Return to Monkey Island

Guybrush Threepwood, pirate adventurer, would-be nemesis of the ghost pirate LeChuck and implausibly successful wooer of the beautiful Elaine Marley, has finally worked out that, despite all of his adventures, he has never actually worked out what the Secret of Monkey Island actually is. Returning to his original stomping ground of Melee Island, he sets out on his new quest, only to learn with horror that LeChuck is already three steps ahead of him.

Released back in 1990, The Secret of Monkey Island almost immediately became acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time. Fiendish puzzles, funny writing, awful puns and the daftest protagonist name in gaming history combined to make a memorably brilliant, if rather short, game. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge followed a year later with a better story, more interesting puzzles, a much greater variety of locations and fantastic music. It also, infamously, had a very strange ending that left a lot of people scratching their heads.

That ending was never really resolved. The creative team behind the first two games, most notably lead designer and writer Ron Gilbert, left LucasArts and moved on. A separate team eventually made a third game in 1997, but wisely skipped past the ending to the second title and picked up some years later with only minimalist references to what happened in the meantime. The Curse of Monkey Island was a great game in its own right, despite the change in ownership. Escape from Monkey Island (2000) and Tales from Monkey Island (2009) followed, to a middling reception. Better-received were HD remakes of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2 in 2009 and 2010, which introduced them to a new generation and got people thinking about that crazy ending again.

Now the unlikely has happened: Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman have reunited to make Return to Monkey Island, a game that finally picks up after the ending of Monkey Island 2 and forges on. The new game also doesn't eject the others from continuity: having kinda explained the ending to Monkey Island 2, we fast-forwards a few years past all of Guybrush's other adventures to pick up on him returning to Melee for his new expedition. He and Elaine are now happily married and Elaine is running a campaign to eliminate scurvy from the Caribbean, leaving Guybrush free to take up his quest.

The first two-thirds or so of Return to Monkey Island is a journey which will trigger the nostalgia feels in players. This part of the game almost exclusively uses locations from the original title in the series, so once again you'll visit the SCUMM Bar, hang out at the Governor's Mansion and visit the Voodoo Lady for enigmatic advice, before visiting Monkey Island, falling off the overlook again and sneaking onto LeChuck's ship. But this is a melancholic form of nostalgia: Melee Island has had an economic crisis, a lot of the old businesses are shut down, and there's newcomers who don't recognise Guybrush or particularly care about him being a regular from years or decades before. There's still plenty of laughs here, but Return also examines its own status as a legacy sequel made years after the originals (not always the best of ideas) in a way that that is smart without vanishing up its own posterior.

The latter third of the game opens up and Guybrush gets to explore a series of new islands and locations never before seen in the series. This sequence feels somewhat briefer than it should be, possibly a budget issue or the decision they had almost too much material for one adventure game but not enough for two, so trimmed some things to keep it in the confines of one title. This has the unfortunate effect of meaning that the game is dominated by locations you've seen before, whilst the new and fresher material is crammed into a relatively brief part of the game towards the end, before we once again return to a familiar location for the grand finale.

But ultimately it works. The puzzles are fine, not too obtuse apart from a couple of eye-rollers (a built-in hintbook pretty much means you never need to look up online solutions, although the game encourages you to use it as little as possible), and the story is entertainingly told, with that undercurrent of melancholic nostalgia running through it to make it more interesting. 

Return to Monkey Island (****½) is, improbably, excellent. Once you get over the stylised new art direction, it works really well and the music is fantastic. Creatives in their fifties revisiting the scene of their greatest hit from their twenties could have gone badly wrong, but Return to Monkey Island emerges as far smarter, funnier, emotional and engaging than it really should. Even if its own ending does definitely skim around the edges of taking the mickey, but it does earn it. The game is available now on PC, Mac and Nintendo Switch.

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An official new MONKEY ISLAND game is coming from its original creators

Adventure game legends Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman are returning to their best-known series for a new game.

Return to Monkey Island is set for release later this year and picks up after the events of Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge.

The series began with The Secret of Monkey Island in 1990, which saw trainee pirate Guybrush Threepwood pitched into battle with the evil ghost pirate LeChuck after he kidnaps Guybrush's would-be girlfriend, Governor Elaine Marlee of Melee Island, and imprisons her on the titular Monkey Island. Guybrush gathers together a crew to help rescue her. The story continues in Monkey Island II (1991), where Guybrush is in search of the fabled treasure of Big Whoop, but once again comes into conflict with LeChuck, now resurrected as a zombie.

Gilbert and Grossman developed the first two games alongside Tim Schafer. LucasArts subsequently released two more games without the trio's involvement: The Curse of Monkey Island (1997) and Escape from Monkey Island (2000). The IP was licensed to Telltale Games, who released Tales of Monkey Island in 2009.

