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Telltale Games develops new adventures for Monkey Island franchise
by Eliot Fish in LA
LucasArts Entertainment has finally come around to realising the wealth of classic adventure games gathering dust in their archives could make them some plentiful booty. Returning to the PC and debuting on the Wii as WiiWare is Tales of Monkey Island – a new series of episodic Monkey Island adventures being developed by Telltale Games (Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit) in partnership with LucasArts.
In a smart move, Telltale has brought back on board Dave Grossman who was responsible for some of the fantastically funny dialogue in the original set of Monkey Island adventures alongside Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer, as well as other designers and artists who have worked on all of the games in the series thus far.
Tales of Monkey Island will continue using the 3D style last seen in Monkey Island 4, though Telltale has been careful to integrate 2D artwork elements to give the feel of the earlier games, whilst also developing a brand new interface for pirate Guybrush Threepwood’s interactions with the colourful game world. The first episode will be available in July, so prepare to hop on board for another ride into the Caribbean.
The Xbox Live Arcade will also enjoy some Threepwood-loving action in the shape of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Whilst the pixelated original will be fully playable running on the old SCUMM engine itself, LucasArts has been working hard to reunite all the original voice cast, re-record the original midi score with a band and offer a re-imagined artwork style to give the game a more user-friendly interface and lush high-definition artwork.
