626 Words of Pleasure
In this review there will be two SPOILERs. The first is:
Yo, Guybrush gets him a Hook Hand.
This is not much of a spoiler since it is one of the first things to happen, but there you go (the other spoiler is hidden as are several of the objects in this game). Hopefully in future episodes the protagonist will get a peg leg and make a joke about only being able to count to twelve.
As this is an Adventure game, it comes down to four basic elements: graphics, sounds, writing, puzzles. The graphics are charming cartoon characters in the third dimension. There are a handful of details in every environment, such as seagulls or crabs, which make the backgrounds seem less static and more like what pirate movies and cartoons have taught me to expect from the . All characters look detailed to the point where they should look the same no matter your system’s specs.
The voice acting is well done and most of the characters are very amusing. I noted a sort of slurring/clicking noise whenever there was a prolonged hissing sound, like when a person put several S’s in a row, but was unable to reproduce this on other systems. On one of the islands there are some mer…people. Creatures whose androgyny, and the jokes related to said gender bending, might offend some players. I thought them funny and useful for clarifying the point that Guybrush Threepwood is not into fishy dudes. As of yet there is no confirmation on his feelings for regular dudes. All the background music is essentially a mixture of forgettable sea shanties and jungle music tracks ripped from the 1950s. It is there and it does its job but it shouldn’t be on your iPod unless you’re a very sad person.
The puzzles continue the tradition of combining items within an inventory and using some in the world in ways that are typically not intuitive to achieve a result. The aforementioned hook is an omnipresent tool much like Manny’s scythe was in Grim Fandango. You’ll likely forget about it until you try every other combination.
The reason I dinged the Chapter a star is that there was one occasion where I got stuck because it was not clear than an object was interactive. The Universal Hint System showed the way, but a player should always know what he has to work with. I know that pixel hunting is part of adventure gaming, but it is the worse part. A part that sucked real hard before the internet as it meant you were essentially done with the game until you went to CompUSA and read through a strategy guide to see that there was a panel to click on in the blackness. Console ports of some Telltale games included a feature that allows you to see every item you can click on with a button press. This game needs that feature. In fact, ALL adventure games need this feature unless they want people to say “This is like Myst, but not as good” or “This is like Myst, but didn’t you already play Myst?”
(For the record, this game is not like Myst. Alan Wake is like Myst. You have to find the white pages to win.)
Maybe the ability to see all game related objects is in this game. But for my money, if a game does not clearly show that such a feature exists in the game, it might as well not be in the game. YOU read the documentation and pretend the year of our lord does not have a two in front of it. I hear that PlayStation 2 is going to be sick . The cloth moves sort of like cloth!
