Games

Escape from Monkey Island

On to the fourth Monkey Island game; the last one I played in full, back when it came out, 22 years ago. 22 years! Jesus. Also, as I mentioned when I started Curse, I can't remember for sure if this is the second or third time I'm playing it — I feel like I did re-play it sometime, but I can't remember when. So, no re-play count for now.

First impressions? The then-current 3D graphics have aged much more poorly than the pixel art and cartoon styles of the first three games. It's not just the low pixel counts and basic textures — the pre-rendered backgrounds feel much more sparse than the detail-packed drawn ones; and it changes camera angle far too often, which can be confusing. That's compounded by the keyboard-based controls (presumably designed to be controller-friendly for console ports), which are clunky. If you choose character-based navigation, it can be oddly confusing about which direction Guybrush will go in; but if it's camera based, that changes every time it switches angle, leading to you sometimes accidentally running in and out of a location repeatedly. Shame they didn't also include mouse support for PCs — it would be much nicer with good ol' point-and-click. Hopefully I'll get used to it as the game goes on...