After playing the first episode of the new Tales of Monkey Island, I just had to get my hands on Episode 2 to see what was going to happen next. “The Siege of Spinner Cay” was just released and I enjoyed it even better than the first episode. Now we have to freaking wait another month to see what’s going to happen next. Man I hate episodic games! If you haven’t seen my review of Episode 1, you’ll want to check that out first, as I’m simply going to give you updates here.
Recall that at the end of Episode 1, Guybrush had just acquired a pirate ship and had left the Island of Flotstam in search of his wife Elaine, the evil pirate LeChuck, and La Esponja Grande, or the big sponge, to cure his wicked outbreak of the voodoo pox. Well “The Siege of Spinner Cay” opens up with a Pirate Hunter known as Morgan LeFlay who has tracked down Guybrush to cut off his hand for the crazy doctor Marquis de Singe. Get all that?
Well Guybrush gets his hard chopped off while escaping the pirate hunter and ends up on the Jerkbait Islands as he damaged his ship in the battle and is in need of repairs. Here he happens to find his wife Elaine who seems like she might have a little sumpin-sumpin goin on with LeChuck if you know what I mean; a new evil pirate named McGillicuddy, and a whole population of merf-olk, led by Belugal, the mer-princess-or-something-or-other. It looks like the evil voodoo pox has begun spreading everywhere, so Elaine uses her powers of wife-y persuasion to convince Guybrush that he needs work with his arch-nemesis to find the cure by collecting three artifacts to summon some giant sea monsters that will lead you to the sponge. The game takes off from here and really starts to get fun! In the end, Elaine and Guybrush are separated and something really crazy happens, but I won’t spoil the surprise!
This episode actually took me 6 hours to complete, so it was a little longer than the first episode. In my last review, I mentioned that new maps are going to be released for the Treasure Hunt mini-game with each new episode. It turns out that this is not true and that you actually unlock additional maps by finding clues on the Internet, which in turn, gives you the map in the game. That’s really a pretty cool feature. You also have the ability in Spinner Cay to sail your ship around the ocean, and even sail a small raft between the Jerkbait Islands.
The puzzles in “The Siege of Spinner Cay” I found to be a lot more challenging than in “The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.” Several times I had no idea what I needed to do next and just started clicking every item combination together and clicking on all of the objects in the world to try to get something to happen. The clues that were given were just really vague. Or maybe I’m just stupid. Once I figured it out it made very much sense, but man was I stumped several times.
Like in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, there are lots of funny characters including 2 particularly awkward pirates. Guybrushe’s interaction with the mer-folk was pretty hilarious at times too. He can’t tell the males from the females and keeps messing up their names. Every time he called one of them Lemonade I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Spinner Cay is also loaded with funny pop culture and lots of sexual jokes.
I enjoyed the environments of this episode even more than those from the first episode. While the pirate village on Flotstam island was really cool, the mer-folk JerkBait Islands were just so dazzling and fun to explore.
All in all, I enjoyed “The Siege of Spinner Cay” even more than I did “The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.” The environments were very immersible and the story grabbed me right away. The characters are hilarious and the game play is fun and relaxing. Now, the puzzles were quite a bit harder than in the first episode, but I can get over a little frustration here and there. It seems The Tales of Monkey Island has got me hooked. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen in Episode 3!
