How appropriate, you fight like a cow!

So tonight me and Cat finished playing Monkey Island - Special Edition.

Point and Click adventures are one of the few games that Cat enjoys playing with me, so when Monkey Island appeared in the xbox live arcade I couldn't resist buying it again for us to play. We weren't dissapointed as it's a very good remake. The graphical style works well and is a good bridge into the style used for the 3rd game. It was very clever of them to include the ability to switch back and forth between the original graphics and the new, both for nostalgia's sake and the fact that on some of the screens it's easier to spot items in the old graphics (how did that happen developers?).

As far as gameplay is concerned there's not much to complain about, Monkey Island was always one of the better designed point and click games of the 90s, so there's very few frustrating puzzles and only one part in the game where you can die (and frankly if you do die at that point you deserve it, in fact you actually get an achievement!). There's a couple of bits later on in the game that frustrated us, but luckily the remake contains a very handy hint guide. Try not to rely on the guide too much though, you'll ruin the fun of suddenly getting that light bulb moment!

If you've played it before... well actually I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have someone to it to share it with. It really is exactly the same game. Monkey Island veterans wont find any new challenges, and you'll get diminishing returns on the laughs. Pair that with the fact that we managed to finish it in less than 6 and a half hours with Cat doing the vast majority of the puzzle solving for the first time, and you don't get that much for you moneys. We also came across a couple of weird bugs where dialogue seemed to be left out, and we solved a puzzle without really knowing how it worked or what happened.

Playing it with someone new to the game is where the fun's at, especially if you're patient and let them solve the puzzles. Overall I really enjoyed it and really hope they do a special edition of the sequel as I never managed to finish that when I was younger!