Seeing as I’ve been playing a lot of point and click adventure games over the past few weeks, playing Secret of Monkey Island was almost inevitable. And how can I avoid it? It’s consistently regarded as one of the kings of the genre and more or less inescapable. Thus it places me in a rather curious position: I’d heard of the Secret of Monkey Island games back in the early nineties but it is only now that I’ve finally gotten around to playing them. Thus I play as a complete newbie and don’t have twenty years of nostalgia to blind me.
So what did I think of it?
Well, my experience playing Secret of Monkey Island can be summed up in the word: fresh. Now I understand humor isn’t easy to pull off in games as the jokes can get old rather quickly but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Twenty three years on and this game is still funny with some laugh-out louds moments. In fact I’m really astonished: It’s not just the great writing but how well it’s lasted through the years since. The absurdity of the games is always razor sharp and never once becomes stale. I particularly enjoyed the climax and, being a newbie, I can see some connections that may have emerged within the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (of course both that and Secret of Monkey Island were inspired by the ride at Disneyland). In fact I’m kinda surprised that considering the humor in this game that they’ve all managed to escape been run into the ground through internet memes (looking at you Portal!).
Indeed, it’s fun to come across something that many of my gaming comrades discovered years before. And having played Secret of Monkey Island, I can see the adoration is justified.
Not much else to say except that I certainly look forward to checking more of this series….
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