Special Review : Secret of Monkey Island

Forgoing the history lesson on an almost-20-year-old game, The Secret of Monkey Island is a point-and-click adventure in which you assume the role of a wannabe pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. In order to become a pirate, Threepwood must prove himself as a swordsman, a treasure hunter, and a thief, which means you must prove that you can both solve puzzles and move a cursor around a screen--often simultaneously. You can expect to hit a few brick walls when you encounter some of the more baffling puzzles, but the all-new hints system does a great job of pointing you in the right direction if you choose to use it, and the writing is entertaining enough to keep you interested during extended periods of head-scratching if you don't. An option to play the game in its original form or with greatly enhanced audio and visuals is the foamy head on this Special Edition pint of Grog, and you won't want to stop drinking until you can see the bottom of your tankard.

The Secret of Monkey Island is easy to pick up, regardless of whether or not you've played this kind of adventure game before. You use the mouse to move a cursor around the screen, and when you're pointing at something you want to interact with or a location you want to move to, you click the left mouse button. Other actions, such as "speak to," "pull," "use," and "give," are assigned to onscreen buttons that, depending on whether or not you're playing with the updated visuals, either appear at the bottom of the screen at all times or in a pop-up window. Actions are also mapped to individual keys if you prefer to play that way, and both the middle and right mouse buttons serve as shortcuts to commonly used actions. Like actions, items in your inventory also appear onscreen at all times when playing with the original graphics, but they are mapped to a second pop-up window in the new interface. It's great that you can switch between the two modes on the fly because there are pros and cons to both. The Special Edition looks much better and is the only way to play if you want to hear, as well as read, what characters are saying, whereas the original game's interface is a little easier to use.



Monkey Island isn't a game that wastes any time throwing seemingly useless items and satisfying puzzles at you. Shortly after starting out on Melee Island, you visit a bar where pirate leaders drunk on Grog (a drink so acidic that you have to consume it before it eats through the tankard) give you three challenges to complete; a surly chef refuses you entry to his kitchen; and a hungry seagull makes it difficult for you to pick up what may or may not be a red herring. Before you know it, you're walking around the island with all manner of items stuffed into Threepwood's physics-defying pockets, and you'll spend the majority of your time figuring out how to combine or use those items. Using the "look at" option on an item will afford you an amusing description that often doubles as a clue to its intended purpose. You might still end up solving some puzzles through trial and error, but you'll also kick yourself for not spotting the clues to the puzzle's solution before resorting to that time-tested technique.

When you're not attempting to combine a staple remover with a banana or wondering how to get past a group of deadly piranha poodles, much of your time is spent navigating dialogue trees with characters that include belligerent buccaneers, cholesterol-conscious cannibals, and a used boat salesman named Stan. Some of the conversations are laugh-out-loud funny, and while the actors' delivery isn't always up to the standard of the writing, the voice work is such a great addition to the game that it's difficult to go back to the original edition. Lengthy conversations with the aforementioned salesman can be a little irritating when you have to listen to--as well as read--his persistent patter, but he's still an amusing and memorable character in a cast composed almost entirely of amusing and memorable characters.


In The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, meeting and interacting with these characters is every bit as enjoyable as it was almost 20 years ago. The puzzles, the humor, and the Caribbean-sounding tunes that keep you company as you ponder your next move continue to defy their age, and even the original visuals still have plenty of pixel-perfect charm. The Special Edition update employs a colorful art style that's more reminiscent of the style in The Curse of Monkey Island (the third game in the series) than other games, but it retains the primitive (but pleasing) animation of the first game. Switching between the two available art styles is something that you'll almost certainly do from time to time just because you can, and it's interesting to see how faithfully and brilliantly such locations as the Scumm Bar and the cannibal village have been updated.

