The A and B buttons act as left and right mouse-clicks, making movement and basic interaction simple enough, but the d-pad doubles as a quick select for actions and its problematic diagonals means that finding essential commands such as "Use" becomes a bit of a fiddle. The classic mode still uses the old LucasArts on-screen menu of actions and inventory items, but the special edition version uses a rather less intuitive combination of pop-up radial menus. The change in control has been less successful. Those chintzy pictures never sat right with the game's irreverent tone, so while still I mourn the loss of the original Guybrush, in all his pugnacious tousle-haired glory, I'm happy to see him replaced with the chinless blond do-over for these moments at least.
The improvement is most obvious during the static dialogue scenes, where the rather corny Mills & Boon-style still images of the original are thankfully replaced.
In fact, I often found myself switching back and forth between the two just to see how it had been done.
It's a complex real-time dissolve between a pixellated square play area with static speech captions and an HD widescreen display with full voice acting, but it's pulled off seamlessly. And after.įor those unable to let the past go, a prod of the back button switches instantaneously between the new version and the original, a feature that is both welcome and technically impressive. Purists like me will almost certainly find something to grumble about over the span of the game, but the overall impact of the redesign is undeniably for the better. Some puzzle sequences - such as the cave search with the navigator's head - work much better with the crisp new definition, while many jokes are much funnier when spoken aloud. The shift from scrappy young hero to gangly blond fop still feels awkward, although almost every other character and location benefits from the fresh lick of paint.
It doesn't help that they've redesigned Guybrush to fit in better with the cartoony makeover the series received after the somewhat controversial third entry, the first to be produced with no input from creator Ron Gilbert. The original game is so deeply ingrained in my mind that the change took some time to feel right, a bit like seeing a colourised version of a classic black-and-white film. Personally, I found the visual makeover a little hard to accept at first. Even Mr Lucas' fish-munching cameo remains unaltered. It's the same script, the same puzzles, the same brilliant gags. The whole game has been redrawn and reanimated in HD, and the soundtrack re-recorded with real actors and musicians, but the game itself remains mercifully untouched. Thankfully, this makeover is purely technical in nature. First and foremost, have they mucked it up? The words "special edition" have taken on a less than enticing air when applied to projects connected with George Lucas, and the prospect of Star Wars-style tampering must surely cause concern to long-serving fans. We'll still be here when you get back.įor those who already harbour fond memories of this beloved LucasArts adventure, more troublesome questions remain. To say any more of the plot would surely spoil a wonderful experience best enjoyed fresh, so everyone who has yet to make Guybrush's acquaintance should do as they're told and go and play the bloody thing already. If any of this sounds familiar then, yes, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies did borrow rather liberally - and rather cheekily - from this game in order to transform a Disney theme park ride into a rousing blockbuster success. Along the way he falls for Elaine, the island's feisty governor, and falls foul of the ghost pirate LeChuck, who has plans of his own for the lovely lass. First released back in 1990, he points and clicks his way through a series of puzzles, learning the art of insult sword-fighting and discovering the supernatural properties of root beer. Unless you're a joypad-mangling mouthbreather, incapable of seeing past the next big shiny shooty game, you'll discover something that comes awfully close to being the perfect adventure game.įor those uninitiated, Monkey Island introduces us to Guybrush Threepwood, an ambitious young fellow newly arrived on Melee Island to seek his fortune as a pirate.
Before we get started, those who have never played Monkey Island should probably just skip to the score at the end, dash over to Xbox Live Arcade and hit the download button.