The Biasphere

dandwreviews (gaming profile | personal site)

Joined: Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:43 pm EDT
17 Game Reviews

Written By: Dan McKenney
D&W Reviews Associate Editor

Lair of the Leviathan is the third episode in the five-part Tales of Monkey Island series. We're at the point in time where you have probably already formulated your own opinion on the series, and you’ve either forked over $34.95…or you haven’t. Like I once said in a review of Telltale’s "The Bogey Man", you’re probably reading out of curiosity. But maybe, just maybe, you’re reading because you have been on the fence about Telltale’s take on Monkey Island, and you don’t think it’s too late to jump in.

Hopefully, I can convince you that this chest is full of treasure. And I promise that will be the only pirate joke in this review.

Each episode seems to excel at different essential elements of the game’s design. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal featured many different environments, Siege of Spinner Cay excelled at puzzles and storytelling, and Lair of the Leviathan perfects the most important part of a Telltale game -- the writing. Any Monkey Island veteran will tell you that what sets Guybrush Threepwood’s adventures apart from other series’ is the quality writing and dialogue.

Right from the start, it’s obvious that the writing in Leviathan is above and beyond  Spinner Cay and Screaming Narwhal. Each and every character delivers witty, hilarious lines, from the surfer-dude Moose to the zit-ridden Noogie. Of special note in Leviathan, is the inclusion of Monkey Island star Murray, the evil skull that constantly reminds you that one day, he will rule the world…if he had a body.

It seems like Telltale focused all of their creative energy on perfecting the writing, which is nice. Because of that though, everything else seems to suffer; namely, the environments.  Lair of the Leviathan features a grand total of four rooms. FOUR. I counted! And most of the duration your time will be spent in just one or two of them! It’s disappointing that after the wide variety of locales in the previous episodes, we get two rooms in the manatee, and two ocean rooms.

On top of that, the puzzles seemingly suffer due to the lack of available areas. Because most of the puzzles take place in only a couple rooms, they’re incredibly easy to figure out. It’s not that the puzzles aren’t difficult, but more upon the fact that you can see almost everything at once in a small area, allowing the player to piece together the solution rather quickly.

Despite the environmental problems, Lair of the Leviathan features some new and creative sequences. For example, the opening puzzle involves doing a little detective work and interpretation of clues. Later on, the game introduces Pirate Faces – fights between pirates reminiscent of Insult Swordfighting. These sequences make the episode memorable, and help it to stand out when grouped with the entire season.

Telltale has produced another quality episode in the Tales of Monkey Island series. While Guybrush’s adventure with the manatees takes place in a part of the Caribbean that may seem too small, the exceptional writing and dialogue will keep you entertained from start to finish. If you haven’t hopped on board yet, now is definitely the time to do so.

9 out of 10

New Comment:

You must be logged in to comment!

Interact:

Was this review well written?

Please login or sign up to have full access to these features.