Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal - PS3

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) 10+
Release Date: 42436
Critic Score (1-100): Not Availalbe
Genre(s): Adventure, Puzzle elements, 3rd-person (Other), Cinematic camera, Graphic adventure
Media Type(s): Physical

Tales of Monkey Island Premiere Episode Now Available Swashbuckling saga over five months begins now at www.telltalegames.com**

SAN RAFAEL, CA, July 7, 2009 & Arrrrr! Polish up your swashbuckles and grab your sword, because legendary pirate Guybrush Threepwood sets sail today on the first all-new Monkey Island® adventure in over a decade. Telltale's highly anticipated game series, Tales of Monkey Island, begins now at www.telltalegames.com for PC with “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal,” the first chapter in an epic five-month adventure created by the same team responsible for acclaimed episodic series' including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. The first Tales of Monkey Island chapter is expected to release for WiiWare© in the coming weeks as well.

The saga begins with a heated battle involving the brave but often bumbling Mighty Pirate© Guybrush, his beloved wife Elaine, and their nemesis, the demon pirate LeChuck. When the showdown goes up in flames, Guybrush finds himself marooned on a strange island with winds that always blow inward. How will our hero manage to escape this meteorological anomaly? What has become of LeChuck and Elaine? And what's the story with the infectious voodoo pox that's spreading across the Caribbean, causing Guybrush and other pirates to act like unruly hooligans? These are just some of the many questions posed in this first chapter of what will become one of the most rollicking and rip-roaring entertainment experiences of the summer.

Dave Grossman, Telltale's design director and a designer/writer for the original Monkey Island games says “I was laughing my eyepatch off on a daily basis while we were first cooking up Monkey Island at Skywalker Ranch, but if you'd told me then that it would become a classic, and that twenty years later I'd be working with a killer all-star piratey crew to spin an epic new tale and bring the series to a whole new generation of players, I would have said… well, probably, ‘Look behind you, a three-headed monkey,' but then I've always been a bit weird that way.”

Tales of Monkey Island will unfold over the next five months, with each episodic chapter raising the stakes on Guybrush's quest to eradicate the insidious Pox of LeChuck, reunite with his wife, and vanquish his rival. Much like the best television and films series, the story becomes deeper and more engrossing with interweaving threads building to twists and surprises in the grand finale this fall.

Customers who order from Telltale's online store during the first week of availability can choose any other Telltale episode of their choice to include free with their purchase. Visit www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland to get into the adventure now. Additional Tales of Monkey Island details, gameplay trailers, and a playable demo are also available at the site.

Launch of the Screaming Narwhal is the first episode in Tales of Monkey Island, a series of point-and-click adventure games based on the Monkey Island franchise that was started by Lucasfilm Games with The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and ran until the fourth game Escape from Monkey Island (2000). After nine years, the intellectual property was licensed by adventure developer Telltale, Inc. where many of the original LucasArts adventure developers had since moved.

The game is set after the events of Escape from Monkey Island and starts when protagonist Guybrush Threepwood attempts to rescue his fiancée Elaine Marley from the clutches of zombie pirate LeChuck. During the fight, Guybrush, clumsily as ever, manages to mess up the voodoo recipe that was supposed to defeat LeChuck and loses both Elaine and his ship. The main goal is to find back Elaine and deal with the evil pirate once more, through a number of trials and problems that prevent him from leaving the island. The first chapter takes place on an entirely new location called Flotsam Island and includes an entirely new cast of characters along with some familiar ones. Many of the voice actors for the main roles previously lent their voices to earlier titles in the series.

Unlike Escape from Monkey Island the game is rendered entirely in 3D, and the typical Telltale engine is used. Guybrush can be controlled through the keyboard keys or through mouse movement (selecting the character and dragging the cursor to the desired destination). Only a single mouse cursor is used for all actions and important items are stored in an inventory where they can be examined. Entirely new for a Telltale game is the incorporation of the classic adventure mechanic where items can be combined in the inventory to form new objects or to interact with each other.

The game makes many non-essential references to the earlier games and contains the classic Monkey Island ingredients such as humorous conversations and events, based on slapstick, play on words, witty retorts and contemporary cultural references, conversation trees, an unconventional approach to puzzle solutions, and the anti-heroic main character. The game's puzzles include triggers based on conversations, item combination puzzles and more extensive tasks that require maps and the use of the environment. It is not possible to die in the game and player can set the ratio of hints Guybrush casually mentions while progressing through the game. Full solutions are however never provided.

Unlike other Telltale episodic adventure series, individual episodes initially could not be purchased separately. Because of the larger story arc or possibly financial reasons, users were required to buy the five episodes as a whole as they are released on a monthly basis. Later, the decision was reversed and episodes were also offered individually.

*** Data by MobyGames.com ***

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