Developed by: Telltale games
ESRB Rating: pending
Available on: PC, Wii
Single Player
pros: funny adventure, likable characters
cons: short game play, crude humor System Requirements:
Operating system: Windows XP / Vista
Processor: 2.0 GHz + (3 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent rec.)
Memory: 512MB (1GB rec.)
Sound: DirectX 8.1 sound device
Video: 64MB DirectX 8.1-compliant video card (128MB rec.)
DirectX®: Version 9.0c or better Thanks to Tell Tale Games for giving us this game to review! Tales of Monkey Island: The Trial and Execution Of Guybrush Threepwood is the fourth installment of the five chapter series. It features the same characters and witty humor as all of the Monkey Island games before it. It takes place at Flopsom Island where this series began. The price tag for the complete series is a reasonable $35. As of this review, only the first four chapters are available, with the last chapter being released next month. I highly recommend playing the third chapter in this series before playing this game since the story builds from chapter three, Lair of the Leviathan. This game picks up with Guybrush being hauled back to Flopsum Island by Morgan LaLfay who betrayed him for money. When they arrive at flopsum Island, the village takes Guybrush away from the Marquee DeSinge and puts him on trial for various lawsuits filed as a result of the bar brawl he started in the first chapter.
Guybrush must proove his innocence from selling a counterfit toy ninja doll, a badly scarred leg from spilling nachos on it, a paralyzed kitty cat, and breaking an X marks the spot statue. The prosecutor is Stan a salesman/lawyer from the previous Monkey Island games. After Guybrush is proven innocent he must feed La Sponge Grande a six course meal to make it big and to be able to cure the island of the pox once and for all. Many of the materials needed are in the jungle maze; at least you have a map to guide you. This is an adventure style game where you have to examine your surroundings, grab and manipulate objects, talk to people, and solve some tricky puzzles. To move around you use your standard WASD keys and the mouse is used for everything else. The map layout is very similar to the fist chapter but the jungle maze has changed a bit. This game\'s colorful world and cartoon like feel is very charming and gets my kids attention if they catch me playing it. Stan has a very unique plaid jacket that moves as you move the mouse. It’s a neat effect. There\'s a lot of detail and you can usually spot which objects you can take or manipulate in some fashion. The user interface is pretty easy to navigate and the inventory management system is easy to use. The funny face generator is pretty easy and fun to use. Some of the puzzles are easy to solve and there are some tricky ones too. Fortunately there are walkthroughs available online that got me out of a couple of stumpers. I was glad that I didn’t need a walkthrough until after Guybrush was proven innocent. This chapter has a considerable amount of game play in it as some of the previous installments were rather short. The voice acting is top notch and the background music is fitting too. The sound effects are pretty good as well. Overall though this game is well polished and will not disappoint. From an appropriateness standpoint there is some violence but Guybrush tries to avoid it as much as possible. I don’t want to spoil the game but there are some death scenes in this chapter. For adventure gamers that love funny adventure games be sure to check out this series. It looks pretty promising and you\'ll get a few laughs for sure. The humor may be a bit off key at times, so please take that into consideration. This adventure is available on the PC and Nintendo Wii.

Game Play: 16/20
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Stability: 5/5
Controls/Interface: 4/5 Game Play Score: 41/50
Appropriateness Score: 39.5/50 -5 non deadly violence
-3 voodoo references
-2.5 gross humor