The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Back in 1990, before Johnny Depp made pirates cool, Lucasarts developed a point and click adventure that revolutionized the genre. In The Secret of Monkey Island you took control of Guybrush Threepwood, a wannabe pirate who used, gave, pushed, pulled, picked up, walked to, and talked his way to victory over the villainous Ghost Pirate LeChuck. In my youth this was one of my favourite games. I remember my brother, father, and I spending countless hours trying to figure out what to do with that rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle.

Thankfully my childhood memories were not shattered and the recent HD re-release still holds it own as a point and click adventure game full of puzzles, excellent music, and zany humour.  The game requires you to walk around a series of islands, pick up items, and use these items to solve puzzles. It may seem pedestrian or boring compared to Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto but this game represents the pinnacle of its genre, and wouldn't it be nice for children to play something that require more strategy and problem solving than deciding what kind of machine gun would best kill their online foes?

Tale of the Tape

Cost: $10

Length: At least 5 hours

Is it worth it?: A definite yes. If you have never played the game before you will get $2 worth of fun out of the game and if you have played the game before you will love the nostalgia factor: a great touch in the game allows you to switch between the HD graphics and the original MS DOS visuals.