interaction with other game characters is a priority in the gameplay. You will the previously used boats salesman, vegetarian cannibals, and many other hilarious personalities. Guybrush talks a lot and always has something to comment about everything. It is obvious that the design team has had a lot of fun writing the dialogues for Guybrush and other characters. This game also features one of the most memorable game moments in computer adventure gaming history—the legendary insult sword fight, where you have to verbally insult your opponents in order to beat them. The highlight of this game is definitely its humor. In fact, The Secret of Monkey Island is credited for inventing the concept of humor in computer games. The dialogues are really funny. I find myself amused even after playing this game many times over. As usual, Max the rabbit makes a cameo appearance in this game.

The Secret of Monkey Island is an excellent game in all aspects. It has a clever storyline, great character design, funny dialogues, good graphics, and beautiful music. A novel based on the Monkey Island series, written by Christopher Gerrard, is even available! Another testimonial to the popularity of this title is seen in the fact that the game has been translated in 5 languages—English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The Secret of Monkey Island stands as one of the legendary computer adventure games ever created. It is really funny, well written, and very entertaining. It is a first class adventure. If you do not own The Secret of Monkey Island, turn your monitor off now and hurry to your nearest game store and buy this game! You are missing a lot every second!

The Good
Guybrush Threepwood is the silliest and the funniest character I ever saw in a game. The game has perfect graphics, which can't be surpassed by "Unreal 2"! (LOL!) The story is like in an Indiana Jones movie. One hero, one woman, and lots of grog ;)

In this game, the programmers created a wonder. The story of "Monkey Island" is better than all the stories in other adventures until today. It's more funny than a movie with Monty Python. In this game, I saw the biggest three-headed monkey in the world! Bigger than my teacher! ;D

The secrets are too good for an adventure. Only God could have made that!

The Bad
What can be bad here? It's MONKEY ISLAND!!!!

The Bottom Line
Buy it or die ==> ! <== =o)

The Good
Back in the Old Years, an adventure game came and boosted up the genre, a bit closer to the qualities of the later games.

Monkey Island is a great game, almost in all aspects. The first thing you ever see it's graphics, and graphics is where it was breakthrough. The backgrounds for example, previously were flat, and now obtained depth and perspective. Sometimes they were immersive (like outside the Mansion, or the cannibal village). The sprites were not something impressive but they were adequately drawn as semi-cartoony. The dialogue close-up portraits were the first photographic quality images to enter an adventure (AFAIK).

Your sprite now instead of walking and opening doors, will contribute to impressive cutscenes, like the fight with Sheriff and at the end with LeChuck.

The gameplay is highly different from the other products. Here you don't use 'What is' and start pixel hunting. The name of the recognised object appears right when you point it. The scenario is open and you can do stuff no matter in what order. Go to the SCUMM bar, talk to the pirates, the leaders, learn for the trials, and return the evidence? Fine. Start solving the trials without talking to the leaders? When you present the evidence to them they will say 'Ah I see you have heard of the trials'. Do you want to save time and avoid the dialogue? Fine. Start with the trials, which you can, by the way, solve in whatever order.

The dialogues give also a sense of freedom. Introduced in Indiana Jones, here they are extremely better. Although the dialogues don't affect puzzles or distant future events, they are richly designed. Many ways to introduce yourself to strangers, which will affect their reply, or not. Then you can ask many thinks, in whatever order you like. Sometimes your questions will bring up other questions or you can avoid them and go back to the original questions. Sounds familiar? Well that's how it started.

Dialogues are also an indicator of humor. For example when you meet Elaine, your availiable lines you have to choose from vary between 'Ulp...' and 'Err...'. Or when you have to say 'I do' many times till you convince Smirk to train you.

Oh yes, humor. After Larry and Space Quest, Monkey Island is one of the funniest games. The plot is self-sarcastic and Guybrush is driven toward funny situations. Vegetarian Cannibals, anachronisms (grog slot machines), a hanged man who died while trying to set up a swing, a monster-parrot, gangs, punchlines, in-jokes. They won't impress you as the later games but they will at least make you laugh.

It was also the first game to use a full soundtrack so this must be noted. I was not a fan of reggae, but here you don't hear music only in the intro, but in many places you will visit. The first job of the famous Michael Land.

The Bad
When I was thinking of writing a review I found it hard to think of any flaws. A brief reading of other reviews proved the same. Is the game THAT good? Anyway, after thinking a bit I can tell the following:

The savegame system is poor, identical to LOOM. You can save up to a certain number of games (which is small), and cannot change your directory. If you want to keep your games you must backup them in another directory. If you want for some reasons to review them (eg. for screenshots, or test other replies) it's a real trouble, especially back when some used plain DOS.

Another minor flaw, in-game this time, is the distance you have to travel each time. In later games Lucasarts fixed this by jumping you to the next screen when double-clicking. However in those times, people did not conceive time as we do and wan't hurrying. Few games had such 'tricks'. Besides it's less slow than Syberia!

Also, some puzzles are a bit frustrating. For example how could you guess that you can switch monkey blood with a bottle of wine? I can forgive these since this is a comedy adventure, and after all you can always start 'USE'ing everything you have and find the solution.

The Bottom Line
The big Hitchhiker's Guide to the Adventure Games of the Galaxy, in the definition of the word 'classic' must have the box-cover of MI. I won't say that MI is my favourite game, or the best ever made, but it is indeed one of the most influential, at least to us of the 'newer generation' who are too young for other classics, like Zork. If you are an Adventure gamer and haven't still played it, well, did you miss something?