It's possible to beat The Secret of Monkey Island in just a couple of hours if you go into the game armed with a complete solution. However, if you take the time to enjoy it and solve the puzzles yourself, it should last you anywhere between five and 10 hours. If you have a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle, two sticks of cinnamon, a length of rope, and 10 dollars in your pocket right now, the best advice we can give you is this: Spend the currency on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and then figure out for yourself what to do with the rest of that stuff.
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REVIEW : Battlefield 1943

The Battlefield series has been delivering great team-based multiplayer combat for many years, and Battlefield 1943 is the latest scion of this venerable franchise. Set in the Pacific theater of WWII, Battlefield 1943 pits the forces of Imperial Japan and the United States against each other in online matches that support up to 24 players. While this downloadable game features a small number of maps and only three soldier classes, it still captures the thrill of the best multiplayer shooters through well-balanced, varied, and exciting gameplay. Though hindered by some technical issues and other sundry oddities, Battlefield 1943 is a great game that provides a lot of bang for your 1200 Microsoft points ($15).

The victory conditions will be familiar to veterans of the Battlefield series. Each team has a reinforcements bar that functions like a team health meter. The more team members die and respawn, the more this bar is depleted. When one team's bar is fully depleted, the game ends; but it's not quite that simple. Each map has five capture points. Holding these capture points will make each kill worth more and help you deplete your enemy's reinforcements bar faster. The action flows between and jumps around these points as teams struggle to take points from the enemy while defending their own. Players can respawn near any friendly capture point, meaning forces shift dynamically and the battlefield is constantly in flux. You'll regularly have to reassess and attack or defend as the situation warrants. It's rewarding to devise a tactical maneuver and execute it well (flank the enemy's defenses and clear your enemy out with grenades), and though things often don't go according to plan (your jeep is flung into the air by an explosive antitank round).

Unfortunately, coordinating such maneuvers with your teammates is a tough proposition. Voice chat is not fully functional. Sometimes you will be able to hear your teammates talking on an open channel no matter how far they are from you; other times, you will get only silence. If you join a squad (assigned randomly), you share a squad-only chat channel, but this channel is equally unreliable. The only people you can actually invite into your squad are players on your friends list. Xbox 360 players can join an Xbox Live party and chat without issues, but PlayStation 3 players have no such luck. These issues make advanced strategies difficult to coordinate, but after a few rounds, every player will have an idea of how to help the team out. And despite the chat issues, being in a squad is still tactically relevant, because you can spawn wherever your squadmates are (even in a moving vehicle, if there's a free seat). You can also tag a capture point to indicate where your teammates should rally, so even without open communication lines, you can still coordinate your efforts.

It's important to be mindful of the battlefield situation when you respawn because there are three different classes of soldier from which to choose. Each class has a unique weapons loadout that gives it certain strengths and weaknesses. The Infantry class carries a machine gun that is deadly in close quarters and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher that is great against enemy vehicles or structures. The Infantry soldier's repair ability makes him a good vehicle escort, but he is vulnerable if caught out in the open. The Rifleman class is the best antipersonnel unit and is deadly at all midrange distances. This soldier's grenades are good for clearing out trenches, but they aren't very effective against tanks. The Scout, armed with a scoped rifle, is the long-range specialist. His remote-detonated explosives can protect his back or booby-trap a road, but if either of the other classes gets close, the Scout is in trouble. Of course, there's always a trusty one-hit-kill melee weapon on hand, be it the wrench, the bayonet, or the sword. Each class can be equally satisfying and frustrating to play, depending on the situation, and players must spawn carefully and play to strengths of their class in order to be effective.

A good soldier doesn't just use the weapons he carries with him effectively, he takes advantage of everything at his disposal. Vehicles play a huge tactical role in Battlefield 1943, and they are fun to boot. On two of the three maps, all players initially spawn on aircraft carriers and must assault the island to gain capture points. Transport ships are a good way to get to solid ground, but savvy players can employ them later in the game to flank enemy positions. Jeeps are vulnerable to any explosives, but their speed can be crucial in both offensive and defensive situations. Tanks are great at repelling any vehicle-based assault and can be deadly to infantry, but the limited splash damage from their main cannon and lack of maneuverability paint a pretty big target on their sides. Fighter planes, by far the trickiest vehicle to control, can make very effective bombing and strafing runs when piloted by players who know how to set up an attack vector and have the hang of the touchy pitch and yaw controls. Lesser pilots will likely crash or be shot down, while others may go on paratrooper runs and drop in behind enemy lines. Vehicles are found at specific places on each map, and though they often end up destroyed, they respawn frequently enough that you'll never be able to omit them from your battle plans. In addition to their strategic importance, they really liven up the battlefield. You'll cheer when you see an enemy fighter crash into the trees after a daringly low flyover just as you'll curse when you see a tank come up the hillside as you try to defend a point.



