(Press Release) – Arrrrr! Polish up your swashbuckles and grab your sword, because legendary pirate Guybrush Threepwood sets sail today on the first all-new Monkey Island® adventure in over a decade. Telltale’s highly anticipated game series, Tales of Monkey Island, begins now at www.telltalegames.com for PC with “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal,??? the first chapter in an epic five-month adventure created by the same team responsible for acclaimed episodic series’ including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. The first Tales of Monkey Island chapter is expected to release for WiiWare™ in the coming weeks as well.

The saga begins with a heated battle involving the brave but often bumbling Mighty Pirate™ Guybrush, his beloved wife Elaine, and their nemesis, the demon pirate LeChuck. When the showdown goes up in flames, Guybrush finds himself marooned on a strange island with winds that always blow inward. How will our hero manage to escape this meteorological anomaly? What has become of LeChuck and Elaine? And what’s the story with the infectious voodoo pox that’s spreading across the Caribbean, causing Guybrush and other pirates to act like unruly hooligans? These are just some of the many questions posed in this first chapter of what will become one of the most rollicking and rip-roaring entertainment experiences of the summer.

Dave Grossman, Telltale’s design director and a designer/writer for the original Monkey Island games says “I was laughing my eyepatch off on a daily basis while we were first cooking up Monkey Island at Skywalker Ranch, but if you’d told me then that it would become a classic, and that twenty years later I’d be working with a killer all-star piratey crew to spin an epic new tale and bring the series to a whole new generation of players, I would have said… well, probably, ‘Look behind you, a three-headed monkey,’ but then I’ve always been a bit weird that way.???

Tales of Monkey Island will unfold over the next five months, with each episodic chapter raising the stakes on Guybrush’s quest to eradicate the insidious Pox of LeChuck, reunite with his wife, and vanquish his rival. Much like the best television and films series, the story becomes deeper and more engrossing with interweaving threads building to twists and surprises in the grand finale this fall.

Customers who order from Telltale’s online store during the first week of availability can choose any other Telltale episode of their choice to include free with their purchase. Visit www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland to get into the adventure now. Additional Tales of Monkey Island details, gameplay trailers, and a playable demo are also available at the site.

Nintendo released yesterday that it was adding the ‘Wii Vitality Sensor’ to a list of things one can plug into their Wii Remote. This was said to expand the ‘the appeal’ of video games.

Nintendo says “it will sense a user’s pulse and a number of other signals being transmitted by their bodies, and will then provide information to the users about the body’s inner world.”

Sounds a bit out there, but could create some innovative titles like “lets see how high we can get our heart rate”, or “how long can I hold my breath”.

Maybe it will be used to transmit marketing data through Wiiware to see what games are exciting us, or games that make our blood pressure rise, or legal data for those who are killing over on their Wii Fit. Hah, or something like that.

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This would still make a great drinking game. 'Buzz' and 'Chug'!

With the success of the first installment of these table games, Hasbro and EA are promising five new games to add to your family feuding arsenal. The first (and one we’re most excited about) is Operation, which teaches you how to keep a steady paw, while removing all the important organs and bones (seems like my last ex did that with not so much precision at all, dah duh tsss). The rest of the titles are somewhat new: Bop-It, Pictureka, Connect 4X4 (ouch) and that last being Jenga.

In conjunction with the release of Family Game Night 2 will be Hasbro Family Game Night for the Nintendo DS, featuring the same games from the first game in convenient portable form.

I’m still waiting for Hasbro and EA to blast out some more old school table top titles like Stratego or Clue. You know you wanna see your Xbox Live avatar murder your opponent with the candlestick in the study. We’ll, we do anyhow.

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-Crutchboy Out

Strong Bad says download his game or he'll break you!

SAN RAFAEL, April 9, 2009 – Telltale has announced that WiiWare™ sales of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, the first monthly episodic series on a console, have more than doubled since Nintendo’s new storage solution was unveiled at the Game Developer’s Conference in March. The Strong Bad series began releasing episodically on WiiWare in August 2008.

“Nintendo’s new solution really opens the door for players to add to their collection of downloadable games, which is critical for a series with multiple installments,” says Telltale CEO Dan Connors. “This is a major step forward for episodic gaming. We’re looking forward to even greater success on WiiWare with Strong Bad, as well as other projects.”

Like a TV series, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People is best enjoyed when the full five episode “season” is played in its entirety. Nintendo’s new option to play WiiWare games directly from high-density SD cards gives customers a convenient way to enjoy this full-season experience.

Starring Strong Bad, the self-proclaimed “coolest person ever,” and the rest of the characters from the popular Homestarrunner.com website, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People is a series of comedy games that play like interactive cartoons. Each episode features a unique storyline penned by series creators Mike and Matt Chapman and the writers of Telltale’s award-winning Sam & Max series. Arcade-style mini games, achievements, and the ability to email Wii™ friends from Strong Bad’s laptop complete the experience.

The Strong Bad games can be downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel for 1,000 points each. For more information on Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People on WiiWare, visit www.telltalegames.com/strongbad/wiiware. The series is also available for PC from Telltale’s website.

Telltale’s episodic offerings are expanding to Xbox LIVE® Arcade this spring with Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures.