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Return to Monkey Island's first gameplay trailer is a swashbuckling trip of nostalgia
When Return to Monkey Island arrives later this year, players will finally discover the secret of Monkey Island.
A Monkey Island sequel from creator Ron Gilbert is coming this year
'Return to Monkey Island' is the first new entry in the series since 2009.
Monkey Island is getting a $160 anthology release this month
In honor of the franchise's 30th anniversary, Limited Run Games is releasing a Monkey Island collector's edition.
Steam sales arrrrr pirate-themed today
Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs! In honor of National Talk Like A Pirate Day, the landlubbers over at Valve have instituted a sale on pirate-themed games via Steam. Monkey Island, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, the Risen series and more all get their chance to come aboard your Internet-sailing vessel. Even space pirates - distant cousins though they may be - have slashed their prices with the buccaneer blade of savings. Aye, tis a good thing. Ye'll have to be quick to snag these beasties though, me lads and lasses; at the time of this decree, there be just more than a day's worth of hours left on these sales. Avast and draw the main sail; set course for Steam! [Image: Ubisoft]
Ron Gilbert imagines a new, independent Monkey Island game
Ron Gilbert is not making another Monkey Island game – we repeat, Gilbert is not making another Monkey Island game – but if he did, he has a few ideas for what it would look, feel and play like. In his latest Grumpy Gamer blog post, Gilbert lists upgrades and changes he'd want in a new Monkey Island game, including "enhanced low-res" visuals, hardcore adventure mechanics with minimal hand-holding, a huge inventory and dialogue puzzles.Gilbert would want to rebuild the SCUMM language, in terms of its ability to rapidly iterate new ideas: "SCUMM lived and breathed adventure games. I'd build an engine and a language where funny ideas can be laughed about at lunch and be in the game that afternoon. SCUMM did that. It's something that is getting lost today."Gilbert's wish list includes a team of 10 people or fewer, a boxed game, full voice acting, and a title of Monkey Island 3a, since "all the games after Monkey Island 2 don't exist" in his universe. He's even envisioned a Kickstarter free of frills or fancy videos, one that doesn't attempt to break any money-making records. Gilbert would need to own and control every aspect of the IP, meaning he wouldn't look for a publisher, and Kickstarter would indeed be an option.Most shocking, though, is number 14 on Gilbert's list: "The press won't get advanced copies." Why do you tease so good, Gilbert?
Daily iPhone App: The Silent Age is a great, stylistic point and click adventure
The Silent Age is quite an experience. It's a point-and-click adventure game, in the style of old games like Monkey Island and even Maniac Mansion. But as you can see from the screenshot above, it boasts a very original look and feel, one has a lot of style and a little bit of menace added in. The story is about a janitor who's pretty easygoing, when one day he's given a time-travel device and asked to save the world. And that's about all you need to know to start: The Silent Age unfolds itself like a puzzle box, very carefully and with a lot of excellent design. Unfortunately, the same issues that all of these point-and-click games seem to have are present here as well: The puzzles can sometimes get confusing, and the interface can sometimes not be 100 percent clear (usually, you need to find objects to use on other objects, but sometimes the solutions can be more abstract than obvious). But the good news is that The Silent Age's interface is very simple and straightforward, so there isn't a lot of room here for confusion. The game is more about experiencing the story and unlocking just what's going on, rather than trying to get you hung up on a specific puzzle. Plus, The Silent Age is currently completely free. At that price, there's no reason not to download this and check it out this weekend. It's probably not a game for everyone, but if you're ready for an experience that's a little strange and very experimental, give it a look.
Steam Autumn Sale adds LA Noire, Fallout: New Vegas, Monkey Island and more
Before you venture over to Steam's Autumn Sale page, quietly recite your honed mantra of resistance: "I do not have time to play these games. I haven't even finished Skyrim. All these small charges add up in the long run." Alright, now that you've done that and shown yourself a vague, minute attempt at adhering to frugality, you'll feel less guilty when you buy everything. L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition wants $24.99, Fallout: New Vegas is five bucks and the Monkey Island Special Edition bundle is cut down to $5.09. ACE Team's bizarro brawler, Zeno Clash, enters the sale at $3.74, and topsy-turvy adventure VVVVVV costs $1.24 until tomorrow afternoon. That's less than 21 cents per V.
Telltale Games having 50% off sale until January 3
Okay, so you can't go Back to the Future or have a Poker Night at the Inventory, but you can point and click your way through most of the Telltale Games' catalog for 50 percent off until January 3, 2011. That means you can listen to some Tales of Monkey Island, help Sam & Max with some freelance police work, invent a reason to hang out with Wallace & Gromit, or man up with Strong Bad (but only if you're attractive) at a significant discount on the Telltale site.
