Topic: Monkey Island

Just started the first game and it looks like it's going to be fun! It's a pirate-themed point-and-click. The prologue was a pain though because the boat is rocking so much you can't aim properly, but I'm glad I got this game. Hoping to get all the chapters eventually.

I've been through the first and second chapters. It's a really neat game. Alot of the dialog between guybrush and the other characters is pretty hillarious! I won't spoil anything but there's a rather amusing part involving a monkey early in the first chapter. You'll crack up for sure. I still need to buy the other chapters. I've never played any monkey Island games on the PC before so this is all new to me. I'm glad I get to play this on Wiiware.

All of the WiiWare chapters are great. Clever puzzles, great characters, and amazing sense of humor. You should really play the earlier PC games if you can, as the whole series is outstanding.

Thanks. Definitely looking forward to playing it. I can't take my Wii to campus, though, so I'll have to wait til Saturday.

This is also my first Monkey Island game, and I look forward to backtracking through the series. Luckily, there's a special edition / graphical upgrade of the original "Secret of Monkey Island" currently available for PC, which I'll be getting after I finish this one (I'm most of the way through Episode 4).

I just wish Episodes 3 and 4 were brighter, especially Episode 4. I know Ep. 4 takes place at night, but it's really hard to move around and find things outside. They could've easily made it brighter while still keeping a believable night setting.

Tales of Monkey Island is my favourite WiiWare game next to Life as a King and World of Goo.

It's funny... Tales of Monkey Island on really tears me because I love the actual game, but found technical issues with the game engine to be very distracting. (I also found the first episode to be extremely short... although maybe I just got lucky when solving the puzzles?)

If you enjoy this game, check out Sam & Max also. There are two retail discs available (season 1 and season 2), with 6 full episodes on each disc for under $20! It's not pirate themed, but still classic point-and-click adventure with great writing.

Yeah, that's great. I had S&MHTR so I might pick up the new games. I'll play the entire TOMI WiiWare series before considering getting the remakes.

how long is each episode of monkey island? i don't wanna lay down 10 bucks for "20%" of a full game.

Probably about 4 to 6 hours each. $50 for the whole thing is quite reasonable.

I found the difficulty level subtly increased as the game wore on. It helps to think of TOMI as one long game rather than 5 little ones.

I bought the first chapter and was immediately pulled in by the humor and wit of the characters. I was hooked and I plan to eventually get them all. I still need to buy chapters 4 and 5. Then I can play through it all together. I can't believe how so many people say the Wiiware version is full of glitches and sound problems. Yeah it's not perfect but after a while you barely notice. Some people are way too picky. It works good enough for me.

I just think it's ridiculous they released a game like this in FIVE different episodes at $10 a piece. With the sizes of each, why didn't they just release it as a retail disc???? I really don't think $50 for a downloadable game is reasonable at all. I have a hard time laying down $50 for any game at all....but for a downloadable game with no hard copy, box, or instruction manual (you can actually read without connecting to the internet... imagine that)? For a downloadable game, I don't think the price should EVER exceed around $30. That's just me though.

The only reason I'm disappointed with the quality of the game engine is because you can get a version that looks, sounds, and plays better on PC -- and that one is also cheaper to buy! The small problems on Wii don't ruin the game, but are easy to notice (especially the awkward audio cut-offs that happened some of the time). So in a straight comparison it becomes really hard not to recommend the PC version first unless someone really prefers gaming on their console instead of a computer -- which explains why I bought the WiiWare version.

It's also worth noting that TellTale did seem to make improvements to the WiiWare game as the series went on... so things get better, even if they never quite manage to run smoothly. If you have a choice of which system to buy ToMI for, choose wisely.

I don't mind paying $10 per episode for something like Strongbad where each download represents a complete, separate game... but I agree that this experiment with digital distribution is not a brilliant idea. Paying $50 to complete a single downloadable game is especially vexing when full seasons of Sam & Max sell at retail for under $20 and I haven't paid more than $30 for any retail game since Super Mario Galaxy came out. Even though ToMI is a great game, it's hard to argue that it's good value for your money. (Making it seem even worse value, the first episode took me under 2 hours to complete. I've played a lot of point-and-click games before, but never in the Monkey Island series and knew nothing about this particular game going in.)

All the little complaints probably make it sound like I don't like the game. That's not true: Tales of Monkey Island really is a good game and very enjoyable! But it's difficult to sugarcoat the issues when they are so obviously visible.

Every chapter took me 6~7 hours. (I looked up the game time in the Wii menu for each chapter)
My best time was 6 hours and 7 minutes for chapter 2. And I'm an oldschool adventure gamer,
I have beaten all Monkey Island games and many more so I don't know how anyone can say
a chapter is only 4 hours long. They're lying or must have played this game using a guide.

Now for something different:
Many Monkey Island fans buy the WiiWare version after they got the PC version because it
actually has different (I say: better) music! Personally I really love the soundtrack and quality
of the WiiWare version. Next to World of Goo it's the best WiiWare soundtrack.
The PC version has CD music, and the WiiWare version has (great) MIDI sound very reminiscent
to all the classic Monkey Island games. It just fits Monkey Island's flair so well that fans actually
want to play the otherwise worse WiiWare version.
It's a neat little anecdote of why less is sometimes more.
WiiWare users now can say, "well we got the clunky port and paid more but we got the version
with the cool oldschool music".

$50 is fine, because the amount of playtime would make it work just fine as a disc release (arguably what they should've done), which are almost always $50 new, anyway. Lack of box and hard copy instructions are almost meaningless.

ejamer, I don't know how you can stand to wait a year or so for every game you want to drop to $30. Most people find a lot of games that are easily worth spending $50 to play within the first couple months after release. By the way, part of the fun of Monkey Island games is examining everything, experimenting with bizarre item usages, and using all of the possible dialogue choices when possible. If you beat Chapter 1 in two hours, I highly doubt you did that extra stuff.

I loved Curse of Monkey Island and Escape From Monkey Island. How do they compare to the older titles, like in humour and puzzles? Would you say these are worth the 1000 points each?

@Starfox: I typed something in the Wii2 thread but it got killed. Sorry.

Half your threads are good dude, the other half seem to be your random thoughts with no real question. I'd recommend Twitter, you can throw your thoughts at it all day. I'll even promise to follow you if you sign up.

edit: Oh, and ergh... Monkey Island. Great memories. _{totally on-topic}

Erm yeah. Everyone was being a bit harsh in that thread but it wasn't really a big deal imo. Better to have new threads than a stagnant forum. +1 to the Twitter suggestion too.

Any answers to my questions btw?