I think most of us are aware of this game's status and agree that this game needs no review, but I need something to do.
I've already gone through Lucasarts' very early days and how they made a name for themselves as adventure giants. With the groundbreaking technology of Maniac Mansion, the hilarity (but just a tad worse than other Lucas games) of Zak Mcracken, one of the better movie games that is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the pure originality of Loom. These all shaped Lucasarts into what it is today, but I think we can all agree that The Secret of Monkey Island is the father of Lucasarts. This game is probably the most popular adventure game ever, and many call it the best adventure ever. Monkey Island I has won so many awards over the years as well.
I'm sure you all know how this review will turn out, but nevertheless...

Here's my review of The Secret of Monkey Island.







Story: In my Loom review, I said that for your game to have a good story, it must match the mood and feel of the game. There are three big main catagorys for story to me: Humor, originatlity, and fantasy/fairytale. MI blended all these things together, and it came out as great as a rich and smooth orange smoothy.
Our tale follows Guybrush Threepwood, a strapping young lad who wants to be a pirate. But all the real pirates on Melee Island never take him seriously. They say that Guybrush should go find the Pirate Leaders in the local bar. Guybrush is told by the Pirate Leaders that he must go through three trials to become a pirate. He must master sword fighting, find the tresure of the Island, and steal a priceless artifact from the Govonor of Melee. But when Guybrush has to steal the artifact from Govonor Elaine Marley, he instantly falls in love with her. However, he hears about the legend of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, who hides out on the fabled Monkey Island and one day come back to Melee Island for Elaine. Now, its up to Guybrush to stop LeChuck by sailing to Monkey Island and prove that he is a fearsome pirate.
Everything about this story is perfect. The humor, the unforgettable characters, the settings, the piratey mood...
Story gets a 10/10


Graphics: I belive this was the first game with all VGA graphics versions. No Lucasarts fan had ever seen VGA in action, and when they did, they were in awe. Everything is nicely detailed and the backrounds looked great. I think the graphics are the reason for the whole mood. Once you see that open sea as your standing there at the docks with that full moon, the mood just jumps out at you. MI also has the ocasinall animated sequence that are very nicely done.
Graphics get a 9/10



Sound/Music: (Note: I'm reviewing the CD version) The musical pieces are great, I have to give it all up since this is the game that introduced me to the Monkey Island intro music. That is one of my favorite musical pieces and quite possibly the best piece in any game. Of course all the other music in the game is good too. The sound is the best detailed in any game I've played. Once again about the mood of the game. The mood lights up when you hear the swords clack, the owls hooting, the segalls chirping, and the waves splashing, you just get sucked in.
sound/music gets a 9/10


Gameplay: These controls are SCUMM at it's finest. Finally, they got rid of all the useless actions and only had nine, and you only had to click once on everything. If the late 80s adventure games were your first, you couldn't get enough of MI's control.
The puzzles are humorous, logical, and you never get tired of them. You never get frusterated from them because this game is so funny, and so fun to play. Especially the sword fights and the govonor's mansion break in
SMI also featured something a lot of people had never seen before: the ability to talk to the characters and interact with them. This was awesome. You could actually choose what you wanted Guybrush to say instead of him just talking.I know we see a lot of that, but this was the first to actually do that.
Gameplay gets a 10/10


I got this game at the tender age of six and beat the game when I was eight. For those two years, I ate slept, and breathed MI. It's all I would talk about. Can you blame me? Hell no!
This is my favorite game of all time, and possibly the best game of all time. I belive this with all my heart. There isn't or ever will be a game that will ever make me feel the way Monkey Island 1 did. I remember dreaming about puzzle solutions to this game that never worked and broke a $4,000 PC playing it. Heh. Oh well, those two years were all worth it. Thanks for the memories, Ron!
I give The Secret of Monkey Island a
10/10

[Beyond Delphine]

Your'e absolutely right.
Everyone knows that. 10/10 definitely. Lets use this as an excuse to go the other way. Anyone think of anything WRONG with MI, MI2 or CMI?

Come on... THINK, BRAIN, THINK!

[The Seed]

Originally Posted by Beyond Delphine

Your'e absolutely right.
Everyone knows that. 10/10 definitely. Lets use this as an excuse to go the other way. Anyone think of anything WRONG with MI, MI2 or CMI?

Ah jeez, it's not going to turn into another one of those discussions, is it?

[Beyond Delphine]

... no...yes.


...no?

[LeChimp]

Originally Posted by Beyond Delphine

Your'e absolutely right.
Everyone knows that. 10/10 definitely. Lets use this as an excuse to go the other way. Anyone think of anything WRONG with MI, MI2 or CMI?

Come on... THINK, BRAIN, THINK!

Some people don't like insult swordfighting...I guess.

[eriq]

I would give it a 10!

A masterpiece of storytelling and art. And the music! Oh please, someone, pick me up off the floor!

Another LucasArt's game with such atmosphere!

[ConcreteRancor]

Originally Posted by Beyond Delphine

Your'e absolutely right.
Everyone knows that. 10/10 definitely. Lets use this as an excuse to go the other way. Anyone think of anything WRONG with MI, MI2 or CMI?

