On a very special seventy-third episode of our video game show, Barrel Roll!, Wes is once again looking for love in all the wrong internet chat forums. Jesse tries to explain to him that “Allzyagottado is…” but never gets to finish his thoughts before we start in with the gaming talk. This is all pre-show, of course, and has no bearing on the episode at large.

The games we’ve been playing this week:

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
Deathsmiles
Alan Wake
Monkey Island (various)
Shatter
Puzzle Agent

In the news we talk about Hulu coming to consoles, connectivity between games, SEGA bringing back more old games and more.

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Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

Middle Song – Those Who Bear Their Name by ACE+ (Xenoblade Soundtrack)

"PAX.... In SPACE!"

On a very special episode thirty of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast” we have Wes, Jesse, and Jonah all in the same room for only the second time. This episode is extra long and full of our hands-on impressions of all the games we played, video demonstrations we saw, and panels we attended at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA.

The jet packy goodness of “Dark Void“, smashing turtle bros. in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up”, goblinin’ it up with “Wold of Warcraft: Cataclysm”, and much, much more. So much stuff, I don’t even remember what all we covered as I type out this description.

When we come back from the break, we give away a beta key for League of Legends. Listen to the episode, get the code and redeem it on their main site. We are also giving away a copy of KOTOR on Steam via our Twitter account.

Don’t forget the panels. “Making a Scene With Monkey Island”, managing communities, the GFW Radio (Brodeo) Reunion show and a ton more are all discussed.

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Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps
League of Legends
KOTOR on Steam
That key for KOTOR
PAX Picks on Flickr
Wes’s PAX Vids on Youtube

Hey WingerDamagees. (Is there a good phrase for the readers of this site yet?) This is MrColinP, taking a quick reprieve from my temporary Wing Damage exile to let you know about a series of LucasArts themed illustrations that I just completed for the great LucasArts and post-LucasArts centered news site MixnMojo.com. It’s been a dang eventful and joyous few months for MixnMojo and the fans of what they cover, what with the new Monkey Islands, the imminent arrival of Brutal Legend, the comparatively quiet release of A Vampyre Story and the just previewed DeathSpank.

MixnMojo is running a series of retrospectives on each of the classic LucasArts adventure games and were nice enough to let me do illustrations for three of them. Three of the best ones, actually. Links below the break.

There are two links for each illustration. One for my blog entry on that illustration, and one to the article it was created for where you can view the illustration itself.

Day of the Tentacle:
My blog entry
MixnMojo article

Full Throttle:
My blog entry
MixnMojo article

Grim Fandango:
My blog entry (including lots of way cool wallpapers!)
MixnMojo article

Cool! Which is your favorite Wind Gamagers?

“Can I have that bucket?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s there.”

“Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay”, the second episode in Telltales new Monkey Island episodic series, picks up immediately where the first game left off. While most Telltale episodic games can be played out of order without leaving the player completely lost, this is not the case with Tales. These episodes are written along the lines of old movie serials.

The first game left off with a cliffhanger that put Guybrush in a tight spot. This one picks things right up from there, starting with a sword fight. Rather than the insult sword fighting of the older games, this one has you solving a puzzle during your duel.

"And I've got a TIP for you. Get the POINT?"

The game controls exactly like episode one. You point and click to interact with objects, but move Guybrush with either the “WASD” controls or by dragging the mouse. You can also run when moving with the mouse by holding down the right click. This feels incredibly awkward, but the increased walk speed is worth it. I am still of the opinion that the old point and click interface works best, especially since you are already using it for a majority of the game.

Once again, the writing is top notch. From start to finish, the game provided plenty of laughs. Now that I have finished the original Monkey Island (and Special Edition), I can see that they are really building off of the existing MI universe in these new episodes.

The voice actors also turned in great performances. Since this one allows Guybrush and Elaine the chance to interact more, you get a much better feel for the characters and their relationship. The secondary characters are off the wall, as you would expect, and the actors do a great job bringing the universe to life.

"Two Unsavory Pirates"

Without giving away any spoilers, I have to say my favorite parts of this episode were the interactions between Guybrush and LeChuck. I’ll leave it at that, because I really don’t want to spoil anything.

They also mix up the locations more in this one, as you go island hoping between several tiny islands to solve many of the puzzles. While it did make the game feel a little bigger moving from island to island, this was counterbalanced by the fact that most of the islands are very tiny; so tiny that the screen barely has to scroll over for you to have walked across the whole thing.

Like the first episode, the majority of the puzzles made enough logical sense, at least within the game universe’s twisted logic, that you can get through this episode in just a few hours. If you do get stuck there is, once again, a built-in tip system to help you out. If you aren’t progressing, Guybrush will randomly say helpful things to clue you in on the next puzzle.

“The Siege of Spinner Cay” is a nice continuation of the story and I am looking forward to the twists and turns they take us through in episode three.

You can get the entire season of “Tales of Monkey Island” from Telltale’s official site.

This review is based on the PC version of Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay provided to us by Telltale.

"A Real American Worldwide Peace Keeping Organization... Hero."

On a very special twenty-seventh episode of Barrel Roll, we are once again joined by our good pal, Wesley Johnson. He has braved Wizard World Chicago and the new G.I. Joe movie and lived to tell us about them on the show.

These show notes will be a little briefer than usual, as my frustration with trying to get the Champions Online Beta mounts.

In what we’ve been playing, Jonah and Wes discuss “Splosion Man” and “Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition” while Jesse talks about “Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance”, “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time”, and the very Castlevania-esque “Koumajou Densetsu: Scarlet Symphony” demo.

