Is Tales of Monkey Island Ushering in a Renaissance of Adventure Gaming?

With the Monkey Island series now revived in the latest release from Telltale games, entitled Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, it might finally be time to announce that adventure gaming is back from the dead.

For any of you who didn’t experience the heyday of adventure gaming, The Secret of Monkey Island, released by Lucas Arts way back in the halcyon days of 1990, is considered by many to be one of the undisputable classics of the adventure gaming genre. Written in large part by Tim Schafer, the creator behind the upcoming BrƒÂ¼tal Legend, The Secret of Monkey Island had a fantastic story, hilarious and memorable characters, unique and satisfying puzzles, and some of the funniest dialogue ever featured in a video game. So it probably isn’t surprising that Monkey Island and its sequel amassed loads of critical acclaim and a pack of loving fans, who to this day nostalgically remember it as one of the best games of the early nineties.

Monkey Island wasn’t the only classic adventure game though. Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Star Trek, King’s Quest, Quest for Glory, and many others were some of the most popular games of their time. But since those ancient, long-passed days of our youth, the adventure gaming genre has all but disappeared. What was once the most popular genre of PC gaming literally stopped existing, quickly and sharply losing popularity as the processing power of PCs and consoles ushered in an era of first person shooters and online gaming. It was a sad and puzzling development for fans of games like Monkey Island; adventure games brought great story telling, challenging puzzles and most importantly, an overall experience that was memorable in a way that no other gaming genre could provide.

As such, the fall of the adventure genre has long been a sore spot for its fans, and its long absence has been a puzzle that  many couldn’t solve (pun totally intended). But recently Telltale Games, the company behind the comeback of another classic Lucasarts title in Sam & Max as well as the Strongbad and Wallace & Gromit games, has been slowly and lovingly restoring the once extinct genre. Their latest project, Tales of Monkey Island, is finally bringing back the classic Monkey Island franchise.

Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal brings back the ghost pirate LeChuck and the bumbling, well-intentioned wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood, along with all the ridiculous and fun stories that go along with them. I don’t want to give away very much of the story, since one of the best parts of adventure gaming is experiencing all the crazy puzzles and developments on your own, but much like the very faithful Wallace & Gromit series, Tales of Monkey Island captures all the character and style of the original Monkey Island, with recognizable voices, a bizarre and silly pirate story, and of course the humour that fans have come to know the game for.

The game has transitioned into a 3D affair, which might irk some die hard fans, but none of the charm of the original 2D version has been lost. The review copy we received had a few expected bugs in it, but these have no doubt been ironed out by today’s release, as Telltale hasn’t been known to let buggy products out the gate in the past.

Basically, Telltale has proven a few times already how proficient they are at bringing classic adventure gaming into the modern gaming world, and Tales of Monkey Island is no exception. So, if you’re a fan of the original, or you’re just hankering for some puzzle solving, story telling fun, then Tales of Monkey Island is an easy choice. The game is great and it is worth your time.

So that’s over with. Now on to the big question: does the revival of Monkey Island signal a comeback of the adventure game genre?

The easy, completely uninformative answer is that it’s hard to say. There are so many genres and so many game companies in the enormous modern game industry that it’s almost impossible to tell if Telltale’s updates of adventure gaming classics are making a significant impact on the gaming industry. Back in the nineties the market simply wasn’t as big, so it was easy to tell what types of games were most popular. In today’s industry there is such a massive selection of games that even good games tend to get lost in the crowd sometimes, never getting the recognition they deserve.

But there is another way to look at it. Telltale games has released four episodic series of adventure games to date and don’t seem to be losing any steam yet. If anything, Telltale’s adventure gaming focussed line of games is picking up momentum, making higher profile games for more systems, like XBox Live, then ever before. If this was an experiment to gauge the popularity and potential of an adventure gaming revival, then so far the signs are good. Telltale has seen enough success from their efforts that they’ve been able to continue releasing games with progressively higher profiles, finally reaching the coveted Monkey Island license.

Add to that the fact that the current infrastructure of the gaming industry is actually quite friendly to the adventure gaming genre. In an earlier article we discussed XBox Live arcade games to look out for, and noted that many of them are smaller-budget, experimental games that simply wouldn’t be possible at a large gaming studio. With avenues like XBox Live and profitable Internet distribution now available, companies no longer have to make every game an enourmous, corporate affair.

Around the time of adventure gaming’s demise these options simply weren’t available. PC gaming had grown to the point where bigger budget games were becoming the standard, and technology was advancing to the point where a simple 2D game wasn’t as attractive as it once was, but opportunities for more modest productions simply weren’t available yet. Adventure games were stuck in an unenviable position: with their once almost universal popularity giving way to PC gaming blockbusters like Quake and Duke Nukem, adventure games lost the drawing power necessary to justify the budget and team sizes that were becoming the standard, yet no alternative was available. Eventually, adventure gaming just went away.

But nowadays smaller companies can afford to develop games that aren’t necessarilly going to be the next GTA. In other words, small games can be designed by small teams without a Hollywood-sized budget and still be profitable, because the developers can get the game straight to the audience at a reasonable price compared to some of gaming’s behemoth titles. Of course, this means that modern adventure gaming is, for now, inherently a more low key phenomenon than it was in its golden age. These games aren’t being released with the budget, marketing and hype that blockbuster titles have behind them, and their popularity will be reflective of that.

But of course, this smaller, indie platform that adventure games are taking advantage of is a lot more than the nothing that existed a few years ago, and adventure gaming’s popularity only seems to be growing, even if a redux of Monkey Island doesn’t immediately usher in a new era of adventure gaming dominance. The games are lovingly crafted by fans of the genre for fans of the genre, and enough of them are buying through avenues that a few years ago didn’t exist that the future is looking strong.

