Monkey Island is back! ("Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!")

I've only just heard the fantastic news that Monkey Island is about to return to our computer and console screens! Monkey Island 1 and 2 were two of my favourite games of all time, and I spent countless hours playing them on my old Amiga. If I remember correctly, I played Monkey Island using dual floppy disk drives, progressing to a hard drive in time for Monkey Island 2. Both games struck the right balance between story line and puzzles, and contained the best humour I have experienced in any game (then or now).

There are plenty of websites that detail the new Monkey Island games, but by way of a quick summary...

The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition is an updated version of the original game, which will be available soon on PC and Xbox Live Arcade. Lucasarts look to have done a great job in maintaining the feel of the original through the new version's updated graphics and speech. At any time you can toggle between the original and new version, which I think is a fantastic idea. I am definitely looking forward to playing the updated version as soon as it's released, and reviving some old memories (and no-doubt frustrations too!). Oh, and take some time to watch the video on Lucasarts site - it's very interesting.

Tales of Monkey Island by Telltale Games is due for release in early July, and is a new story told in 5 parts. I'd normally be apprehensive about any new Monkey Island game staying true to the spirit of original, but apparently Telltale has lots of former Lucasarts employees, and they have remained close to Lucasarts and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert. In fact, Ron Gilbert has an interesting write up on his blog. It's great to see a new Monkey Island game, and fingers crossed it will live up to the original two.

I was going to close by saying "they sure don't make 'em like they used to", but I guess that's not true anymore... :)