When we last left Guybrush Threepwood: Mighty Pirate™, he had narrowly escaped the jaws of a giant manatee, only to be double crossed by the lady pirate hunter who teamed up with him in the first place. Now, back at the island where he started from, Guybrush faces a court trial not by law-abiding citizens, but fellow pirates with false accusations! Now Guybrush must do a bit of Phoenix Wright courtroom drama—pirate style, so he can continue his quest to rescue his wife and rid the Caribbean of the Pox of LeChuck!

Tales of Monkey Island is an episodic point and click adventure game from TellTale Games, makers of similar styled adventures based on other popular properties like Sam & Max, Strong Bad, and Wallace & Gromit. Each episode, which has roughly 4 to 6 hours of gameplay, will be released separately about every month or so, and you can download them at TellTale’s Web site.

Similar to other TellTale games, use the mouse to point and click on objects and people to gather clues, talk to others, and collect items you can use to solve the games many wacky puzzles. TellTale’s other episodic adventures are fairly self-contained. But since Tales of Monkey Island still makes references and keeps items from past episodes, it’s best to start from the first episode this time. One new aspect is the ability to combine items to create new ones to help crack the riddles. By clicking and dragging two items from your inventory into circles and pressing the ‘combine’ button, you might be able to use two things at once.

Similar to TellTale’s Wallace & Gromit adventures, you click on items with the mouse and move around with the WASD keys. It would’ve been nice if you could have controlled the whole game with the mouse, but they had to do it this way since the game will also eventually be on WiiWare and played with a controller. Really, moving around with the arrow keys didn’t bother me at all, personally, but it might bug others.

The only other problem I had with this game is some of the puzzles were not as intuitive as I would have liked. But these problems are only minor. This latest episode has lots of twists and turns, and now I really want to see how it all ends in the final episode! As with all other TellTale games, Tales of Monkey Island is highly recommended for point and click adventure game fans.

Kid Factor

Tales of Monkey Island is rated E-10 for Everyone 10 and up. ESRB descriptors include Cartoon Violence, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, and Use of Alcohol. You can’t have a pirate adventure without a little “Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum,” and there is a bit of drinking in the bar. The game is full of Looney Tunes style slapstick antics and Simpsons-like parody and satire. And the sexual innuendos are very subtle and will go over most kids’ heads. Even though there is no blood, there is quite a bit more violence in Episode 4. A couple of important characters even get killed! Because of the trickier puzzles, Tales of Monkey Island would probably be best enjoyed by older kids. But the whole family would be able to play this one together. In fact, an extra set of eyes is always helpful to solve the puzzles.

Tags: Game Reviews