Tales Of Monkey Island Episode 1: Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal (Wii) Review

The scene is set with Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate, attempting to rescue his beloved wife, Elaine, from the evil clutches of zombie pirate LeChuck. However, despite trying his hardest to find all of the ingredients the mysterious Voodoo Lady told him were required to create The Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu that will finish off the brute, Guybrush ends up taking a few shortcuts and causing somewhat of a disaster in the process. Queue merry japery, crazy antics and a wild ride full of humour and mayhem. Thankfully, it is not one that can only be enjoyed by fans of the original outings from the days of yore.

In this first of a five episode arc, players are thrown straight into the thick of the action, guiding Guybrush around and using the Wii remote to interact with various on-screen objects, either receiving a random comment regarding them, or being able to pick up and use them later on. The aim is to thwart the ghostly LeChuck by combining numerous items and then ultimately thrusting the special Cutlass into him, thus obliterating him forever. Sadly Guybrush ends up making LeChuck human, whilst releasing an evil mist into the world and infecting his left hand at the same time. This first episode takes place on Flotsam Island, a place Guybrush finds himself shipwrecked after his calamity with LeChuck. The overall aim of this chapter is to find out why the unusual island has winds that prevent ships from sailing away from it and then bring a shred of normality to the place in the long run.

The beauty of Telltale is that not only is it made up of a great team of developers in general, it has many of the core talent that originally left LucasArts when the company decided to halt work on future point-and-click titles. Therefore, Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is truly a labour of love, with many of the team reunited and clearly keen to pour as much of its wit, creativity and general humour into the final product as possible. Characters met along the way will leave players chortling to themselves for most of the adventure, whilst puzzles will certainly have players scratching their heads, but most definitely not throwing their controllers against the wall in frustration. The only let-down that could be drawn against this first episode is that sometimes the on-screen conversation arcs, that players can choose from when talking to non-playable characters, do not always bear complete relevance to what is actually said. However, in a way even this negative point can be positively spun, since rather than merely repeating the lines shown on-screen, Guybrush will spurt out something along the same lines, but ever so slightly different.

Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is a resounding success on all levels and deserves its 1,000 Points price-tag on the WiiWare download service. If you have not had chance to pick it up yet, do so now before the second episode lands here in Europe.