Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There was a bit of a kerfuffle a while back over Telltale’s Monkey Islands not being entirely treated as episodes. In that you could only buy them as a job lot, despite the staggered release dates. Like, duh. American internet-folk will be glad to hear they no longer need to invest in five episodes up-front if they’re not entirely sure whether the series is for them, as Amazon is selling these bite-sized retromanced adventure games individually. $8.95 each, which as far as I can tell is in keeping with what Steam and Telltale’s e-store charge for single Sam & Max, Strongbad et al instalments. Hopefully this breaking up of Guybrush’s bulk will spread to other services and continents soon.

The demo for the first Tales of Monkey Island episodic adventure is available now. As indeed is the game. It seems so soon after the first announcement that it exists. This time you don’t appear to be able to buy the episodes separately. Instead Telltale want you to commit to the full five episode series in one purchase.

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The year’s most unexpected sequel is barrelling towards us, and Telltale hope to whet a few more preorder whistles by finally releasing a smidgen of interface’n'puzzle footage – specifically, the opening minutes of the reborn point’n'click adventure. Episode 1, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, is out in just six pirate days (which are like normal days, but with a looser moral code), and if you’re convinced you’re going to love it, you can pay pirate money (which is much like normal money, but with a slight scent of seaweed) for it right now. Video below. Comments that will almost certainly annoy someone are also below.
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Even a week after the announcement, the news that there’s to be more Monkey Island still seems hard to believe. LucasArts, once an adored development house, has become known in recent years for little other than churning out Star Wars themed products of varying quality. Attempts at new licences during president Jim Ward’s realm failed (possibly in no small part because they very were attempts to create new IP, rather than just damned fine solo games), seeing the company once more fall back into the space flick’s safety net. Last year saw Ward step down, and in April he was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez. A man who, if the murmurs I heard at E3 are true, is genuinely trying to see the company rediscover its roots. Then there’s the news that Telltale are to be making brand new episodic Monkey Island games, with original LucasArts developers on the project. Reimagining the original Monkey Island is an important act for a number of reasons.

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