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Name: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

LucasArts may be most recognised for it's Star Wars games in these modern times, but through the 90's, they were a bastion of the point-and-click adventure genre. With classics that are still revered to this day, such as Sam & Max: Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, they had gained a large following with their devious puzzles and a strong sense of humour; a novelty for it's time and even more so today.

Yet many fan's favourite series was Monkey Island, a series that ran to four titles. In it, the player filled the breeches of Guybrush Threepwood as he battled his own bad fortune and the undead pirate LeChuck. This is a remake of the first title in the series, which has been given an enormous aesthetic overhaul from the original 1990 game, now with painted backgrounds and character models, 720p resolution, and music recorded by live players to compliment the fully-voiced dialogue with the cast of the third game. These improvements have reinvigorated this classic title, and also allows the more fresh-faced gamers out there an opportunity to discover one of the games that greatly influenced game development for the rest of that decade, as well as up to the present day.

Yet LucasArts have not forgotten the roots of the title they are recreating. They have included a feature called "classic mode," where at a touch of a button, the game can switch seamlessly between the graphics, interface, sound effects and music of the original game, as well as the new features of the Special Edition. As someone who played the original game before the Special Edition released, I have taken great enjoyment switching between both versions of the game and comparing them, even in mid-conversation. This feature really illustrates the great aural and visual improvements that LucasArts have created with this version, and is a fantastic inclusion for the title.

A review of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is essentially a review of the original game. Aside from the audio and visual improvements, the game hasn't changed at all. The dialogue remains the same down to the last word, and all the puzzles have the same solutions. The Secret of Monkey Island is a somewhat simple tale by modern standards, of Guybrush's ambition to become a pirate. To do this, it is required that he pass The Three Trials: Swordplay, Thievery, and "Treasure Hunt-ery." Yet it is only when he completes these requirements that the true quest materialises, and Guybrush must use all he has learned to confront the Ghost Pirate LeChuck on the mythical Monkey Island.

The game was one of the pioneers of the point-and-click interface, and involved using and combining items in the right situations to solve problems and advance the game. However, as became associated with the Monkey Island series, these solutions can teeter on the bizarre. This may become a problem for some, as the player can become stuck and unable to continue, as was the case with the original game, with players bereft even of the internet to help them find the solution. In this Special Edition, however, a hint system has been added, and this greatly lessens the frustration that these situations can cause by poking the player in the right direction. This is quite a worthwhile feature, considering how out-of-the-box some of these solutions can be.

However, this new version of the game does have it's problems, most notably with the control scheme that has been implemented. The original game partitioned the screen, so that all the possible actions were easily selectable and that the inventory was always in plain view. This is still the case when the game is played in classic mode, but not with the new aesthetic. The inventory can only be viewed by pushing the I key on the PC version, which opens a window teeming with the items you've collected. This isn't necessarily a problem, but choosing actions poses a nuisance. There are two options available; pushing certain keys to change actions, (L for Look, P for Pick Up etc.), or to cycle through with a spin of the mouse wheel. The former is acceptable, yet the latter sounds much better in theory than in actuality. It's much too sensitive to be of any practical use, and even scrolling as carefully as I could, I would still find the menu skipping past the option I wanted. Really, these options just feel clumsy compared to the original method. In fact, one of the puzzles would be almost impossible to do without switching to Classic Mode beforehand. However, this problem doesn't always rear it's head, since the game intelligently knows how you'd normally react to an object as you highlight it, and makes the most common action available, like talking to a person, an easy click of the right mouse button.

There is also an issue with classic mode, in that there is no option to play the game with it's original graphics and interface, with the newly recorded music and voice acting. To put it simply, it's all or nothing. It would have been much better if there was a level of customisation included, where the player could choose what features to take from the original and what to take from the new.

Nonetheless, these problems amount to very little when the entire package is considered. It is a testament to the game design that, almost twenty years later, the game is as enjoyable as it was when it released. The aural and visual improvements intensify the enjoyment that can be taken from it, and with a 10+ hour playtime on your first playthrough, there are few other ways to get as much value out of your gaming money.