With the new announcements from LucasArts and Telltale Games regarding (A) a special edition remake of the original “Secret of Monkey Island” and (B) a new season of adventures entitled “Tales of Monkey Island”, fans of classic adventure gaming are going nuts, with not-so-surprisingly diverse reactions.
See, fanboys of any franchise fall into a number of categories. There are the fanboys who think that everything in the franchise is of an equal standard, there are the fanboys who think that only the first (or maybe second) installment is worth anything, and there are those who fall into some sort of middle ground. In the case of “Monkey Island”, there are a number of fanboys who believe that the series ended after original creator Ron Gilbert left, and anything not written SOLELY by him is not canon. (A slightly odd stance to take, as Gilbert himself has stated that his co-writers Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer were just as responsible for the tone and humor of the original game, but I digress.) These people seem to want nothing to do with the new releases, despite the fact that both of them got Gilbert’s blessing, and “Tales” had his involvement in the brainstorming process and is being overseen by Grossman.
Personally, I could not be more excited about the new Monkey Island releases. It does my heart good to see LucasArts at least showing a little respect for its roots (more than Sierra has shown, even when they released a few Quest collections…but that’s another rant), and Telltale has an excellent track record as far as doing justice to beloved franchises goes. Does being happy about these releases instead of immediately cynical mean I lose all my geek cred?
This got me to wondering where I fit in the fanboy spectrum. I decided to look back over the classic Monkey Island collection and see how I feel about each one.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MONKEY ISLAND GAMES. IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE MONKEY ISLAND GAMES AND DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT READ THIS POST. UNLESS THE ONLY GAME YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED IS “ESCAPE FROM MONKEY ISLAND”, BECAUSE NOBODY CARES ABOUT BEING SPOILED FOR THAT ONE. Continue reading