Thoughts by Mr Creosote (12 00 2009) – PC (Windows)
932 A.D…. a group of knights in 14th century gear is stumbling around the country. Instead of horses, which they can’t afford, their servants use coconut shells to simulate the appropriate medieval travelling sounds. It’s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table – on a mission from God to search for the Holy Grail. Which is a bit silly, because God should really know where it is, right? But does he tell his faithful servants? No, he sends them on a wild goose chase instead. What a meany!
Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail consists of various scenes from the movie. You’ll visit the plague village, take part in the discussion about identifying witches, fight the Black Knight, enjoy the hospitality of Castle Anthrax and try to cross the Bridge of Death. On each of these screens, basic ‘gameplay’ consists of wildly clicking around on the backdrop, hoping some sort of useful (or at least silly) action will be triggered. ‘Useful’ ones might be finding an item. Mostly, it’s just silly soundbits being played or heads popping up reciting pieces of dialogue from the movie (“She’s got huuuuge…. tracts of land!”).
Some screens also contain little puzzle or arcade challenges. For example, you can play Spank the Virgin, a Tetris variant with corpses (watch out for those who are not quite dead) or fight the Black Knight in Mortal Kombat style (or even fight as the Black Knight against Arthur in MechWarrior style).
After you’ve visited all the locations and found all the necessary items, the second phase of the game begins. There, you visit all the locations again, this time using all the objects in the appropriate places. And then you’ll find the Grail. Provided you’ve answered all the registration questions (just a few hundred). Alternatively, you can just select to win the game from the main menu.
Although Holy Grail isn’t that different from its spiritual predecessor Waste of Time, the very basic gameplay elements are at least disguised in the form of an adventure game this time. Strictly speaking, it’s lacks many common genre features, though. Once again, 7th Level presents a funny mash-up of movie elements and a little bit of original contents (like they did with TV series elements in Waste of Time) which will not replace buying a DVD, but which is a great addition to everybody’s Pythonic collection. On the other hand, it can hardly be called a true standalone product.
