Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes: Monkey Island

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Starting point is 00:01:16 Hello, squad mates. Paul here with another Quick Take episode. And before we jump in, I just want to extend our gratitude and our thanks for helping support the show. We definitely appreciate it. What I wanted to talk to you guys about today is one of my all-time favorite childhood games. And it's actually the earliest game that I remember playing on computer. And a few years ago it got remastered and re-released, but it goes by the name of The Secret of Monkey Island. And this is a game that my friend had on floppy disks. This is back in the days where you would have to enter some kind of special code in order to play the game. They didn't have like activation codes, but anytime

Starting point is 00:01:58 you would start the game, you would have to go to like the game's manual and look up an answer to something. And I remember Monkey Island kind of had this weird cardboard circle where the game would tell you, line up these three symbols, and then tell us what the answer is, and then it would let you play the game. And I would always play this at my friend Jonathan's house. And I always tried to spend the night at his house anytime I could, because I knew that in the morning we would just play Secret of Monkey Island for hours. And this is a very neat game where you play a character named Guybrush Thrapewood, who is a young man, and he is a wannabe pirate. And so he sails to the island of Melee Island, and he basically talks to a couple of pirates, and he asks,

Starting point is 00:02:46 you know, I want to be a pirate. This is what I want to do. You know, tell me, what do I need to do to be a pirate? And they basically tell you, well, you need to go off and you need to do three things. You need to win a duel against the sword master, you have to find buried treasure, and you need to steal an idol from the governor's mansion. And so this kind of like sets out the first part of the game where you're trying to become a pirate. And what really sets this game apart is that it is incredibly funny. And this game is made by LucasArts. And this is like in the 90s when LucasArts was pumping out really good computer games. And so this is like a point and click adventure game, I think is what you would call the genre. Basically, you could move Guybrush

Starting point is 00:03:32 around the screens, and he had an inventory, and then you could click on different commands. So you would have to click pick up, and then you could click on something, and then if he could, he would pick it up. And you might say, you know, give this item, and then you could click on something. And then if he could, he would pick it up. And you might say, give this item and then click on another person and then he would give it. And so that style of game, it's interesting that this still exists in mobile games, that we still have this genre. But in The Secret of Monkey Island, they have just a lot of humor built into the game. And one of the best ways to explain that is when you finally track down the Swordmaster. And even that is funny in and of itself.

Starting point is 00:04:17 There's only one person that you can talk to who knows where the Swordmaster lives. And basically, you convince him to go ask the Swordmaster if they will fight you. And he says, all right, we'll stay here in my shop. I'll be right back. And if you actually leave, you can follow him. And then that's how you actually discover where the sword master is. And the first time you play, you might just stay in his shop for a minute or two, and then he comes right back and tells you the answer is no. But anyway, you follow him, you find the sword master. and what you end up learning is that sword fighting is not just about your sword fighting skills, but it's also about the insults and the psychological aspect of sword fighting. So here you kind of think maybe you're going to have to

Starting point is 00:04:58 engage in some kind of like sword fighting minigame or whatever. And it just turns into insulting each other, which was such a funny style of the game. And so basically, as you fight more and more pirates and the sword master, you start learning more insults, and you start to learn witty comebacks. So for example, if the sword fighter says something to you like, people fall at my feet when they see me coming. The correct response is, even before they smell your breath. And so you start learning, you know, just this back and forth aspect of the sword fighting. And you end up also fighting this ghost pirate LeChuck, who becomes the main villain of the game. The game even breaks the fourth wall where you end up lost on an island and you have like a dream and you're calling the LucasArts hotline asking

Starting point is 00:05:54 for hints for what to do next in The Secret of Monkey Island. And so the game just has this really great sense of humor as you are running around trying to be a pirate. Even when you find the buried treasure, the actual treasure is a t-shirt that says, I found the secret of Monkey Island, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. So this is the kind of, it's like a sarcastic, dry humor all throughout the game. And Monkey Island 2 is also fantastic. I played that a lot growing up as well. After that, the series kind of changes a bit. They changed animation style. It felt like it was more for younger kids than maybe like older children or teens, or maybe I just got too old to keep playing them. I didn't like the future installments quite as much, but the first two have been re-released.

Starting point is 00:06:44 You can buy them on Steam, and this was one of the first games I ever played where they let you press a button, and you can play the old version that originally came out back in the 90s, or you can see the remastered animation with the voiceover acting that they added for the remake. So if you played Secret of Monkey Island when you were a kid, no doubt you know what I'm talking about. Very nostalgic. Some of my favorite memories growing up playing games. It's still worth playing now if you've never played it before. It's one of those games that you might get stuck and you might have to check some guides. They kind of intentionally make

Starting point is 00:07:20 some things hard to find out. So sometimes you get stuck where you're walking around just clicking use this on that over and over trying to figure out what to do. But other than that one little caveat, incredibly fun to play. I'd recommend checking it out. But that's it here for this week. So thanks again for your guys' support and for listening. We'll see you guys later.

Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes: Monkey Island

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