There are also fixed gun positions around each of the three maps that can be very powerful, though using them leaves you vulnerable to sniper fire. Antiaircraft guns can bring down pesky planes and worry certain ground targets, while mounted machine guns will cut down any infantry unlucky enough to cross their path. There's also one particular bunker on each map where you can summon an air raid. You'll then control a three-plane bomber wing and get to drop a seriously explosive payload on one area of the map, provided you can steer the not-so-maneuverable wing and aren't shot down by AA fire. The high-altitude viewpoint is a nice change of pace, and watching your bombs explode is a real thrill--so much so that some players make a habit of camping near the air raid so they can hop in every time it becomes available.


The air raid will often take out entire villages, leaving a flaming pile of rubble where protective houses used to stand. Throughout the course of the battle, structures get destroyed, trees are leveled, and even the roads become pocked with craters where the bombs have fallen. This destructibility is not only visually impressive, but it also has strategic ramifications. Felled trees can't obstruct a sniper's sight line, blasted walls offer poor cover, and you can't drive over a bridge that has been blown up. Crashing through trees in your tank en route to capture a point is morbidly satisfying, but it also paves the way for a speedy jeep counterassault. The battlefield reflects the ravages of your conflict and becomes all the more dangerous with each passing moment.

The three maps are well designed and offer a number of ways to attack or defend a given position. A fourth map will be unlocked for each console when players of that console's version reach 43 million total kills, delivering a new plane-heavy mode called Air Superiority. In addition to the voice chat problems, there are still some lingering issues from the game's problematic launch, such as team-balancing problems on the PS3 and occasional graphical oddities on the Xbox 360. Despite these issues and regardless of the promise of future content, this is still a great game. The balanced classes, diverse vehicles, and dynamic maps provide the kind of variety and replayability that is the hallmark of the most engaging online shooters, making Battlefield 1943 well worth the $15 asking price.
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NEWS Dragon Age: Origins Updated Impressions - Consequences and Consoles

For a lot of games these days, trying to make sense of the name's subtitle is nearly as big of a challenge as actually playing the thing. At first glance, Dragon Age: Origins might appear to have one of those cryptic subtitles, but the concept of "origins" actually plays a very big role in the game. Whether it's your protagonist or your party members, a character's history will significantly alter the adventure that plays out before you. That was the subject of a recent demo for this high-fantasy role-playing game as led by developer BioWare.

The demo's organization gave us a clear look at the differences that might arise between two typical parties. BioWare had a pair of monitors set up side by side, with what we'll refer to as Party A on the left and Party B on the right. Party A was led by a male human noble character, while the other was led by a female mage. Aside from the party member differences, the two systems were perfectly synched up, both picking up at a very specific point in the game. In this case, the two parties were attempting to cross a bridge to get to the Mage Tower, where they were seeking to recruit the help of friendly spellcasters to fight the scourge of the Darkspawn--the story's primary antagonist.

The trouble is that a guard was standing in the way preventing the two groups from crossing. This gave BioWare the chance to show us a couple of different negotiating strategies you might have depending on what type of party members you keep at your side. More specifically, how some of your party members' short-term and long-term histories can impact those strategies. Party B had a large, brutish fellow named Sten. It turns out that Sten stole himself some cookies from an overweight child in the last town the party had visited. It also turns out that this guard loves cookies, so they were able to pass before Sten had to get violent. Party A had a seductive female mage named Morrigan who was able to earn the guard's favor by, well, leveraging her sexuality in a way Sten was ill equipped to do.

Once in the tower, the pair of teams ran into another roadblock in the form of a mage named Wynne. She was something of a blast from the past to one of the parties and a complete stranger to the other. Because Wynne and Morrigan were mages, they were already well acquainted. However, the other party had no mages; thus, no one recognized this woman. Wynne's past with Morrigan was quite a rocky one, with tensions between the two quickly rising to the surface. Those tensions soon erupted as Morrigan's party and Wynne's group of mages got into a fight that left the poor old woman dead in her tracks.


