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| | Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.4 |
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The Secret Of Monkey Island: Special Edition
June 1, 2010 | Franklin Pride | |
Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.5 | CPU: 1.8GHz Intel |
RAM: 512MB | Hard Disk: 2 GB | Media: DVD drive |
Graphics: 128MB Video Card (ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce 7300 or better)Review: Ever since The Secret Of Monkey Island's release in the early Mac and PC markets, it has been widely acclaimed as one of the best adventure games ever made. Its graphics were excellent for its time, its dialogue was humorous, and it became the start of an extremely successful series. Given the quality of the original edition, the main issue to wonder about is what the Special Edition brings to the table. Does it change the script at all or is it just a different skin of the same game?On the gameplay side of things, Aspyr Media's The Secret Of Monkey Island: Special Edition (SM:SE) has hardly changed at all. Unfortunately, that means that the verb system from the original editions is still fully enforced. You can't use a hand on an object to pick it up, you have to select the pick up verb with the verb menu, hotkeys, or the default verb set. It does feel a little dated. On the plus side, the verb menu and inventory is hidden while you're playing. As a result, there's more room to enjoy the view. It's still a little frustrating to juggle pick up, push, pull, and use, but at least it's hidden for most of the time. There is one new feature to SM:SE that significantly helps the gameplay. You can now request hints when stuck that gradually ramp up from general hints to a specific solution that even comes with a directional arrow pointing to what you have to do next. This is a great hint system for the occasional puzzle that you just can't figure out and is an excellent replacement for the old paid hint lines. The best part definitely is that you can just get one or maybe two hints and you can figure out the puzzles without the spoilers that generally come from reading a guide. Other than that, the game runs the same way it always has. Each segment involves getting past specific obstacles, which generally requires gathering sometimes-related items, talking to everyone you meet, and combining random objects. It's traditional adventure fare, but it's the best of traditional adventure fare. Even if you're not much of a fan of point-and-click object gathering, this is a piece of history you definitely should try at least once.
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