The canonical status of the new game is unclear, save it is a sequel to Monkey Island II and will address that game's infamous cliffhanger (which The Curse of Monkey Island kind of sidesteps). Whether Return to Monkey Island is an interquel set between II and Curse, or an alternate universe kind of sequel, remains to be seen.

The game is being published by Devolver Digital and developed by studio Terrible Toybox, responsible for Gilbert's last game, the splendid LucasArts throwback game Thimbleweed Park.

UPDATE: Ron Gilbert has clarified that the new game takes place between Monkey Island II and Curse of Monkey Island, and will not remove Curse from canon.

MONKEY ISLAND and COMMAND & CONQUER celebrate their birthdays

Two of the most influential names in gaming celebrated anniversaries this week.

It's been ten o'clock on Melee Island for twenty-five years now...

The Secret of Monkey Island went gold on 2 September 1990 and hit shops a couple of weeks later. It was the latest in a series of graphical adventure games released by LucasArts using the SCUMM Engine. The previous games using the engine - Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Loom - had all been successful, but The Secret of Monkey Island was bigger still. It may still be the funniest video game ever made, as well as one of the cleverest, with some exceptionally fiendish puzzle design and the excellent idea of insult sword fighting still resonating today.

The same team made the superior sequel, Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge, but then began leaving the company. The Curse of Monkey Island (1997) and Escape from Monkey Island (2002) were made by different teams and are not counted as wholly canon (although Curse has numerous fans). Ron Gilbert, the main creative force on the first game, talks about the original game's release here and how he would handle a third canon Monkey Island game here. Gilbert is currently working on a SCUMM-esque retro adventure game called Thimbleweed Park, which he hopes to release next year.

You can play The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island II today, using special editions which allow you to either play in "classic" mode or with revamped, modern graphics.

Westwood couldn't afford a lot of actors for C&C's cut scenes, so drafted in their staff to help. Joe Kucan, the director of the cut scenes, became the game's bad guy, Kane, inadvertently creating (arguably) the most iconic non-pixellated bad guy in video games.

Meanwhile, it is also the twentieth anniversary of the release of Command and Conquer. Developed by Westwood games and released on 31 August 1995, Command and Conquer had a huge impact in the way it popularised the real-time strategy genre. The same developers, Westwood, had effectively created the genre with Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis in 1992, but that game had problems with the player only being able to select one unit at a time. C&C allowed for entire armies of mixed units to be assembled and used to attack the enemy en masse. The game was also influential with its elaborate cut scenes and the focus on a narrative, the battle between the Global Defence Initiative (GDI) and the terrorist Brotherhood of Nod for control of tiberium, a potent energy source brought to Earth by meteorites.

The game was followed by three direct sequels: Tiberian Sun (1999), Tiberium Wars (2007) and Tiberian Twilight (2010). However, the game also spawned two spin-off universes. The more famous of these was the Red Alert series, which used time travel to create a series of conflicts between the Western Allies and Soviet Union (and later the Japanese Empire). The Red Alert series is considerably sillier and camper than the core series, but is also arguably superior, with better units. This sub-series consists of Red Alert (1996), Red Alert 2 (2000) and Red Alert 3 (2008). The second spin-off was Command and Conquer: Generals (2002); a sequel/reboot was in development before being canned a couple of years ago.

The influence of the C&C games can be seen and felt in all the RTS games that followed, from StarCraft to Homeworld to this week's Act of Aggression (a self-aware homage to the original series), even if EA has seemingly abandoned the franchise.

You can get most of the C&C games on Origin.

Wertzone Classics: Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck's Revenge

Having vanquished the evil ghost pirate LeChuck, Guybrush Threepwood's life seemed to be on the up. Unfortunately, his girlfriend Elaine has dumped him and his attempts to dine out on his former adventures forever seem to be wearing a little thin. Guybrush resolves to undertake a fresh new adventure: to find the legendary treasure of Big Whoop. To this end he travels to Scabb Island, only to find it under the tyrannical rule of Largo, a former lieutenant of LeChuck's who is searching for a way of resurrecting his old master. If Guybrush is to find Big Whoop, he must lift the Largo Embargo and search the Caribbean for the four map pieces which, legend has it, will lead him to the treasure.


Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was originally released in 1992 and is pretty much the single finest graphic adventure game ever made (despite very, very stiff competition from Day of the Tentacle). Released just a year after its predecessor, the sequel dwarfs it in every respect. It's much larger, more than twice as long and features a much larger cast of characters. It's also considerably more difficult, with the greater number of locations, items and puzzles meaning that some hefty lateral thinking is required to solve the game's conundrums if you don't want to resort to spending half an hour combining every item in your inventory with every clickable object on every screen until you stumble on the answer. Luckily, the game rewards logical thinking, with arguably only one extremely obtuse and random puzzle in the whole game (involving a metronome-mounted banana, a hypnotised monkey and a giant faucet).

