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.