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Review – Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: Lechuck’s Revenge | PSNStores

Review – Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: Lechuck’s Revenge

Posted by on August 2nd, 2010 | 1 Comment | Tags: ,

Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
Release Date: July 6th 2010
Availability:
Price: $9.99 | £7.99 | €9.99
Demo: Yes
Players: 1
Rating: Everyone 10+

What I Liked:
One of the best adventure games ever made, made even better.
Controls are easy to use and intuitive
Art style is much improved over the first game.
Commentary from Schafer, Gilbert, and Grossman is a fantastic addition

What I Disliked:
There’s a couple of missteps in the game that make some sequences slightly frustrating
Some missing content (opening and ending).

Monkey Island 2 is widely considered to be the greatest game of all time, and with the release of the Monkey Island 2 Special Edition, Lucasarts only serves to reinforce this point, by providing yet another Special Edition, but one that has learnt from the faults of their special edition of the previous game, and provides an even better experience for both fans of the game previously, and players approaching the title for the first time due to its somewhat legendary status.

If you know about the Monkey Island series, then you most likely know that in these games you take control of Guybrush Threepwood, and embark on what is most likely going to be an utterly ridiculous quest, fraught with peril and idiocy. That is exactly what you get with Monkey Island 2, but with all the improvements that you can expect from one of these Special Editions. You of course get the addition of voice acting (which here is, as ever, utterly fantastic, with all the characters being voiced perfectly by their actors, and a great sense of comic timing by all of the players), and high-resolution graphics. If you hated Guybrush’s hair in the first game, then you can rest assured that he has found himself a better stylist here, as he really hasn’t looked better. As a whole, the art style is much improved over the first special edition, with more detail, and better animation as a whole for the characters you’ll see on your quest.

However, the best part of the game is without a doubt the commentary from Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman, the creators of this game. You’ll see commentary prompts pop up every so often, and you’ll get to hear these legendary creators speak about what many consider to be their best work (they also go off at tangents too, which is even more hilarious)

This being a special edition, there are always a few things fans of the original game may notice, or that people playing the game for the first time may find aggravating. The timing in certain puzzles is seemingly a bit off, so you’ll have to be extremely quick with your thumbs in order to get some solved. Also, there is one instance where the voice acting gets out of sync (you’ll notice the sequence when you see it, I shan’t spoil it.) Apart from that, the most egregious omissions from the game are little sequences at the beginning and end of the game. They were in the original, so the lack of their inclusion in this special edition is rather confusing. They were recently added back in in a patch to the PC version, so the console version may be updated sometime soon. Just don’t get your hopes up. Also, “mad props” to Lucasarts for managing to misspell “Tim Schafer” at the end of the credits (seriously, well done. Top class testing there too).

However, these complaints really are a drop in the ocean, compared to the amount of great things there are in this game. Monkey Island 2 Special edition really is a worthy remake of the greatest adventure game of all time, and you deserve to play it, and see just how great adventure games can be without the inclusion of honey and cat hair. It really is fantastic.

This game was purchased for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.