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Sneak Preview: The Curse of Monkey Island (Part 2)© Dan Finkelstein
Sep 2, 1997
The few puzzles in the demo are hard, but not overwhelmingly so (as
several were in the first two games).. The ever-evolving LucasArts interface gets even better with MK3 -- somewhat like the Full Throttle interface, your cursor, the "X" will turn red over a useable object, then you have a mere three options -- look, talk, and take (use). While I was skeptical about this new interface in Full Throttle, it still makes for good gameplay -- much better (in my
opinion), than the multi-verb system of older LucasArts games like "Indiana Jones", "Sam and Max", and "Maniac Mansion". The Inventory seems to be a large part of this game -- many puzzles will require manipulating two (or more) objects in the inventory to make one new object (that's a hint).
The big thing to talk about, however, is the graphics. In a word, they are suburb. LucasArts has decided (finally) to move away from the 256 colors, VGA graphics of their last games, and instead uses 800x600 16-bit graphics glory.
The style of animation has also changed -- instead of using roto-scoping to animate real people, LucasArts has opted to use real Disney-style animation for the game, giving the game a smooth and professional feel. And amazingly enough, this Windows 95 only game ran flawlessly and fast on my Pentium 90 (with DirectX 3 installed), even when most of the screen is filled with moving animation.
It took me awhile to get used to the voice acting.. It was a little strange to hear a voice coming from Guybrush after the many years of reading all the text in the games. However, from the few characters I've heard, it's still very good (and can be turned off if you yearn for the olden-days). Just to round out this review, the few sound effects are very good, especially compared with the first two games, which didn't have any. No music in the demo, but hopefully it's good as well.
All in all, if the rest of the game is as good as the demo, The Curse of Monkey Island may be worthy of bearing the "Monkey Island" name... I'll be the first in line when this one comes out.
Next week: MI3 Demo Walkthrough!
(Need the demo? Get it here.)
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