Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2 The Siege of Spinner Cay

24th August 2009 • 0 Comments

The tale of Monkey Island continues with chapter two which delves further into the story and maintains the humour coupled with a solid adventure game on top. ......

The Monkey Island fever has quietened down a bit over the last month. The first episode of Tales was released and the Secret of Monkey Island was released on multiple platforms. In the past few days Telltale have gifted those whom purchased the game their second chunk of the adventure with The Siege of Spinner Cay. 

For those with a short memory the first episode of the series left the story on a cliff hanger and since this is the first series that Telltale have done a continuous storyline it was going to be interesting to see if they were going to do a recap at the start. Being the good storytellers that they are, there is a recap of the story at the start of the game with the Voodoo lady filling us in on what has happened. This is really well done and if you weren't aware that this was the second episode you could easily assume that this wasn't a recap at all. So hats off to Telltale for not resorting to the usual "Previously on Monkey Island" format. 

The story in Chapter 2 continues on from the first episode and mainly involves Guybrush arriving at the Jerkbait Islands and having to gather three ceremonial artefacts in order to get the Sea Sponge. Elements of the story that were hinted at in the first episode, such as the pirate hunter, are filled out more which is great as it adds much more depth to the storyline. It also reminds you of elements of the previous episode you may have forgotten about since you played and reminds you the first episode is still important in the overall story. The main storyline is still very interesting and funny and by the end there are still some questions left unanswered. There is one particular scene which may pull on your heart strings a bit.

The episode still retains the classic Monkey Island humour with some bits which will make you laugh at loud or you'll end up unwittingly quoting parts to your friends. The funniest parts of the episode are as usual when Guybrush and LeChuck interact as something ridiculous or funny will always happen. Some of the background characters provide some laughs as well. Winslow in particular is becoming a very funny character with some great scenes with Guybrush and the map. The voice acting is still very good and the music is top notch.

Personally I think the story and the humour is slightly superior in this episode, but this is helped by the set up in the first episode, if you've played the first episode you'll enjoy this one. The ending whilst not as shocking as the first episode will make you want to see more but will leave you satisfied in terms of how this episodes storyline is resolved. The mark of a good episode is when you speculate whats going to happen next which this episode does. 

Being episodic the gameplay hasn't changed much in the second episode, the slightly awkward controls remain but if you've played the first one, the learning curve for the controls is non existent in this game so you'll notice it less. The big change in this episode is that the action takes place on multiple islands, there is one main one called the Jerkbait Islands but you can also travel to smaller desert islands around the map or different parts of the Jerkbait Island with a raft.

This is a relief as one of my major concerns from the first game is that like Sam & Max a lot of action in the episodes would occur in similar environments, so far no environment has been repeated in the Tales series bar the ship.

Whilst the environments aren't repeating some of the gameplay is starting to get repetitive which is a concern. The biggest thing that gets repeated from the first game, is that you have to traverse a maze like jungle again, which makes this episode feel a bit similar to the first one. The type of puzzle hasn't repeated as much though with less focus on treasure hunting style puzzles to more dialogue based puzzles, including a humorous one involving LeChuck and Guybrush basically describing the SCUMM system out loud.

The difficultly remains the same as the first game, which allows you to finish this pretty quickly if you're a hardcore adventure game player,  but the casual fan will still be able to make progress which makes this a game that everyone can play. 

The Siege of Spinner Cay maintains the good start that the first episode of Tales had begun and continues to keep you interested in how the story will develop whilst also laughing throughout. Whilst the gameplay is starting to get a bit reptitive, it is still a great game to sit down and play for a few evenings. If you haven't experienced Tales yet go buy the Season now, this is a great game on its own but also works very well as a whole. If you've already purchased the season you won't be disappointed at all by the second episode.