Tales of Monkey Island Episode 2 Review [PC]

The Siege of Spinner Cay is the second episode in the Tales of Monkey Island season. You play the role of Guybrush Threepwood, an adventurous pirate who has screwed up - a lot. Spinner Cay was developed by Telltale Games, the guys behind the wildly successful Sam & Max games, and is a faithful continuation of the 90's game from LucasArts. Fans of the original game, or of the recently rebooted Sam and Max seasons, will enjoy this one.

This is the second chapter of five planned episodes of Monkey Island and it's unfortunately not as engrossing as the first one. The developers seem to have decided to use chapter two as a set-up for the rest of the chapters. It lacks the stunning shine of the first chapter, and there is a lot of foreshadowing and hint-dropping. While it is very fun, and I like to see writers dropping hints, there could have been a few improvements.

The Siege of Spinner Cay, like the previous chapter, is a treat for eyes. Beautifully rendered 3D scenes and characters help the player to feel like they are watching a movie. Cut-scenes glide effortlessly into player control (all in game rendered) with very little break in the story. And in a rarely seen but highly appreciated move by the artists, you can see the characters' hair move with the wind; in fact, everything seems to follow the pattern of moving air, adding to the overall natural feel of the game.

The long tradition of epic pirate music is well represented.  I loved the music and it reminded me of classic pirate movies.  The composers used sounds of the high seas in the soundtrack, which was just amazing. Everything meshed together in a new and interesting way, adding to the light and lively experience.

Despite all of the good points of a game, there's always bound to be something wrong. My biggest complaint with Spinner Cay is the controls.  It follows a Click-And-Drag style but does allow for the use of traditional WASD method. Both styles felt stiff and unresponsive, and holding shift to run along with WASD controls makes clicking to solve puzzles almost impossible. A Click-to-a-Position method (like Sam & Max and the old Sierra point-and-click adventures) would have worked much better on this game and would have kept me immersed in the story instead of worrying about proper path-finding. Apparently Guybrush is, in true pirate fashion, blind-stinking drunk, with all of the running into walls he does.

For the most part the puzzles were very well thought out and explained, but in a few cases, they were stupidly difficult. And as is common with puzzle games, once you get the puzzle that's been annoying you for an hour, you feel just a tiny bit dumb, because NOW it seems so obvious. There was one particular puzzle that seems to have the consensus of everyone on its difficultly, which was the “distraction puzzle.” There are a variety of ways to distract and they seem very logical, but only one works, and the game offers no real “hint.” It's more of a trial and error, which just seems silly and a waste of time; even a good piece of dialogue would have been useful.

With a parental rating of E10+, expect some slap-stick and cheesy jokes, but at times this was a bit too ham-handed for me. I like a cheesy game, but sometimes the bad jokes didn't seem to fit with the characters or the situation. Some of the comedy felt forced, as if the writers felt they have a joke quota and filled it with whatever came to mind.  A high point of the writing is the character interaction, which was excellently voiced and filled with witty banter. These guys know how to write and stick to personalities, Guybrush is all around a good guy, Elaine is his sultry, quick-witted wife, and LeChuck is adjusting to his new alive-ness.

The Siege of Spinner Cay is a good game, definitely worth the price of buying the whole season up front. Taking the average gamer 3-4 hours to play through, or for me about 5 due to frustration, it's a bit shorter than its predecessor. Lacking some of the shine of the first chapter, but with the seeds planted for the next chapters.  I am curious to see where this goes and what sort of hell they'll put poor Guybrush through. It's a great game for the casual gamer who enjoys a good puzzle and doesn't mind short levels.