Unlock Guybrush Threepwood in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
As a fun exercise for the afternoon, you could try coming up with a canon-friendly explanation as to how nigh-mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood -- spindly physique and all -- could become an inhabitant of the Star Wars universe. A bizarre curse wrought by the dreaded LeChuck? A mysterious inter-dimensional rift inside a mystical reef? LucasArts wizards looking to include a neat, unlockable model in next month's action-packed sequel, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2? No matter the nature of your narrative, you'll have to make up the specifics for now. According to a winking LucasArts representative, "we're going to keep how it's unlocked a secret." We suspect "secret" is right -- as in, have a Secret of Monkey Island or Monkey Island 2 save file nearby. If it's not that, it's probably destroying one hundred flooring inspector droids. I couldn't help but ask Monkey Island designer (and new Double Fine employee) Ron Gilbert what he thought of Guybrush's journey across the universe. "'Hi, my name is Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a Jedi.' That was the original opening line in Monkey Island but they made me change it to 'pirate' and I had replace all the Stormtroopers with buccaneers and the Millennium Falcon became a pirate ship. Nice to see it's come back full circle," Gilbert said via email. "I first heard about this last night and I wasn't sure what to think of it, but now that it's settled in, I think it's very cool. It says a lot about the strength of Monkey Island and Guybrush in that he can go toe-to-toe with Star Wars." %Gallery-103622%
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition enacts LeChuck's Revenge on iPhone, iPad tomorrow
Like your lulz on the go? Then you'll be interested to know that Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge will be available on the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch. Even better: the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch versions of the game will be available tomorrow. The updated sequel sports an interchangeable graphics filter (switch between updated and original on the fly), full dialogue voice-over and even a new developer commentary mode. How's that for tickling your Threepwood?
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition coming to PSN on July 6, XBLA and PC on July 7
Microsoft has announced that rejuvenated point-and-click classic Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge will launch on Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday, on July 7th, for 800 MS Points. We've confirmed with LucasArts that the PC version -- distributed via Direct2Drive and Steam -- will also become available on July 7th, with the US PlayStation Network getting it one day sooner on July 6th. All versions will cost $10. In this Special Edition, the Monkey Island milieu been instilled with all the modernity LucasArts could muster, including new high-definition art, fully voiced dialogue and 16-player Voodoo Doll Deathmatch a neat developer's commentary mode. As with the The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, you'll be able to switch between the new version and the game's original form at any time. We find the pixelated Zombie Pirate LeChuck to be more unsettling, but actually hearing him describe the "Screaming Chair" this time may change our minds. %Gallery-87958%
Crazy summer Steam sale includes some fantastic Mac games
The PC gaming community has long enjoyed the ridiculously awesome Steam sales Valve loves to break out during holidays and at other fun times of the year. The sales deliver game bundles for crazy cheap prices, even on AAA current titles. Steam's summer sale kicked off a couple of days ago. For the first time, Mac gamers get to join in on the fun thanks to Steam's recent adoption of OS X. While there are hundreds of Mac & PC titles on sale through July 4th, most of the best deals are found on a few select games featured each day. Today's sales have two good selections that Mac gamers may want to check out. For strategy fans Paradox Interactive's deep historical real-time strategy game Europa Universalis III lets the player control a European nation and rewrite history between 1453 and 1820 AD. For adventure gamers, a bundle of all five episodes of the previously mentioned Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island is also available at a great price. The clock is ticking -- but thankfully Valve offsets the time for most US timezones so you can get a chance to pick them up in the morning. If those two games don't belong to any of your favorite genres, there are a bunch of other titles included in the full sale. Right now is a great time to pick up any of Valve's growing list of games released for OS X with first-person shooters Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Portal and Half-Life 2. Better yet, grab the Valve Complete Pack for all of them so you're ready to go when Left 4 Dead 2 arrives on OS X.
Tales of Monkey Island on PSN June 15, Sam & Max Episode 3 a week later
PS3 owners who have recently seen the light of adventure games, thanks to Telltale's Sam & Max releases, now have another reason to load their PSN wallets: Telltale and Lucasarts will release the entire first season of Tales of Monkey Island -- all five episodes -- as a downloadable PS3 game on June 15. Even if you won't be playing Monkey Island on PS3, this news likely benefits you. To celebrate the PSN release, Telltale is temporarily knocking down the price of the collection to $20 across all platforms -- not just PSN. The PC and Mac versions will also be sold at this discount price on Telltale's website through June 30. Obtaining the episodes this way is easier than hijacking a boat carrying shipments of Monkey Island games -- and actually cheaper, too. Additionally, and especially if you prefer your Telltale protagonists anthropomorphic, you'll be pleased to know that Sam & Max's third episode of the third season, "They Stole Max's Brain!," will be available via (the North American) PSN and for PC and Mac on June 22; and the Euro PSN release will follow on June 23. And, hey, Sam & Max is on sale too! You can get the full season on PSN for $25.%Gallery-94965%
Xbox Live deal of the week: Monkey Island for $5
Here's another opportunity to find out The Secret of Monkey Island -- and at a discount before LeChuck has his high-def revenge this summer. The classic advent-arrr game is a mere 400 ($5) this week on the Xbox Marketplace -- that's less than a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle. A couple Monkey Island Avatar items are also on sale this week. The Cotton Swab is ready to clean 80 ($1) out of your account, while those on Team LeChuck can show it by picking up LeChuck Pirate Hat for 40 (50¢). To see the discounts, you'll have to be logged into an Xbox Live Gold account. Xbox.com: Add The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition to your Xbox 360 download queue ($5) %Gallery-64659%
Grab the Secret and Tales of Monkey Island games for $20
You know that phrase, "out with the old, in with the new?" Telltale recently put together a sweet little bundle that allows you to obtain the new while also obtaining (the renovated version of) the old, all for a reasonable price. Until this Friday, you can grab Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and all five chapters of Tales of Monkey Island for $19.99. If only the bundle included something borrowed and something blue -- then you could easily use it to satisfy all of your nonsensical pre-wedding rituals. [Via Big Download]
InstantAction streaming service launches: play Monkey Island in this post
InstantAction's new streaming service has debuted, allowing select games to be played not only in a browser window, but in an embeddable applet if desired (for those of you running Windows, anyway). The selection of games is currently limited to just one, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. The service allows the game to be played for 20 minutes for free, with the option to buy it for $9.99. Does it work? See above. You know. The Monkey Island game running directly above this text. Did you realize when you opened Joystiq this evening that you'd be clicking your way into the future? [Update: We mistakenly called the service "Gaikai-powered," which is inaccurate. Gaikai will provide some limited functionality in certain use cases; however, the embedded game above uses InstantAction's "chunking" technology to feed the actual executable to your computer. How and when will Gaikai be used? Look for our interview with InstantAction CEO Louis Castle later today.] [Thanks, Matthew!]
