
STORY / GAMEPLAY
The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series. The action begins on the Caribbean island of Melee, where a young guy named Guybrush Threepwood wants to be a pirate. He seeks out the Pirate Leaders, who set him three challenges to prove himself a pirate: defeat Carla the island's sword-master in insult sword-fighting, steal a statue from the Governor's mansion, and find buried treasure. You face the anger of the dreadful ghost pirate named LeChuck who's deeply in love with Elaine Marley, the beautiful governor of Melee Island that you fall in love too! LeChuck kidnaps Elaine and you owe to save here from his evil plans. The Secret of Monkey Island is an adventure game that utilizes the command verb-based SCUMM interface (the engine developed by at Lucasfilm Games used by all other successful games of the same genre) first introduced in Maniac Mansion: you construct commands for Guybrush by clicking on the appropriate verb, and then clicking on the inventory item or an object in the room you want to interact with.
Monkey Island is one of the finest point-n-click graphic adventures of all time surpassed only by its sequel: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's revenge.
GRAPHICS / SOUND
Graphics are fine, and it is obvious that a great deal of care and attention has been taken over them. The Atari ST version is no exception here, but there several glitches here due to the ST's hardware limitations, mainly on chunky character animations and slow screen scrolling. Note that, the ST version offers up to 16 colors on screen and is identical to the PC version running with EGA graphics adapters in terms of visuals quality, while the Amiga, Macintosh and PC (in VGA mode) versions offer a much faster action and more colors during gameplay.
The low quality sound effects is probably on the negative side for the ST version, but the music themes are well matching to the game's atmosphere.