What was the other option in this situation? About as stark of a contrast as you could expect. Party B didn't have anyone in its crew who had a history with Wynne, and after a bit of back and forth about the current state of the Mage Tower, which was being overrun by monsters, Party B decides to allow Wynne to join. Wynne winds up being one of the most powerful healers you could have possibly recruited into your ranks, which was clearly evident in the next boss battle. Party B was able to attack the beast head-on and let Wynne heal them from a distance, while Party A--the team that had Wynne killed--had to go at it with more of a cautious approach, having no skilled healers in its ranks. Yes, some of the consequences of having certain party members along with you can be as lighthearted as a joke about cookies or as powerful as being able to alter your entire boss-fighting strategy.

With this PC demo completed, BioWare gave us the chance to spend a little time with the console version of the game running on the Xbox 360. Anyone who's played BioWare's last console effort, Mass Effect, should feel pretty familiar with the way BioWare's transitioned Dragon Age's controls from mouse and keyboard to standard controller. Specifically, that means you'll be pulling up a radial menu during the heat of battle that allows you time to examine your spells, equipment, and abilities while leaving the action paused. The targeting system was rather finicky, but BioWare was quick to point out that this was something that's still being heavily tweaked. Altogether, the console version looked solid and only a small notch or two below the PC version in terms of graphical quality.

The console demo was just a brief boss fight, so it didn't give us a chance to really get into the differences between each version of Dragon Age. We should have more of an opportunity to do that in the upcoming months leading up to Dragon Age's October 20 release date.
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Review : Blood Bowl

Have you ever thought that American football could use even more primal energy and a bit of fantasy violence? Have you ever thought, "This sport is fine, but what it really needs is a couple of rat ogres clawing at each other." If so, good news: Blood Bowl is for you. This adaptation of the Warhammer-themed board game pits your team against another and encourages players to digitally pound each other into a pulp (oh, and perhaps even score a few touchdowns as well). It's fun and addictive because the board game is fun and addictive, so expect to spend many an hour glued to your monitor, cheering and cursing. However, an unfriendly interface, problematic AI, and a few other issues tackle Blood Bowl just short of the end zone.

If you've never heard of the Blood Bowl board game, the idea of turn-based football within the Warhammer universe may sound a bit bizarre. Nevertheless, the game is surprisingly compelling--maybe because the raucous violence of Warhammer and the testosterone-fueled swagger of the signature American sport make such compatible bedfellows. In any case, you choose a team from a variety of Warhammer races--dwarf, skaven, wood elf, and so on--and go up against the AI or another player to prove your dominance. If you're an American football fan, you will need to make some mental adjustments before you can wrap your head around the terms and rules. What constitutes a turnover in your head isn't a Blood Bowl turnover (here, it means that your turn is over, not that you have relinquished ball possession); there are no downs, field goals, or two-point conversions; and touchdowns are worth a single point. If you're a newcomer, don't expect the inadequate tutorials to be any help--just play a bunch of matches until you get used to the intricacies of dice rolls, how cheerleaders affect gameplay, and all sorts of other small but important details.

There are a number of ways to play, both online and off, though the classic turn-based rules provide the best experience. The Campaign mode is the most enjoyable of the offline modes: you guide your team through a series of matches and level up your players, which in turn lets you choose special abilities for them. Early play sticks to the essentials. You get limited time to perform your turn, during which you maneuver your players about the field in individual turns of their own. The basic flow is similar to American football and starts with a kickoff, at which point the receiving team attempts to score a touchdown while the defenders try to gain possession, or at least hold the opposition off until the half. Individual players can knock each other down, push each other back on the grid, and cause injuries, all while you try to run and pass the ball down the field.

Even in the early hours of a campaign or a competition, Blood Bowl is exciting. Dice rolls occur almost every time two players interact, making even the smallest acts, like running past a defender or tackling the ball carrier, tense moments. The gong that resonates dramatically when you relinquish your turn during a risky play will start to make your stomach drop, but pulling off a dicey move may cause you to cheer, or at least breathe a sigh of relief. As your characters level up, the tension continues to mount, and players will benefit from their improved skills and attributes. With the right skills, you can pick up a teammate and throw him down the field, strip the ball from the carrier, or receive dodge bonuses. The more elaborate the possibilities become, the more engaging the matches are--and the more obvious the differences between each playable race become. Leveling up players is a slow process, but it provides a distinct sense of progression that adds to the "just-one-more-game" compulsion.