Gaikai and InstantAction team up for streaming, embeddable games
If InstantAction.com's CEO Lou Castle is to be believed, we're apparently going to be playing games pretty much wherever we want in the not-so-distant future. He's just revealed plans (via IndustryGamers) to relaunch his site with a new business/distribution model and a partnership with game streaming service Gaikai. In addition to the already existing model of a quick download (a claimed 4 - 5 minutes) that still somewhat relies on your computer power to process the game's graphics, IA will now offer a streaming option for those who'd prefer a quicker, less hardware reliant gaming experience. "It's the perfect implementation of a thin client solution because when it's available it's brilliant and when it's not available it's ok ... you only have to wait a couple minutes." The aforementioned streaming option (employing Gaikai) will also be embedabble on the web, as demonstrated with Assassin's Creed (not to mention to us earlier today) "Now if people are reading a review of a game, they don't have to go find it ... they can play it right then and there in the browser." And that's just the beginning -- Castle clearly has an eye on digital distribution services when he talks about employing Facebook as "InstantAction's Xbox Live." IA's new distribution model essentially promises to developers/publishers the ability to release games with a variety of payment methods (pay as you go, free-to-play, one-time charge, etc.) while incorporating the aforementioned embed and streaming functionalities. So far, the company has inked one deal for distribution (with LucasArts for The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition) and Castle claims to be pursuing others right now. And apparently it won't be too long before we get to check out the new system ourselves, as the revamped digital platform is said to be "launching soon." %Gallery-88034%
Monkey Island Home costumes allow for Dread Pirate Quincy
Does your dead-eyed Home avatar lack a bit of that buccaneering spirit? LucasArts has a sure-fire way to fix your lack of nautical flair: During its pirate-themed party at GDC, the company announced that Monkey Island costumes (pictured above) would soon make their way to PlayStation Home. Now, we rarely get excited over virtual duds for our virtual manifestations -- but Stan's coat could really add a certain savoir-faire to our terrifying craft.
First Monkey Island SE coming to PSN, Mac, Telltale, InstantAction
At a GDC 2010 event, LucasArts announced that The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is headed to a plethora of new platforms and services. First and foremost, it's been ported for both the PlayStation Network and Mac OS. Furthermore, the game is also making the jump to the Telltale games store as well as InstantAction.com. There are currently no details as to when the game will hit the services mentioned above, but rest assured we're following up with LucasArts right now. It's worth noting that InstantAction.com is currently down for "maintenance," with the site's blog mentioning some "exciting announcements" in the near future. Regardless of when the game does show up, it's definitely good news for adventure fans that have been deprived of the remake thus far.
Report: Telltale porting its games to Mac, hints at iPad
According to Mac|Life, Telltale will begin supporting the Mac platform starting on Febrary 8 with Tales of Monkey Island -- and, as what can only be described as a great idea, gamers will be able to download both the Mac and PC versions of Telltale's games for one price. In other words, you won't have to worry about which version you buy, because you'll be getting both. Tales of Monkey Island is to be the first title to receive Mac support, with Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit and Strong Bad to follow (supposedly in that order, by the way). Both seasons of Sam & Max should arrive within "several weeks" of Tales of Monkey Island, with the others arriving in the following months, the site writes. The report also mentions that Telltale plans to convert its entire catalog -- with the exception of Bone and Texas Hold 'Em -- according to Mac|Life. Its Telltale source declined to confirm if ports are on their way to the iPhone or iPad as well, though he did reiterate Telltale's desire to expand to as many platforms as possible. When reached for comment by Joystiq, a Telltale representative called the report "totally unconfirmed," adding that potential iPhone or iPad support is "total speculation" at this point. According to the Mac|Life report, Telltale will be showing off its Mac titles at the Macworld Expo on February 11, so you can bet we'll be stopping by to find out.