Who knows, if Telltale’s games keep growing in popularity then some time in the future we may even see a big name developer try to get in on the action and take on the adventure game genre once again. For now, the technological advancements that once spelled the end of adventure gaming are now giving it a second chance. It’s safe to say that adventure gaming has found its way back into the industry’s heart, even if it is only a small piece of that heart.

So is adventure gaming still dead? If it is, it’s been looking awfully lively lately for a dead man.

Wallace & Gromit, Fright of the Bumblebees is Fun, Old-School Adventure for XBLA

UPS: Brings back classic adventure-style gameplay; puzzles are clever and at times surprising; great animation and voice acting; captures all the style, humour, levity, and charm of the cartoon perfectly; seems to use original voice actors.

DOWNS: Some puzzles might be a bit tough for XBLA players who are unfamiliar with adventure gaming; version we played had some bugs that are hopefully all worked out in the final version.

BOTTOM LINE: A must-buy if you’re a fan of old-school adventure games or Wallace & Gromit, or if you’re just looking for a game to test your brain rather than your reflexes.

Available on PC and XBox Live Arcade, the first episode of the new Wallace & Gromit game brings players some light-hearted fun in the same vein as old Lucasarts and Sierra games, and is sure to please fans of the almost-extinct adventure gaming genre.

Based on the innocent and entertaining animated claymation shorts from Aardman Animation, Fright of the Bumblebees is the first in series of episodic games released by Telltale Games. For those that aren’t familiar, W&G is an animated show about Wallace, a bumbling, air-headed inventor of ridiculous contraptions, and Gromit, the dog who begrudgingly puts up with Wallace’s hair-brained schemes and does his best to keep his owner out of trouble.

Like all Telltale fare, such as the Sam & Max series and the Strongbad games, W&G is an old-school adventure game in which you collect items and use them to solve puzzles. For some reason this style of gaming has fallen out of favour since its heyday almost two decades ago, but Telltale is looking to bring it back into the mainstream. And more power to them I say; it’s always bewildered me that adventure games went out of style so badly, and I believe the adventure game genre is one in great need of a revival.

And with W&G, Telltale Games have done a fine job at bringing back this classic style of gameplay. Like any good point-and-click-style adventure game, W&G gives you a problem to solve and a few seemingly useless items, and forces you to put on your thinking cap and come up with a creative solution to the unlikely problems you are faced with.

The game is easy to get into, for adventure gamers and newbies to the genre alike. The player is introduced to the mechanics through a quick tutorial, and the controls, though not standard point-and-click adventure controls, are simple and will fit the XBox controllers very well. The tutorial, controls, and inviting style of W&G make it very easy to jump in and start playing.

The world of W&G is a perfect fit for the adventure gaming genre, with its light hearted characters, silly jokes, and wealth of crazy inventions to centre puzzles aronud. Whether you’re trying to figure out how to make a special flower-growth formula from rag-tag ingredients, or trying to shoot giant bees out of the sky with a porridge gun, W&G surprises you with creative solutions to problems that make you say “Ah-ha!” while also making you smile as the whimsical events unfold.

I don’t want to spoil anything by giving away too much of the story, but the basic premise of the game is that in his quest to deliver a truckload of honey to one of his customers, Wallace unwittingly releases an army of giant bees on his quaint English town. To get rid of the bee menace, players will use both Wallace and Gromit to solve some smart and challenging puzzles.

The story is classic Wallace & Gromit fare, and any fan of the cartoon will be very familiar with its playful style and fantastical hijinks. Telltale has managed to capture the feel and style of the Wallace & Gromit cartoon completely, with the result that playing the game is basically just like playing an episode of the show. From the characters and voices and animation style, to the very good direction and cinematic style, W&G draws the player into the game’s world and its story. Particularly entertaining is Wallace’s walking animation, in which he constantly holds his hands in front of himself like an overly-polite British person who is in a hurry but doesn’t want to bother anyone else by showing his anxiousness.

W&G also presents some unorthodox and interesting puzzles to the player, keeping the game fresh and compelling. For example, when Wallace first unwittingly releases the giant bees, the player gets the chance to shoot them out of the air with a porridge gun. But what at first looks like a straightforward reflex mini-game actually turns out to be unique puzzle that strays from the usual adventure game formula. W&G does this a few times, making the player think outside the box in order to solve some puzzles that diverge from the usual use-item-on-object formula of old-school adventure games.

The early version we played had a few bugs, which will presumably be ironed out for the final version. Also, despite W&G’s very light and charming style, some of the puzzles can actually be a bit difficult, especially for someone who just downloaded the game off XBLA and isn’t familiar with the adventure game genre. The light and cute style of the game may give people the impression that this will be a simple game, but that would be a mistake; many of the puzzles require a sort of creative thinking that most games wouldn’t involve.

But overall, if you’re a fan of old-school adventure or Wallace & Gromit, or you are just looking for a game to test your brain rather than your reflexes, or you just want a hcange of pace with an innocent and fun stroy, then Wallace & Gromit, Fright of the Bumblesbees is well worth your time. Though the game is technically the first episode of four, it actually includes a surprising amount of content. As a fan of adventure gaming, and Wallace & Gromit, and good games in general, I’m looking forward to the next episodes.

Wallace & Gromit, Fright of the Bumblebees is available on XBox Live Arcade and PC, and costs $34.95 for the entire 4 episode bundle.