This addictive, nerve-wracking gameplay is what makes the board game such a cult hit and, in turn, what makes matches in this adaptation so much fun. But when you look at Blood Bowl as a video game, it's less impressive. The menus are disorganized and obtuse. Simple actions such as progressing to the next screen, distributing funds, and choosing formations aren't player-friendly, either because it's unclear that clicking a button will pull down a menu, the screen is too cluttered, or because buttons are poorly labeled. The poor tutorial and jumbled interface deliver a poor first impression, and even once you get used to them, they feel like dead weight designed to keep out newcomers. If you're new to Blood Bowl, you'll be able to get past these issues, but it'll take a bit of time to get accustomed

Going online doesn't ease the annoyance--it only exacerbates it. There is a public league and a large number of private leagues to join, but working your way through the unfriendly interface is a chore. Even then, you can't play a friend online in a simple one-off game unless you are a member of the same league and dig into the challenge menu to find him or her. You can use the LAN menu to direct-connect to a buddy via IP address, but not having an easy option for online play outside of leagues is all sorts of silly. LAN play and hotseat play for two players at a single computer are terrific features, but they can't make up for an important online feature gone missing.



The leagues, however, still offer thrilling competitive play. The public league is your best bet for competition, and it uses standard Blood Bowl 5.0 rules. The basic rules remain the same as in the single-player game as you move your way up the ranks, and as you would expect, matches against human players are challenging. You'll face competition from all over the world, and many of your competitors have a firm grasp of the rules, and of the strengths and weaknesses of each race. In the single-player game, the AI is all over the place. Your CPU opponent may clump players together and give your ball carrier a chance to run through an opening unscathed. Other times, dice rolls feel clearly stacked in the AI's favor, as if to make up for its deficiencies. League matches present no such issues, so expect your rival to take advantage of every weakness and every opening. Expect challengers to use a greater variety of formations than the AI, and to deftly position each player on the field. And accordingly, expect anxiety every time a player moves and joy every time a gamble pays off. The risk-to-reward ratio in Blood Bowl is deftly handled and makes online play in particular both demanding and exciting.

If you want to explore the game outside of the classic turn-based play, you can mess around with other customizable rules and options, the most intriguing of which, at least initially, is real-time play. Sadly, what sounds like a great idea is in reality a chaotic, unsatisfying mess. You can set various AI behaviors for your players, but matches feel out of control, and it becomes quickly obvious that attributes that make sense on a turn-by-turn basis don't translate well to a real-time environment. For example, the movement attribute is an important aspect of turn-based play that effects how far a player can travel in a single turn. In real-time play, you'd think this would translate to speed, but there is little difference in speed between players you'd think should be quick and those that shouldn't. The resulting disruptions to race balances, and the overall sense of disorder, keep real-time rules from being anything more than a quick diversion, and you'll probably be done with real-time play after one or two muddled matches.


Blood Bowl's production elements are not technically impressive, which makes the lengthy loading times leading up to every match all but inexplicable. However, the game does offer an authentic Warhammer experience, thanks to colorful representations of the board game miniatures and some cool-looking stadiums. The animations are simple, but some of them are still charming, such as the acrobatics the wood elves pull off when dodging a tackle. You can personalize your team if you want even more authenticity, using various uniform colors and emblems, but the options are limited, and in some cases, they don't look right. Team logos don't fit properly on the orc uniforms, and some races have more creation options (faces, warpaint, beards, etc.) than others, which is disappointing considering the important role customization plays in the board game. The sound design also gets the job done, but with a major drawback: the commentary is awful. The actors' voices are annoying and they deliver the same cringe-worthy quips over and over again. There was a huge opportunity here to explore the violent wit that characterizes the Warhammer brand, but it was left unexplored.

Blood Bowl's drawbacks are such that the board game faithful will grin and bear them simply because the core turn-based strategizing is so good. Each match is a tense, tactical standoff, and the game will keep you up past your bedtime because it's so hard to pull yourself away. However, the aspects that weren't culled from the board game--the interface, the commentary, the bizarre real-time matches--feel messy and improvised. Nevertheless, Blood Bowl is good fun, even if it doesn't deliver on its full potential.
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