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Jack Keane is a light-hearted adventure game in which you play a cheeky young seafarer who finds himself on a mysterious remote island populated by lots of monkeys.
Sound familiar? If you have fond memories of Monkey Island games you'll find that Jack Keane bears more than a passing similarity to Guybrush Threepwood from that game. It's not a sequel (or, indeed, in any way connected to Lucasarts's Monkey Island series), but the formula is essentially the same.
As Captain Jack, players must point and click their way through a series of increasingly baffling puzzles, gathering items and combing them to solve some enigmas or talking to characters and piecing together clues to solve others. The similarities don't end there, either.
Jack Keane shares its spiritual forbear's cartoony visuals and its tongue-in-cheek humour, as well as its tendency to drop in frequent references to movies and other games. In gameplay terms, the mouse-based controls are very easy to pick up. The game's difficulty level is well pitched, too, making it accessible to casual gamers and seasoned adventurers alike.
Fans of classic 1990s adventure games may, however, find themselves hankering for challenges that require a little more lateral thinking than those offered here. The jokes can be hit and miss and some of the voice acting is uneven in places.
Even then it's a much more palatable experience than many other recent attempts to resurrect the point-and-click genre, many of which seem to make the fatal mistake of taking themselves far too seriously.
In the end, Jack Keane’s major selling point is also its downfall. Taken on its own merit, the game is a lot of fun to play.
But in attempting to plug the hole left by the Monkey Island series the developers have inevitably invited comparisons with those games, not all of which are favourable.
See also:
A dark, mysterious adventure with - literally - a twist 08 Feb 2008
All Action & Adventure GamesTags: Software, Gaming
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