In news, we talk about Capcom’s new triple pack which includes “Dead Rising”, “Lost Planet: Colonies Edition”, and “Devil May Cry 4″ for only $40 on the Xbox 360. Capcom’s plans to team up with Nintendo on the promotion of Monster Hunter 3 and much more.

Also, hi-jinks.

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Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps
Koumajou Densetsu: Scarlet Symphony (PC Demo)
InsulinFunk.net

As I mentioned in my review of “Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal“, I am new to the whole Monkey Island franchise. Not to say I’m new to adventure games, I just somehow missed this series the first time around.

It was great to be able to catch up on a game that I’ve been wanting to play for several years. I also wanted to be able to be able to compare both the original and Special Edition, so I played through both versions. The original on PC and SE on the Xbox 360.

“The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition” takes the classic LucasArts adventure game and gives it a graphical overhaul, as well as all new voice acting. The writing still holds up to this day. It is laugh out loud funny on several occasions, and the new voice cast did a great job bringing these great characters to life.

The point and click interface works flawlessly when you are on the PC and using a mouse. Playing it on the 360 is a little trickier. You use the analog stick to move the cursor across the screen, which is pretty cumbersome. They did add the ability to use the d-pad as a shortcut to the various interactions. This is very useful since it makes it a little more functional.

"Special Edition Graphics"

The new graphics are a mixed bag. The backgounds are beautiful. They look like paintings, and I really enjoyed their style. However, I was not too fond of the redesigned characters. They have a very similar hard angled / carved out of wood look like the new Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoons.

The text is also pretty hard to read sometimes. In the original, all the text appears below the action. In the remake, all the text choices appear in white. This makes them incredibly hard to read in a few scenes.

I also have a little bit of an issue with the animation. With the original graphics, everything moves as you would expect. However, when you apply those same animations with the same number of frames to the new graphics, it makes it look wonky. I know in this type of remake they almost always do a one to one with the animation (see the HD remake of  Street Fighter II: Turbo), but it looks wrong with high res graphics.

"Original Graphics"

One of the coolest features is the ability to switch between the original and new graphics simply by hitting the back button. Sometimes, I ended up doing this to read the text when it was one of those hard to read scenes I mentioned above. It also allows you, if you are so inclined, to play through the game both ways. Pretty convenient considering there are two endings.

All in all, “The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition” is a great adventure game by any standard. I would recommend it to those who loved the original or if you are new to the franchise. It is even a good jumping on point if you are new to the genre.

I just hope that this leads to more Special Editions and re-releases of these great classics.

Join us LIVE, tonight at 8pm Pacific for a very special episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”.

We will be joined by our good friends Ben Paddon of Jump Leads and Wesley Johnson of InsulinFunk.net. We will be discussing what we’ve been playing, the gaming news of the week, and most of all the return of the adventure game.

Please join us in the live Ustream feed and join in on the conversation via the chat window. We will also be taking any questions you may have for Ben and Wesley.  See you there!

Live TV : Ustream

"Here There Be Monkeys"

Can I first start by saying, seeing the Lucasarts logo at the front of an adventure game again really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling? Because it did.

Now it is time to come clean. While I love Lucasarts’ classic adventure games, pirates, and comedies, I have never actually played a Monkey Island game. This gave me a unique perspective going in to the new “Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal”, the first in a new episodic series from Telltale games.

In a way I’m glad, as the game did not have to live up to some high bar it’s predecessors have set for many gamers. I have played several of the Telltale adventure games already, so there is the second bar, another high one, that I’m sure many will be judging this game by.

You will be happy to note that the game lives up to the hype you may have built up for yourself. In that I mean, it is a clever point and click adventure game that is laugh-out-loud funny.

The basic plot is that LeChuck is at it again, this time trying to use some crazy monkey based voodoo to bind the seven seas to his will. You, once again taking on the roll of Guybrush Threepwood, are attempting to stop LeChuck and save your wife Elaine when things go horribly wrong.

This kicks off the start of what is to be a larger story that spans all five episodes of this new series. After this initial encounter, Guybrush is stranded on the mysterious island of Flatsom. Here all the winds are blowing inward toward the island, making it impossible for ships to leave. His hand has also been cursed, so he’s got that going on too. The story is well presented, the characters are charming, and as mentioned above, it had me laughing hard for most of the game.

The play control is a little different than I was expecting. In most point and click adventure games, you click where you want your character to move and they do it. Here that mechanic only applies if you are clicking on something you want Guybrush to interact with. To walk, you have to use the good old “WASD” or you can hold the left click and drag him around. It is a little strange at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

Being an episodic game, it is fairly short. I was able to get through it in just a few hours. The difficulty curve was a little lower than I was expecting. This is either because they wanted to ease people into this new adventure or that after playing many of the other Telltale games, I have started getting into the mindset of how their puzzles work.

There is a built in hint system, like most of their games, where the character will say things to give you clues as to what to do next. You can adjust this higher if you find yourself getting stuck. The folks at Telltale seem to want you to enjoy the game and not get frustrated and quit like what would often happen in old-school adventure games. I think they have struck a pretty good balance with this one.

There isn’t a lot more I can say without spoiling the plot or the puzzles, so I’m going to cut this review a little short. I would definitely recommend this to fans of adventure games, comedies, or pirates. If you are new to the genre, this game will ease you in and make you smile while it’s at it. If you are veteran, there are some references thrown in just for you.

Personally, I can’t wait for the second episode.

This review is based on the PC version of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal provided to us by Telltale.