For me it all started back in 1998. I was an eighth grader with a laptop at school, not enough homework and probably too much of a Star Wars obsession. One day I was browsing the LucasArts website and I stumbled across the demo for a game called “The Curse of Monkey Island”. I thought a game about pirates from the makers of some of my other favorite games like “TIE-Fighter” and ”Jedi Knight” sounded pretty cool, so I gave it a shot and was instantly hooked. After that came the full version (plus the original two chapters “The Secret of Monkey Island” and “Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge”) for Christmas followed by my several year quest to acquire as many LucasArts adventure games as I could get my hands on. So for myself and others like me 2009 has been a great year. Not only did we see the first new Monkey Island game in 9 years, but also we were treated to “Brutal Legend”, the sophomore effort from Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions.
For those who aren’t familiar with the significance of these two games, let me catch you up to speed. Back in the late 80s/early 90s one of the more popular genres of computer games were the point-and-click adventure games. They were the successors to the text-based adventure games like Zork that added a visual component as well as mouse input. So now instead of reading a description of the setting and typing commands like “Pick up ye flask”, you could actually see and click on the flask to pick it up. In 1987 LucasArts (then LucasFilm Games) took a crack at the genre with Maniac Mansion, on which a young Tim Schafer was a tools programmer. Three years later they released “The Secret of Monkey Island”, with Tim Schafer now in the co-writer position. This was to be the first of many successful games for the company with Schafer in a lead creative position. Over the next 10 years LucasArts became one of the biggest developers of adventure games with titles like “Loom”, “Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle”, “Sam & Max: Hit the Road”, “Full Throttle” and “Grim Fandango” to name a few. What made the LucasArts adventure games successful and set them apart from the rest were two things: 1) The idea that you can’t die, or accidently do something to prevent yourself from finishing the game and 2) the humor.
2000 saw the release of “Escape From Monkey Island”, the fourth in the Monkey Island series chronicling the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, and their second 3D adventure game. Unfortunately, despite the Voodoo Lady’s in-game joke about being signed to an unbreakable 5-game contract, “Escape” was to be LucasArts’ last adventure game. In 2002 the company announced sequels to both “Sam & Max” and “Full Throttle” but both were cancelled followed by a statement that LucasArts was done with adventure games for the foreseeable future. What seemed to be the end however, turned out to be the beginning of something new, or rather two somethings.
Several of the developers from the cancelled 3D Sam & Max game left to start their own company called Telltale Games. The newly formed company went on to developed not one, but two Sam & Max games using an episodic approach so that each game was actually a collection of several smaller games that combine to form a “season”. Meanwhile, Tim Scafer who had left LucasArts several years earlier had also started his own company: Double Fine which created the hilarious and critically acclaimed adventure/platformer Psychonauts in 2005. That brings us to 2009.
This year Telltale, in partnership with LucasArts, released “Tales of Monkey Island” for the PC (available through their website). This latest installment in the series follows the new episodic format established by Telltale’s previous games (with the final episode just being released December 8th), while maintaining most of what made the series great. All your favorite characters are back: Guybrush, Elaine, LeChuck, the Voodoo Lady and even Murray. The controls are a little different, as is the look, but these are only superficial changes. If you’re a fan of the series, you should definitely pick this one up.
Also, back in October of this year, Tim Scafer’s Double Fine released one of the biggest games of the year: ”Brutal Legend” for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. While this game is a love letter to all things heavy metal, it’s not just for head-bangers. I don’t even like metal, but in the context of this game I love it. If you’re familiar with the gameplay of “Psychonauts”, “Brutal Legend” is very similar. You wander around an open-world environment, completing missions, and hacking and slashing your way through enemies. The menu of supermoves you collect even resembles the one in “Psychonauts”. The main difference is that they replaced the puzzle solving aspect with a real-time strategy one, which is both the most challenging and most interesting aspect of the game. It also features some amazing voice acting by Jack Black and metal legends like Ozzy Osborne (who sounds surprisingly coherent) as well as a hilarious and even somewhat heart-felt story. A must have if you’re a metal head or just someone who likes clever games.
Well there you have it; two great games to pick up. Sorry for the long post, but I hope you enjoy the history lesson!
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