A chance encounter
For the review of Monkey Island 2 I played the game as I always do; Guybrush is the snarkiest most sarcastic pirate ever to sail the 7 seas. However, the game does give you several dialogue choices and in my partner’s playthrough she would constantly portray Guybrush as a sensitive soul looking for love and ‘Big Whoop’. After an hour, the pain of her playing this way became too much to bear and I wrestled the pad from her hand – give it to me and feel the wrath of Threepwood’s true nature. Several moments later, and a few choice blows to vital pressure points, I returned the controller. My partner was to have her day, successfully completing the game in her own style.
Monkey Island 2 proved an interesting co-op experience, not because it was true co-op, but because I could enjoy a game through someone else’s eyes. Did the way that my partner or I play the game fundamentally change anything? It led to different dialogue choices, but the game mechanics are built for this and the puzzles worked either way. The game was still brilliant even if hundreds of pithy diatribes were left forlorn. Seeing her enjoy some classic gaming moments for the first time helped me to remember how I felt installing the pile of disks back on my PC over 15 years ago. I was able to enjoy watching the game and she would look to me for advice, making the playthrough a cooperative experience.
Through our years together I have shared many experiences with my partner, but there will always be something special about sharing something great from your childhood be it a film, book or computer game. It even turns out that after a while my partner started to realize something; she had played parts of the game before, years earlier. In a strange way this connection between our childhoods was great news, perhaps after all it is the similarities, rather than the differences, that make a good co-op couple?