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Jack Keane: A General Review of the Game, NOT a Gamed Review of the General By: Vivian Tam Jack Keane About two months ago, I picked up my copy of Jack Keane from EB. With shiny package in hand, I drooled as I read the quote on the cover: "...this is Monkey Island done right, at last" - Gameboomers 95%. A point-and-click game inspired by the good ol' LucasArts adventures complete with monkeys and an adventure boy? What's not to love? You begin the game playing as Jack Keane, a 19th century brawny sailor of the high seas, who is tied-up and held captive high up in a clock tower by two debt collectors. This opening is very reminiscent of the final two LucasArts' Monkey Island games, which allows you ample time to figure out the game's point-and-click interface. In dire straits after your escape, you take up a mission for the British Empire who promises you a large money reward. You rendezvous with an aggravating British secret agent, recollect your ship's crew, and head for Tooth Island. The name alone renders some chuckles. It's like a non-menacing piratey name for an island, I suppose. Not really. Once on Tooth Island, the agent soon disappears and your promised reward is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, the island's resident genius, Dr. T, is plotting to destroy the British Empire and more! Thus, your adventure begins as you follow the trail for your reward and become fatefully entangled with the villian's evil plot to take over the world...with some very "toothy" plants. Jack Keane is your typical point-and-click adventure game. The puzzles are fairly easy and logical. They do get a little more wacky and difficult as the game progresses, but that could be partly due to the breakdown in interface consistency and dialogue linearity halfway through the game. Suddenly, objects that would highlight as being usable are not usable. At least, not yet. It's obnoxious when it happens, but easy to get over. Pixel searching for that one crucial object or active spot is minimal. You will get a couple opportunities to choose how you want to complete the quest. Those choose-your-adventure moments are a nice interactive treat. Your inventory is a bar of items at the top of the screen. You will have to combine some inventory items together in order to solve a puzzle. You'll never have too many items at one time so you won't be scrolling through pages of items. The game's developers do a great job of not allowing you to pick up more than what you need and you'll never be punished for doing things out of order. So, if you're used to playing buggy adventure games and have a constant fear of breaking the game, you can relax and trust that you are indeed simply stuck. With the combined inital high seas adventure, monkeys, dashing sailor, and humor, the comparison of this game to Monkey Island is unavoidable. However, Jack Keane, for one, is much less Guybrush Threepwood and more the accidental hero in the movie "The Host." Hmm...not so thrilled suddenly? He's really an apathetic jack-ass completely devoid of the D'Artagnan-esque passion we loved in Guybrush. There are some worthy laugh-out-loud moments in the game's dialogue, such as a parody of the Nigerian money scam and an insult match between Jack and the secret agent, a classic homage to Monkey Island's insult swordfighting. Much of the game's success is in the supporting characters. The game is filled with a variety of quirky personalities that are much more entertaining than Jack Keane himself. My favorites include a soldier monkey and Dr. T's bitter left-hand assistant, Ms. Gristle. Unfortunately, you do run into one too many pairs of the stereotypical British bickering odd couple. The game's story itself is very cartoony and does lack the depth of a LucasArts adventure game. For this reason, it may appeal more to younger players. The most tragic part of this game is its voice-acting for the main characters, Jack and Amanda. Amanda is Dr. T's new henchwoman. The hero's voice-acting is horribly dull and down-right d r a g g i n g. I'm not sure if the actor cared one bit to read his lines. When you get to switch characters and play the role of Amanda, it is a refreshing change, but not for too long. The voice-acting for Amanda is nearly as painful as Jack's. But, I still enjoyed being able to play two different characters. 
The game's visuals are outstanding. All the scenes are beautifully 3d rendered that follow the bright whimsical style of the Escape from Monkey Island tropics. Toward the end of the game, you'll be aboard a failing aicraft resembling an old prop plane in one of the most stylized scenes I've seen. The soft blur from the wind and the choking engine is totally nostalgic of the chase scenes in the Indiana Jones movies. While it is still just point-and-click, the environment is so active it temporarily fools you into thinking that you're playing an action game. Rest assured, you're not timed. The 3d camera does become a pain when running across a long path. To run, you must double-click on the destination. Jack will run faster than the camera so in some scenes, you'll find yourself impatiently clicking like mad to get him down the road. Suddenly, before you can stop it, you've clicked beyond where you wanted Jack to go and will have to stop, wait for the camera to catch up, and then click back on where you want to go. One nice treat the developers included is unlockable bonus materials. Throughout the game, you can pick up bonus objects. Using them correctly will unlock a bonus feature. The actual bonus feature is nothing more than an interactive gallery and an optional sepia overlay , but the sudden awesome chime sound effect is quite a thrill. Plus, you just unlocked something! Sadly, my game crashed everytime while viewing one of those neat bonus materials so I'm glad the chime was there to make up for it. All in all, Jack Keane is an alright game. It has a great story with enough quirks and comedy to make it worth your playing. However, do not expect it to be the next Monkey Island or you will be sorely disappointed. And if you could somehow block out Jack's terrible voice with your own voice-over, you might just make it through and have fun. Final Score: 7 out of 10 Nudity: Ass cheeks Vivian Recommends: Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine
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