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The Games of Monty Python's Flying Circus
Reviews by Orb
June 2003
British humorists Monty Python were the comedy rock stars of
their time. A comedy team formed in 1971, the Python crew conquered
television, film and stage. Numerous books based on their work
have been published. Innumerable skits from their BBC television
series have fallen into the popular lexicon, not the least of
which is the word "spam" used now to define junk email,
taken from one of the skits done on the series. Over the years
a cult following has built up around the troupe. For five years
in the late 90s, Monty Python published three software titles,
which in varying degrees cashed in on or extended ideas from their
earlier works.
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time 
Developer: 7th Level
Publisher: 7th Level
Release Date: 1994
Available for: 
The aptly titled Complete Waste of Time utilizes material
from the 45 episodes of their television series. The game itself
is broken into six sections, accessed by a main "brain"
screen. In each section the player can click on and play with
a number of things, all animated in Terry Gilliam's signature
style. Some of these are games, mostly of the arcade variety,
and some just have a number of different things to play with.
In each of the six game areas a door is hidden that accesses
a secret game. Adventure game lovers will be thrilled to hear
that the secret game in all six instances is an extremely tedious,
convoluted maze. This same dull maze is redundantly hidden in
each area. The goal of the overall game is to traverse this maze
until an area is located that quizzes the player on Python humor
minutiae. Once questions are successfully answered, an inventory
item is collected. Four inventory items must be collected in each
area, after which the player must exit the maze and again play
the game in the previous area. Upon completion of this, the game
exits to the main brain screen, and the entrance to the finished
section flashes, signifying it's been fully completed.
Once all of these are done, the player gets a brief acknowledgment
animation. Given all the hoops that have to be jumped through
to get to this, it does indeed seem like a complete waste of time.
Despite this, CWT is a much fresher experience for the
Python enthusiast than their follow-up title, Quest for the
Holy Grail. Given the degree of complexity in answering some
of the maze quizzes, this title is really and truly built for
the Python enthusiast.
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
Developer: 7th Level
Publisher: 7th Level
Release Date: 1996
Available for:
This is a title based on the classic 1974 Python film of the
same name. Published in 1996, Holy Grail is mostly twiddleware
that lacks the sharp-edged humor of the group for the most part,
depending on jokes previously delivered in the film as a payoff
for the player.
The player moves from area to area in the game, reexperiencing
highlights from the movie. Each is either a noninteractive clip
from the movie or an interactive minigame sequence based on a
scene from the film.
Each game section has two parts. The first is a scene from the
film that has been made interactive. Once the correct areas in
this scene are clicked on, another game area is revealed, and
the player accesses a second game. These secondary games are for
the most part fun little arcade games; one of them is a Tetris-style
game. None are overly difficult or time-consuming.
Once both games have been played, a pigeon flies around the screen,
and the player must shoot the pigeon by clicking wildly like a
nutcase on or near it, and it explodes and drops the coconut,
which goes into inventory.
Speaking of which, there is a near-exhausting amount of inventory
to be collected. This never actually gets used, but rather gets
collected scavenger hunt-style to complete the game. The problem
with this is that the inventory quite often is unrelated to either
of the games in each area, but rather is gotten by random hit-and-miss
clicking on objects in each screen that soon becomes painfully
repetitive.
The game on its own is nowhere near as entertaining as the original
film. In fact, I suspect that someone who's not seen the film
will be a bit confused seeing the main bits from it taken out
of context and will not get some of the jokes that get only a
passing esoteric reference in the game, such as the coconuts.
I would go so far as to say the game would ruin the film, and
the film should definitely be seen prior to gameplay.
This of course is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you
have not seen the film, the jokes in the game will be fresh. But
conversely, you'll also have no clue what they are all about.
So I can only recommend this for fans of the movie. Additionally,
gameplay soon is reduced to a painful clickfest, heightened to
a painful nadir as you try to collect the voluminous and unnecessary
inventory.
So why would one of the greatest comedy teams of the twentieth
century publish such a tedious piece of work? One glance at the
credits solves the mystery. Only one of the Python members, Eric
Idle, was actually involved in the development of the game. And
although he lends his voice to the game as the narrator "Historian,"
just like most songwriting teams the effort falls a bit flat without
the rest of the members.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life 
Developer: 7th Level
Publisher: 7th Level
Release Date: 1997
Available for:
The Meaning of Life is the final title in the Python software
trilogy, and it is the strongest and best-designed of the bunch.
Taken from the skit-based film of the same name, this puppy provides
all the cohesive game play and storyline elements that the earlier
two titles sadly lack.
The game is done using Terry Gilliam's animation techniques to
cleverly animate live action figures of the Python group. This
design avoids the pitfalls of FMV, instead infusing the game with
a fresh Python take on previously released skits.
Again, there is inventory to be collected, but here it is used
in pretty much a straightforward adventure game style. The environments
are static screens from the film, many of which the player can
pan around full-circle to interact with the environment and characters.
There are some subgames, one of which is an unfortunate parody
of You Don't Know Jack that falls flat, succumbing to the
pitfall of not being as funny or clever as the original. Some
of the minor games that are played are poorly designed, with no
explanation and few clues provided to the gamer regarding how
they are supposed to be played, leading to tedious trial-and-error
fiddling. In some game areas, there is also some pretty redundant
stuff, but despite these flaws the game is pretty entertaining
and remains the best of the lot. 
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