Tag: Adventure games »

I wasn’t entirely sold on Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan right away. Those all-important first minutes were mostly a confusing mixture of important story elements that had zero context and coming to grips with the game’s slightly awkward movement controls. But I stuck with it, and I’m glad that I did. Turns out it’s actually a pretty awesome adventure game.

Ku, engineer’s apprentice, troubled kid, and hero in-the-making, is ripped away from his hammering one day when a bunch of really nasty warning sirens start to blare. A key component to his village’s generator, a power source that the entire settlement was built around, has gone missing. Fast forward a bit and he’s the only one who can venture outside the safety of the village walls and attempt to recover or possibly steal a replacement. All of Ku’s controls are gesture-based, with tapping or tapping and holding on the screen for movement, tapping enemies to attack, double-tapping to roll, tapping and holding specific objects to move them around the screen, and swiping in a general direction to fire off some kind of electric jai-alai stun ball. It’s a lot handier than it sounds.

The models and animations are a teensy bit awkward due to their being constructed of a number of assorted hand-drawn elements, but they still look good. And the environments are pretty fantastic on their own. A lot of attention went into Ku’s visuals and it shows. I also thought it was impressive to be playing an iOS adventure game that actually had me caring about the story. I wouldn’t exactly call it riveting or anything, but there’s an interesting plot at work here that actually had me thinking about what might happen next. On top of that it’s actually a pretty fun adventure game

Of course being fun doesn’t mean it’s flawless. I definitely give bitSmith credit for making the controls fairly forgiving, but sometimes they can still be troublesome. Specifically I’m referring to the roll, which has a tendency to either not work when I want it to during combat or to work at exactly the wrong time in the middle of a fight. Another problem I ran into was the environments. They’re most definitely well illustrated but they also have a tendency to be fairly large and spread out, which becomes an issue when there’s no map or even a zoom out option.

Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan isn’t a perfect iOS adventure game, but it’s definitely a good one. I honestly wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who might have enjoyed others in the genre like Horn or even Bastion, so long as they remember that it’s a slightly different beast with a smaller budget (and a massive heart).

Ahoy, ye mateys! Telltale Games' revival of the classic Monkey Island adventure game series, Monkey Island Tales HD, is now available on iPad. Featuring legendary protagonist Guybrush Threepwood, these games continue the kind of offbeat humor that the original games were known for. Developed in conjunction with LucasArts, and designed to stay true to the Monkey Island aesthetic, Telltale's games put the player in control of Guybrush, trying to stop the undead pirate and long-time nemesis LeChuck, as well as trying to cure a voodoo curse he accidentally unleashed upon the Caribbean while trying to stop LeChuck. Whoops.

Now, when I say the series is now available on the iPad, I don't just mean one entry, with more entries to come later; I mean the whole series is now available on iPad! Starting today, parts one through five are all available for purchase on the iPad for $6.99 each. This means that players can check out the series at their own pace, try out the series and quit playing if they get bored, or pick up from a specific episode if they've played other episodes before.

But what about people who haven't played the Monkey Island Tales games at all? Like people who are familiar with the classic games that Tim Schafer had a hand in, but are skeptical about the new series' faithfulness? Or what about the people who need an introduction to the series that's more than just what a short lite version would provide? Well, Telltale Games has decided to give these people a great deal, as episode one is available for free! That's right, the whole first episode is available for free, no gimmicks. This will only be free through July 22nd, before it goes back up to normal price, so act quickly, or else there won't even be a lousy t-shirt to be had!