Well, it's out. The coveted first episode of the new Tales of Monkey Island series from Telltale, called Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Yes, I sat up until late late last night to download it.
First impressions: Good. I actually really like the "new" Guybrush style in this game. Not so with LeChuck, who looks a bit more cartoonish and less evil than in the previous games.
Oh and that puzzle involving Chuck the Plant was good but took me like 30 minutes to figure out due to me being used to the fact that Chuck the Plant is always just a humorous placeholder and never really used for anything important...
But, looking good so far. Might be a new high in the series after the so-so fourth installment this. The only thing I don't like is that they've gone the way of Mass Effect with some of the spoken dialogue, as you'll often get 2-3 different (in text) dialogue choices that are spoken the same. That is poo.

Drip feed me more !

I will wait for the compilation.

Alright guys, we can unhold our breath...
for now...
As excited as I am, I'll be waiting for the compilation myself.

You do know there is a demo available, right? Telltale gives a taste of each and every episode of all their games.

That was a demo? It was only like 6 seconds long. Certainly not long enough for me to base a purchase of the entire series on. They really should just go back to selling episodes on their own again.

okay since this seems to be the place, here's my quick review:
AWESOME!
Here's my longer review:
It's monkey island. It really is monkey island. It has the same silly humour, occasional 4th wall breaking jokes (including a none too subtle Wallace & Gromit reference, a mention of youtube & others) and solid adventure elements that are the hallmark of the series. The dialogue is very good, the somewhat absurd characters and situations are spot on and there's even the occasional TM thrown in for a laugh.
The majority of the puzzles were quite logical and the few that didn't seem that way were more than likely me doing things out of order. I finished one rather complicated puzzle though trial and error but just before the last section I realised I had the object I needed to use in my inventory all the time and felt like a bit of a ninny.
The length of the game was pretty good, I'd say the 5 episodes together would comprise a normal full length game
Oh and the bastards end it on a cliffhanger!
To summarise:
AWESOME!
You could always pirate the first episode. Apart from the fact it'd be in keeping with the spirit of the licence (I'm rather shocked to have NOT seen a piracy joke somewhere in the game), it'd give you a solid impression of how they're intending to make the series and once its impressed you, you can buy the series as a whole.
I think the fact that they games aren't self contained but really ARE 5 chapters in one game is the reason they're not selling them individually

That's great to hear Aliasalpha, the two online reviews I've read have been fair... i.e Monkey Island is back!, but once you strip that away, it's settles as an 'ok' adventure.
Don't flame me, i'm only interpreting what I've read and to be honest I'm using the IGN review as reference (you can't say ignorant without IGN).
I'd much rather hear what you guys have to say about it.
I tried to get it last night but the TellTale site was way too busy.
As for the demo, it was more a demo of a demo of a demo. I don't think anyone could get an impression from that.
Anyway, I'll be joining in tonight and hope to contribute further to this (looking forward to it now after the initial mediocre feedback).

Damn, have you finished it already?
Just out of curiousity is the game length the same as other telltale games (about 3-5 hours) ?

If the demo really is as short as people (and bansama) are saying, I'd definitely suggest getting the "extended demo" and trying that. I suspect it'll be a rare fan of monkey island who doesn't go & buy the season after finishing the first episode.
Its what I did with Sam & Max. Also Portal, it was the only 360 arcade demo I've ever seen where I got to the stage where it says "press x to unlock" and I actually did it without thinking about it.
I'd say I spent maybe 4 hours of play on it, there were a few spots where I got stuck for a while and then a few spots where I was supposed to take a while to figure something out when the answer just came in a flash.
*POSSIBLE PUZZLE MECHANIC SPOILER*
Oh and an important tip to save frustration, at 2 points in the game you get given a map to follow, once you get to the start of the trail indicated on the map you have to use the map on the item there to start following it or you'll get nowhere. For example the first one has you starting at a well and you have to take 6-7 paths to get to a specific location, I wandered around for 20 minutes and got nowhere, it turns out I had to USE the map on the well to initiate the map following 'quest', after that I was able to follow it perfectly

You could always pirate the first episode. Apart from the fact it'd be in keeping with the spirit of the licence (I'm rather shocked to have NOT seen a piracy joke somewhere in the game), it'd give you a solid impression of how they're intending to make the series and once its impressed you, you can buy the series as a whole
I could yes, but shouldn't have to. I really don't see why they don't just do what most publishers do over here (in the case of DVDs) whereby they release episode one as a standalone product then release episodes two and up as box sets (with space to place your separately bought episode one). Doing that for their games would be so much better than their sub parr demos. And even in the case of people who decide they don't like the episode, Telltale still at least manage to make one sale.
Whereas forcing people to pirate to get a real understanding of whether they'd want the full set or not is just going to lose them that extra revenue and piss people off who, otherwise, would probably have happily bought the whole lot.

You'll never get an argument from me on that front, the crappy demo (though shortness, focussing on the wrong part of just being a compilation of the few bits of the game that aren't shit) has been my bugbear since demos started. Very few do a good job of showcasing the game and its disappointing that they didn't make a good one.

Very few do a good job of showcasing the game and its disappointing that they didn't make a good one.
So true and yet the majority of developers who don't put any effort into a demo still fail to understand =/

Hey at least they DO demos, so many don't

Pre-ordered, downloading right now.