Would you like to know a secret? A secret that has haunted my gaming pedigree for years, leaving me in fear that it might be discovered during game-related conversation and I might be ostracized by my peers as a result. A fear so pronounced despite how ridiculously tame it is I’d murder to keep it under wraps. It is the secret of Monkey Island.
What’s the secret?
That’s it! That’s my secret! The Secret of Monkey Island. It’s a game, silly, and it’s one I haven’t played, I know nothing about it! I haven’t played it’s numerous sequels, either, and that’s just shameful.
“Why? Why is it shameful?” I hear you cry in confusion.
It’s shameful because it is one of the most beloved game franchises of all time, and one of the greatest adventure games ever made. It’s various iterations find themselves in all sorts of top 10 lists around the internet. I’ve never played it. I’ve never played Maniac Mansion, either, or Day of the Tentacle, or even Grim Fandiago. The trend here that game-savvy readers may understand is that all of these games were written by Tim Shafer and Ron Gilbert (with the exeption of Grim Fandiago). Even savvier people will know that the title and focus of this article, The Cave, is an adventure game written by none other than Tim Shafer and Ron Gilbert.
Both of these designers are reasonably well known in the gaming industry as a result of their work on these games.
Tim Shafer created Double Fine in 2000, and in 5 years worth of magic he produced Psychonauts, which is a game I have played. It is a good game. It is a fantastic game. It is an extremely weird game, and it make my penis hard.
Now when I first thought about writing an article for The Interactivists, it was a couple of weeks before the release of The Cave. I thought it was perfect, not too big a game to play thorougly enough to warrant an opinion and nothing too obscure.
So, of course, I was exited about The Cave.
And then I played it, I started writing this review and after around an hour’s worth of play I stopped. The reason I stopped? The Cave is a boring game and boring, of all the adjectives one can use to describe a piece of entertainment, is probably the most damning of them all.
The problems with the game are pretty obvious,
Running around for padding
Repeating the same thing
Not funny
I cannot reccomend this game at all. Play something else, better yet, play Psychonauts, because that game rules.


