Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay Wii Review

Guybrush Threepwood has to be one of the most unfortunate names for a game character lead. If the Mighty Pirate happened to be a real person, his name would probably result in many taunts and name calling, although as a games character, Threepwood is widely regarded as one of the best there is.

Prior to this new series, the character had starred in four Monkey Island games, dating back as far as 1990 in The Secret of Monkey Island, and last appearing in 2001’s Escape from Monkey Island. The series has many fans whom have enjoyed the games for their clever puzzles, as well as their amusing humour.

Chapter 2, The Siege of Spinner Cay, continues Threepwood’s new series, beginning at the very moment where the first chapter came to a close, with an unknown female pirate holding a sword at his throat. We come to learn that said pirate is Morgan LeFlay, and soon enough Threepwood’s pox-infected hand is lopped off, leaving him with a very pirate-like hook for a substitute. Again, the writing and the characters are excellent, and you may even see a different side to one of the series’ recurring villains, as the Mighty Pirate searches for La Esponja Grande, in a bid to get rid of the nasty pox that has infected many pirates, including himself.

Whilst some of the humour feels a little flat, most of it is highly amusing and delivered brilliantly by a very strong cast of voice actors, some of which are long time performers of certain characters in the series.

Being on the Wii, the controls are great, using the nunchuck to roam around and the pointer of the Wii remote to talk to people and to investigate your surroundings. You’ll be doing a lot of investigation in order to make sense of things, therefore, despite being a mighty pirate, puzzle solving makes up the bulk of the game.

The puzzles are generally well designed, and some are very clever, so much so that you’ll feel very clever yourself when you work them out, though less so if you’re just trying anything and everything to overcome a puzzle that doesn’t seem to have a logical solution. In truth, there’s nothing actually that vague, it just requires you to use some intellect at times and the combining of items at others, oh and you have the hints system to lend you a helping hand, as well.

In its short run, The Siege of Spinner Cay takes place over few environments, some of which (namely the small islands) feel as if they have been copied and pasted (at least none return from the original), though Jerkbait Islands does have a few interesting environments to plunder of their artefacts and other similarly helpful objects.

Like the original, The Siege of Spinner Cay is a wonderfully bright and cheerful game, although this time around the frame-rate is a fair bit smoother, it may not be perfect but it’s much more stable than The Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Lets hope this will continue to improve when the three remaining games are released on WiiWare.

Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay is another strong episode in the five part series. The quality of the writing and its use of wit is superb, and there’s a number of well thought out puzzles to test your grey matter, as well. I’m looking most forward to the next chapter in the series and to the continuing adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate.