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Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 (WiiWare) Review

USA Sat, 31 Oct 2009 by Marcel Van Duyn

Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 Screenshot

A well-liked classic character returning makes everything better.

As you might have expected, it's a tad pointless to review this game. It's a direct sequel to the previous chapter, and plays exactly the same way. As it is not recommended to play this before playing the previous two chapters, you should already know what you're getting into when you buy it!

At the end of chapter 2, Guybrush sailed off in search of La Esponja Grande, now with a clear idea of where to find it. It didn't take long before a giant manatee came up out of the sea and swallowed him along with his entire ship - Now, he has to find a way out and then also find La Esponja Grande, all in one chapter!

Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 Screenshot

Inside the manatee, Guybrush quickly discovers DeCava, the explorer he has been looking for since the first chapter. He'll also find a band of pirates who used to be DeCava's crew, but have since split off in order to enjoy themselves a bit more. Most importantly though, Guybrush also finds a character from the previous two games in the Monkey Island series, who makes a very welcome return - Murray, the talking skull!

With the (Possibly forced) help of all of these characters, Guybrush must figure out why nobody can leave the manatee, and then find a way to get out anyhow. You should be done with this in about an hour and a half, but it's not over just yet. As luck would have it, Guybrush and the rest appear directly above the location of La Esponja Grande, which should take you about another hour to recover.

Murray easily makes this chapter the best yet - A talking skull with a booming voice who wants to take over the world just never gets old, especially considering he needs assistance to do pretty much anything.

Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 Screenshot

In the previous chapters, the NPCs were very clearly slightly edited versions of each other, and they are once again here. However, Telltale has taken a bit more effort to disguise this fact this time, so it thankfully won't stick out as much as before.

Of course, the main thing everybody is wondering is whether the WiiWare version of this chapter still has issues. Both the first and second chapters lagged quite a bit and had very noticeably fuzzy audio, and sadly, the same must be said of this one. Once again it's plagued with the same issues as before. By this point, though, only two things can really be done. Shrug it off and just get the remaining games on WiiWare, or man up and get the whole series on PC.

Conclusion

In terms of gameplay, chapter 3 of Tales of Monkey Island is obviously not much different from the previous games. There are some fun puzzles included, but they're still nothing more than figuring out what object to use with what other object. This episode is easily the best yet in terms of humour though, Murray alone makes this absolutely hilarious and is guaranteed to satisfy any fan of the old Monkey Island games. Yes, the audio and visual hiccups are still present, but by this point, we really don't expect Telltale to do anything this annoyance in the WiiWare version anymore.

User Comments

Zaphod Beeblebrox

1. Zaphod Beeblebrox United States 31 Oct 2009, 07:13 GMT

Morgan LeFlay is a pixelated hottie. There. I said it. :D

Zammy

2. Zammy United Kingdom 31 Oct 2009, 09:56 GMT

The above comment deeply disturbed me. Congratulations. =P
Good review, I still need to pick up these games...

City Of Delusion

3. City Of Delusion United Kingdom 31 Oct 2009, 11:18 GMT

mans up and plots to buy the series on PC

pinta_vodki

4. pinta_vodki Russian Federation 31 Oct 2009, 11:43 GMT

Shame about the hiccups... Though by the middle of the first game I really stopped noticing them because all my attention was drawn to brilliant humour and everything. :-)

Odnetnin

5. Odnetnin United States 31 Oct 2009, 14:25 GMT

Nintendo Power says episodes 4 and 5 handle better technically.

JayArr

6. JayArr United States 31 Oct 2009, 14:37 GMT

This was by far my favorite chapter so far. For me at least, it ran smooth as a babies toosh from start to finish.

vherub

7. vherub United States 31 Oct 2009, 16:37 GMT

too bad about running worse on the wii, still will wait to see how 4/5 turn out

Hardy83

8. Hardy83 Canada 31 Oct 2009, 17:12 GMT

Wish their games were for Macs. I don't want to get this one because of the technical issues, but I blame Nintendo for this, not Telltale.

Egg miester

9. Egg miester United States 31 Oct 2009, 17:55 GMT

how can this game get a 8 with all the problems people have with it
telltale is a useless programmer

Odnetnin

10. Odnetnin United States 31 Oct 2009, 18:24 GMT

I can't even get the PC version of the first one to run smoothly on my computer.

LEGEND MARIOID

11. LEGEND MARIOID United Kingdom 31 Oct 2009, 20:14 GMT

Insta-download.

warioswoods

12. warioswoods United States 31 Oct 2009, 22:46 GMT

@Hardy83

Using Crossover Games, you can install Steam on your Mac and run these episodes (along with many other nice things on Steam).

Personally I prefer to play these on the TV, even with occasional hiccups.

vonseux

13. vonseux Brazil 01 Nov 2009, 03:25 GMT

you didnt mention Mongan LaFlay, shes soooo H... i mean, shes so funny ;D
a new character that makes the series

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