Alright, let's clear the air here. With all the hubub of E3, it's easy to get confused. There are two new Monkey Island games coming out soon. One of them, Tales of Monkey Island is an episodic game for the Wii and PC that's being handled by Telltale Games -- the only company thus far to have had any success with the episodic business model.

The other is Monkey Island: Special Edition, which is a full 3D remake of the original for PC, Wii, and Xbox Live Arcade. It, in turn, is being developed by LucasArts, the company that owns the original.

Got all that? Good.

Ok, moving forward -- now that you've seen Anthony's pun-less post about Tales of Monkey Island, check out this new cinematic trailer. Like all cinematic trailers, this one is short on gameplay, which is fine because point-and-click adventure games mostly consist of pointing ... and clicking ... and adventuring. What it does show off is Tales visual style. Do you guys like the re-vamp? How does it stack up against Monkey Island: Special Edition?

If there's any time to play fast and loose with off-the-cuff assessments of games I haven't played, it might as well be during E3, so here's my take: Something about the humor or the pacing seems off to me, based on the trailer below; however, Telltale's Sam and Max episodic series is pretty good, so there's no reason to think Tales of Monkey Island will be any different.

Tales of Monkey Island debuts July 7 on PC and WiiWare