Monkey Island 2 also uses a more interesting structure, with the game initially limited to one small playing area which then expands, in the second act, to a much vaster free-roaming section where you can visit different islands and undertake different jobs and puzzles in any order you wish until you complete your objective, and then the plot narrows down again towards the denouncement. Obviously BioWare were paying attention to this, as they later used the same structure in almost every single one of their games. That's because it works pretty well, giving you the semblance of freedom in the second act to explore, meet new characters and do more stuff at your own pace. It would have been quite nice to have seen some more optional stuff in this section (pretty much everything you do is necessary to further the plot and game objectives), but I suppose that is why Monkey Island 2 is an adventure game, not an RPG.

As with The Secret of Monkey Island, the game has now been reissued in a new Special Edition, with completely re-recorded music and full voice acting for every line of dialogue in the game (given the amount of it in the game, this is very impressive), using the same voice cast as Curse, Escape and the Monkey Island 1 special edition. Graphically, the game has been completely updated to HD standards, which must have been an fair amount of work given its size, and the quality of the artistic update is superior to the previous special edition. This appears to be because the original concept art and storyboards from the second game were far more detailed, allowing it to be scanned and updated more efficiently and faithfully. As with the first game, you can hit a button at any time to replace the game graphics and sound with the originals and you now have the option to mix the old graphics and new voice-overs. There are also more extras, such as a ton of concept art (for both the special edition and the original game) and a voice-over commentary from original creators Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, which is intriguing but rather lacking in depth.

On the minus side, the original classic intro sequence has been removed (the bit with the dancing monkeys) and there have been a few (and thankfully only a few) 'tweaks' to the dialogue, with a few new in-jokes and dialogue options added. The casual player and even most of the dedicated fans (I count myself amongst the latter, having played the game to completion at least a half-dozen times in 1992-96 before my Amiga stopped working and I moved onto PC) won't have a huge problem with this, but extreme hardcore fans will likely be up in arms over it, despite the fact there's nothing stopping them playing the actual original game on DOSBox.

Unfortunately, control issues remain. The same clunky system from the first special edition has been retained, although keyboard shortcuts have been added for the PC version, making things slightly easier. The control system is actually much more problematic for Monkey Island 2, which is several times dependent on time-limited puzzles, where you sometimes have to combine items in your inventory and then use it with an on-screen object in the space of a few seconds at best. Hitting F1 and switching to 'classic' mode and using the superior menu system from the original game is often the best way to achieve this. This is particularly noticeable in the game's extended final confrontation between Guybrush and LeChuck, where the inability of the new control system to cope with several time-constrained puzzles in rapid succession becomes so frustrating you may have to resist the urge to fling your monitor through the nearest window.

But, returning to the good points, Monkey Island 2 is still a stunning game. The graphics are gorgeous. In this 3D-driven age, there is something to be said for the simplicity of painted backdrops, especially now re-rendered in HD. The writing is smart and funny, the puzzles are intelligent and well-conceived, and the game is long and complex enough to be challenging without ever getting too frustrating (the aforementioned 'monkey wrench' puzzle excepted). The biggest surprise on revisiting the game is that I have gained a greater appreciation for the highly divisive ending, especially spotting the little hints that the game has been dropping for a while that something isn't quite right, not just in the plot but with the entire Monkey Island universe. The metaphysically mind-blowing ending, which comes across like Gene Wolfe taking over a Terry Pratchett novel in the last quarter, is still one of the boldest and possibly most suicidal risks I've ever seen a computer game take (only exceeded by Planescape: Torment). It was controversial and unpopular in 1992 and it remains so now, especially since The Curse of Monkey Island (the third game, held by some purists to be non-canon due to the non-involvement of the original programming team, despite being a fine game in its own right) brushes it under the rug fairly quickly by simply going for the most obvious solution.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (*****) is available now for PC and X-Box 360, with iPhone and iPad versions available from the Apple store.

Three classic game remakes: MONKEY ISLAND 2, FINAL FANTASY 7 & SYNDICATE

There are three classic games currently under development or consideration that may raise a smile for old-time gamers.


Starting with the confirmed title, LucasArts has confirmed that Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is being re-developed for a Summer 2010 release on PC, X-Box 360 and PS3 (the special edition of Monkey Island 1 is also due on PS3 shortly).

