PC Reviews

Nostalgia? Please. As great as the original Secret of Monkey Island is, it’s a new adventure we’ve all been craving. Even though Tales is the first of the series not made by LucasArts (although Telltale have no shortage of people who worked on them, such as Dave Grossman and Mike Stemmle), make no mistake: it’s officially the fifth game in the series, not some farmed-out spin-off.

Thank goodness, the first one wasn’t a fluke. Telltale’s episodic Monkey Island revamp kicked off on a splendid high, and this second episode is easily up to the first’s satisfying standard. Strong puzzles, funny writing and a fantastic new villain in the form of Morgan Le Flay, a sexy pirate hunter who’s simultaneously Guybrush Threepwood’s biggest fan and greatest threat in ages.

Previously, on Monkey Island: Voodoo pox! Human LeChuck! Magical sea-sponges! At this point in the series, it’s almost like reviewing a TV show rather than a game. The basic structure, the characters, the overall plot – you’re not going to jump into Guybrush’s world at this point. So the question is more how well this episode continues the series, than how it might stand alone. In short... it’s strange.

And so, on to the fourth episode of Tales do we go, with the series progressing nicely. The end is nearing though and Telltale should now, surely, have begun to move on from merely being good to reminding us why we all loved the Monkey Island games in the first place. Whether they manage this is open to debate, sadly.

The end is here, the series that could so easily have been a thundering disaster has turned out to be a pleasant surprise, on the whole. Despite having perhaps some of the lowest lows of any major Telltale series, it also has the highest highs, averaging out somewhere in the “ah, that was nice” zone when you finish all five episodes.

Though you wouldn’t guess it from the title, screenshots or, indeed, actual game, in Tank Universal you play a wrinkled old man with failing health called George. George has been to the ‘doctors’ and been advised that the best cure for his illness is a strict course of tanks, missiles and explosions, taken through a VR headset. George totters home, sticks the helmet on, and that’s the premise of the game.

The most evocative, stirring part of Terminator: Salvation is the loading screen, a burning red eye glaring out at you from the monitor. After that, it just degenerates into a mindless grind through tediously textured levels, fighting dull enemies and listening to dull characters say “Connor, do this” or “Wasps!” for the thousandth time.