Recent reviews by DaMachk

Return to Monkey island... what I wanted it to be, what it could be, and what it is...

Let's start with the art. ... Well it's not pretty... But it's still nicer to look at than Tales of MI or Escape from MI xD!
Then again art was never the point.
i've decided to go on hard mode, because i wanted to see how frustrating it will get getting stuck on puzzles.
Except... Well the puzzles weren't really that hard... not as hard as the old games. They were somewhat entertaining, but lacking. "Too easy" i thought. I also thought "Have i been playing the other MI titles too much and seem to have gotten too into the groove of them? I guess so..."
The hintbook is waaaay too tempting to use. I don't like it! (i still used it, lol).

The game felt kinda short. About 8 hrs... and i really went to check for funny lines or repetitions in the pre-story.
And the ending... Well d#m#it, i felt disappointed! Swindled! BETRAYED even! But then again... It was so Monkey Island that it fit darn too well...
I really missed some good "battles" like insult sword fighting... or a Banjo duel... Or some other challenges that would take some time to build up the "skills" to become the "fearsome" mighty pirate and overcome adversity like in any good adventure game. But that never came...

but... but...
Did i enjoy the game?
YES! Yes, i DID!
From the title scene onwards there was a nostalgic throwback moment, i enjoyed the scene, the colors, the music! My heart danced with the theme song and anticipation what lies ahead.
The "Boybrush" intro into it all took me back into the ending of MI2... The references of old characters, some meta-jokes and homages to old items made me chuckle every time.
I played it, i got immersed in it, got time to slip past me (and my bed time) and it left me yearning for more.
Now in my book... that's a thumbs-up. Can't say it's the same for everyone.

But now to the ideas that i found about this game...
It's a homage, a tribute, a (not good) wrap-up that leaves a lot open to the imagination of the player and for the player to connect the dots or assume what actually happened.
I learned in the past that Monkey Island has always been a kind of parallel to being a game-developer, or a developer in general. And it reflected the age of the devs and story-tellers quite well. Even in this game.

The whole point of the game is pretty similar to what i find the point of life... "it's not what's at the end of it, it's about the journey" and that has been true for all of MI games so far i find.
As a player playing the old monkey islands, spending hours and days pondering over the puzzle solutions the frustrations behind them and not knowing how to finally slide forward in the story and gameplay... and finding that "torture" enjoyable... it seemed on-par for a young player with little worries in life and abundant of time on one's hands easy to grin at a corny joke...
And with Return... you get a feeling of looking into the past, some jokes worth making, some worth forgetting, some people left behind, some people staying to keep enrichening your lif... erm gameplay... but "damn man, you're old(er) now... Things have changed a lot, you might not agree with the changes, but here they are. People are more competitive, in your eyes quirky and weird... On top of that... Free time is sacred, you probably don't want to spend too much of it solving silly puzzles, measuring against your arch nemesis... You have better things to do" seems like what the whole lack of hard puzzles, long gameplay and in a way, the ending, wanted us to take along as a message. And i don't resent it, as it does so with the playful style of a Monkey Island game.

TL;DR: I missed some harder puzzles, more game content and a more meaningful ending, but i had fun with what i got!

I find this to be the worst of the Borderlands titles.
The Australian VAs are great, the jokes are still funny to me.
But the gameplay was horribly optimized the time i got the game... So bad i became unplayable for me, While BL2 worked without a hitch, this title kept dropping down to 10 frames per second for me.

Now... The story is still interesting, the new characters rock!
The different skills are also something worth exploring.
But somehow, it didn't pull me into the gameplay as nearly as the other titles.
Somewhere between "Meh" and "OK" based on my experience.