Originally released in 1992, Monkey Island 2 is almost certainly the single greatest adventure game ever made, topping its predecessor with far more gorgeous graphics and some of the greatest music in the medium. The previous Monkey Island remake was a great success, but it remains to be seen if The Curse of Monkey Island (the third game in the series) will also be remade.


Next up is Final Fantasy VII. Whilst the seventh game in the series (although, like all games in the sequence, it is completely stand-alone with no connections to other titles aside from a similar control system), it was the first to be released for the Sony PlayStation console (and PC) and the first to be a massive smash-hit success in the West, thanks to its epic storyline, compelling characters and (for the time) jaw-dropping cut scenes, despite a ropey English translation.

A few years back, Square Enix re-rendered the game's opening cinematic for the PS3 as an 'experiment' that had fans gagging for a full remake. The company has revisited the possibility several times with no firm commitment, until a recent statement by Square's CEO that the company (who have just delivered and released Final Fantasy XIII) is now going to seriously sit down and see if the project is financially viable and technically possible. No guarantees, but this is an interesting move. A FF7 re-release lifted up to the graphical quality of the latest games (Final Fantasy XIV, an online multiplayer game, is already in an advanced stage of development) would no doubt be a massive success. More on this when Square announce their decision.

In the 'heavily rumoured' category, the well-regarded Starbreeze Studios have been jointly developing two projects for Electronic Arts, one being a new Jason Bourne game and the other being a revisiting of a 'beloved franchise', which insiders have apparently leaked is Syndicate. Recently the Bourne game was dropped (apparently for want of a movie to link it to) so the team could concentrate all their energies on the other title. If this is true, it sounds like the Syndicate remake (if that's what it is) could be stepping up into a full development cycle. If so, expect official confirmation in the near future.


Syndicate, released in 1993, was a major success on the PC, Mac and Commodore Amiga. Developed by Peter Molyneux's Bullfrog Games for EA, it was remarkable for its depiction of a series of cities (no less than fifty, some of them huge) the player's team of cyborgs would have to take over in an aggressive corporate war. As more cities joined the player's empire, more funds would pour in, allowing the research and development of more powerful weapons and cybernetic implants. The game was notable for its depiction of 'living cities' featuring civilians going about their daily business and reacting realistically when all hell broke loose (i.e. running away screaming when guys in threatening trenchcoats produced miniguns and let rip at one another), as well as vehicle use and the ability to use public transportation like trains and monorails, all many years before the likes of Grand Theft Auto. A 1996 sequel, Syndicate Wars, was also well-received and rumours have abounded of a new game in the series since then.

Starbreeze, the developers of the excellent Riddick games Escape from Butcher's Bay and Assault on Dark Athena, as well as the stand-alone title The Darkness, have excellent form and could produce an interesting Syndicate game. Even more interestingly, a new Syndicate game would also be a good fit for the cyberpunk author Richard Morgan, who recently started advising EA on three new titles (see previous post). It remains to be seen if this will recreate the original game's overhead, isometric viewpoint or move to a full-3D mode or some mix of the two.

Return to Monkey Island

LucasArts have, somewhat out of the blue, revealed that they are releasing a specially-remade version of their 1990 classic adventure game, The Secret of Monkey Island, this summer. This will coincide with the release of a new, five-part episodic game called Tales of Monkey Island, produced in conjunction with Telltale Games (producers of the recent Sam 'n' Max and Wallace & Gromit episodic games).


The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the most influential games of all time, combining a ton of humour and inventive visuals with fiendish puzzles and excellently-realised characters. For 1990's standards, it looked amazing and was a huge hit. Its 1993 sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, was considerably larger, far funnier, with jaw-dropping graphics (for the time) and a far more epic story with an ending that people are still talking about today. I'd easily rank it as the best single adventure game ever made (and if they do a remake/re-release of MI2, which is probably dependent on sales of this one, I will be first in queue to pick it up). Series creator Ron Gilbert departed LucasArts after MI2 and the later Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island were comparatively disappointing, although not without merit.

The Monkey Island remake is interesting because, anticipating purist fans who hate the new art style, the team have enabled a mode to allow you to switch between the new, sharper HD graphics and console-based controls to the old-school pixels and cursor controls at will (no word if the PC version will allow the use of the mouse cursor with the new graphics, although it would be weird if it wouldn't). It looks very nice indeed, with the original soundtrack re-recorded and the new graphics looking solid without going way overboard (and they're not 3D, thank LeChuck).

Tales of Monkey Island I'm less crazy about. Telltale Games have a very variable track history, and the graphics look ropey and the trailer didn't make me laugh at all. Maybe it'll turn out okay, but for now I'll stick with the remake.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be released on PC and X-Box 360 in the summer, Tales of Monkey Island should launch on the PC and Wii in a few weeks.