The Secret of Monkey Island

"Monkeys!! Pirates!! and Rubber Chickens?"

Sure the graphics for this game may not meet today’s standards but they sure as heck were in the late 80’s/early 90’s. The beginning of one of the funniest and challenging click and point adventures ever!

Story: You’re Guybrush Threepwood and your on a quest to be a mighty pirate! You go and visit these pirates at the bar and find out you have to do these three trials as a test. So you do these tests eventually finding treasure, insulting a bunch of pirates and stealing the governor’s idol. You meet the governor and find out she’s been kidnapped to none other than Monkey Island™! If you know exactly what you have to do (which most likely you won’t) it will take you a full hour to beat. But your first time you may be able to beat it in a couple days. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in this game and maybe as funny as any of the newer ones. Even though they don’t talk the story still deserves a solid 9 out of 10.

Graphics: It wouldn’t be fair to compare these graphics to the superior X-box or PS2 graphics we have today. But seeing other Sierra games these graphics are some of the more high-quality that those of King’s Quest. The only bad thing is that sometimes graphics are so primitive that you can’t tell what that thing is over there and if you should pick it up. But other than that the backgrounds are crystal clear and the “walking around in town” graphics are similar to those of an early Mario game. But occasionally you will be switched to first person view where you can talk to other characters and their facial expressions will change a little. Overall this game’s graphics deserve an 8.

Game play The game play is so simple you just point and click Guybrush and that tells him where to go. Or in other instances to open door, open cake well you just have to try to open/close/pull everything making sure you won’t miss anything. And even the most peculiar items such as a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle have some important uses. What uses you say? Well play the game to find out! But the game is also challenging it forces you (the player) to think on your feet. You must have good logic skills to beat this game but the good thing is that the developers made it to where there is one not so obvious way to die and you can’t get stuck so feel free to take a risk. You’ll have fun for hours on this game and at times you will feel frustrated and want to give up and then you will stumble what you have to do! The game play has basically no major flaws so it deserves a 10.

Sound The sound/audio is fairly good for when the game was released. There is pirate music and lots of beeps. The sound is probably the worse category but you have to remember this game was release with the intention of using PC speakers instead of your real speakers. So the music is just an assortment of beeps. The sound/audio score gets a 7.

Replayablility At first I would suggest you play with an FAQ next to you for easy access for when you are stuck. Then comeback later like and 3 months and see if you remember all what you are suppose to do. It’s a fun challenge. But other than that there is no real reason to replay it more than twice. So it gets a 5 out of 10

Rent or Buy?I strongly suggest you cough out about 5 dollars and buy this game since it is fun! Any Monkey Island fan would love this game!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/02, Updated 06/04/02