Finally got around to finishing Tales of Monkey Island ep1; was mildly enjoyable like all the Telltale episodic games outside the few Sam & Max eps that were actually great.
I think I've figured out why all these Telltale games are stuck in C+/B- land of amusing but not very enthralling and you kinda get bored at times: It's their adherence to the same non-linear design for all their games. They think non-linear is the future of gaming or something, so every ep they give you 3 quests to do and you can do them in any order, then the plot moves and then usually it's another 3 quests in any order. The problem is that, each quest portion is about 40% of the episode or more and the plot is STUCK at a standstill until you finish all three.
Normally good adventure games work by keeping you on the edge of your seat as the plot continually moves forward as you solve puzzles and progress. But in the telltale games there's a bit of plot and then it just STOPS and you do little mini-episodic quests for hours and then the plot finally starts up again and then you're back to mini-quests and then the plot finishes. It's just not a very satisfying progression. It's STOP-START-STOP-START, vs. awesome adventure games like Beneath a Steel Sky where it's START GO GO GO FINISH.
It's a shame because I think they're good games with good art, fine puzzles, sometimes good writing and good music; it's just they aren't very exciting. If they could just fix the pacing they could make some great adventure games, but as long as they stick to the same old 3 quests non-linear format that's not going to happen. Note I haven't played Wallace yet, so maybe they switch it up there but I'm not counting on it.