Come on... THINK, BRAIN, THINK!

The obvious answers we've all heard before. MI2's ending was horrible. Nothing will convince me otherwise.

That aside... can't really think of too much. I just really wish that LEC had made a talkie version of MI and MI2 with Dominic Armato. Jokes are so much better when they're spoken.

[Jake]

I think the CD sound, VGA graphics, reduction of the SCUMM verbs to the later-standardized nine, and use of a graphical inventory were all slowly added onto subsequent versions of the game. The initial release of MI1 was EGA with text based inventory more akin to Maniac Mansion... Other than that you're totally right and I agree with you. Also I just reminded myself of a very bad ripoff of ATMachine

[Toefur]

Definately the greatest game ever.

I first played MI in EGA, back in 1991, or 1992. We only had an EGA monitor then, though I don't recall the graphics being all that different. They probably were, though. I haven't played that version since 95, or 96... whenever it was CoMI came out (I bought the Monkey Pack that had 1, 2 and a demo of 3).

[QUOTE=ConcreteRancor]The obvious answers we've all heard before. MI2's ending was horrible. Nothing will convince me otherwise. [QUOTE]

I disagree. I think it was CMI's beggining that was to blame. If you watched MI2 after the credits, Elaine says "I hope LeChuck hasn't casted some SPELL on Guybrush".

[Naveed]

.....

Wanna be more specific than

[ConcreteRancor]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

I disagree. I think it was CMI's beggining that was to blame. If you watched MI2 after the credits, Elaine says "I hope LeChuck hasn't casted some SPELL on Guybrush".

But there wasn't any guarantee after MI2 that an MI3 would happen. Would you have been satisfied with that ending if the series had ended at MI2? I think CMI actually fixed the problem as well as it could, by explaining what happened to Guybrush in MI2 in a little more detail at the end of the game.

Another gripe I had about MI2 was that although the library idea was original, it took the librarian way too much time to go get the books. If you wanted to see all the jokes by reading all the books, you'd have to spend HOURS just standing there and talking to the librarian. I tried, but after about 30 minutes of that, I'd only gone through three of the drawers, and was like, "Forget it." I wish you could just ask her for a book, and then she'd just conveniently have it under the desk. Guybrush could even have commented on it:

"You have all those books under your desk? How is that possible?"
"L-space, honey."

[RemiO]

You could just press the Escape key to bypass the animation.

Originally Posted by ConcreteRancor

But there wasn't any guarantee after MI2 that an MI3 would happen. Would you have been satisfied with that ending if the series had ended at MI2? I think CMI actually fixed the problem as well as it could, by explaining what happened to Guybrush in MI2 in a little more detail at the end of the game.

That's true.

[Goldenboy]

I didn't think the end to the 2nd game was confusing atall. I played the games about 1-2 years before CMI came out and assumed there wasn't going to be a sequel. When I started up the 3rd one, I realised that Ron Gilbert was gone, and the production team had simply ignored the last 15 minutes of LeChuck's Revenge.

[ConcreteRancor]

Originally Posted by Goldenboy

I didn't think the end to the 2nd game was confusing atall. I played the games about 1-2 years before CMI came out and assumed there wasn't going to be a sequel. When I started up the 3rd one, I realised that Ron Gilbert was gone, and the production team had simply ignored the last 15 minutes of LeChuck's Revenge.

They didn't ignore it completely. Why do you think Guybrush goes BACK to the Carnival of the Damned at the end of the game? That whole sequence basically tried to explain how Guybrush got out of the Carnival the first time, kind of by implying that he "sobered up," i.e. the spell wore off. But that took a while, which is why he needed to do the sno-cone thing when the situation was urgent. Why Guybrush escaped the first time on a bumper car, who knows, but I think it's funnier if that's left to the imagination.

Maybe I'm looking too far into this, but I think the connection really does work.

[Jake]

This discussion needs to not happen anymore. We all know both sides of the MI2 ending debate.

[DavidW]

I just really wish that LEC had made a talkie version of MI and MI2 with Dominic Armato. Jokes are so much better when they're spoken.

I actually disagree. While the voices on future MI's were great, I really think the first two were funnier because of the text-only conversations. You could imagine him saying the lines EXACTLY how you'd want him to, in the funniest way possible. While the voices were great in CMI & EMI, sometimes I'd click a line of dialogue and it just wouldn't come out nearly as funny as it sounded in my head, or he'd say something in the wrong tone of voice.

So while I'm glad they put the voice acting in CMI & EMI, I'm not too bothered that they just left the first two alone.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by ConcreteRancor

The obvious answers we've all heard before. MI2's ending was horrible. Nothing will convince me otherwise.

That aside... can't really think of too much. I just really wish that LEC had made a talkie version of MI and MI2 with Dominic Armato. Jokes are so much better when they're spoken.

Only the guy makes Guybrush sound like a wimp and, much worse, like a smart ass (and he also looks like one, which is the main reason why CMI is not in my top 10). I've always had the feeling while playing the two first opus that guybrush was the only one in this crazy universe trying to stay sane and serious, which of course made him sound funnier and crazier than all the others. It didn't feel to me like he was a joker...