Just to clarify: we are talking the Homer Simpson-esque expression of joy, and not the bedroom hi-jinks the Sims use to procreate? Come to think of it, I'm sure I once drank a cocktail by the name of Something-Exotic Woo Hoo.

I'm going to go with the most likely option, which is convenient as something very joyous occurred just two days ago. You see, one of my biggest wishes came true on Monday evening.

I'm a huge fan of Telltale Games. I only fully delved into their works on the release of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People last summer, but I'd been aware of them for some time due to their Sam & Max games. Telltale started up when Lucasarts ditched the sequel to Sam & Max Hit The Road in mid-production, a decision that many of us fans were horrified by. But Telltale did something quite clever. They took Sam & Max to a new level, releasing the game in five monthly episodes to keep us all hungry and excited. I was a little late to that party, granted, but the wait between each episode of SBCG4AP was deliciously tortuous.

Lucasarts believed that point-and-click adventure gaming was dead, which is what brought this about. Telltale have proved them oh-so-wrong, with two seasons of Sam & Max now released, SBCG4AP and their current release, Wallace and Gromit. (Nice to see some British creations in their roster, I might add.) But there was one game that I, among legions more, was praying for.

Back when I was a kid, Lucasarts became a big name in our house through the Monkey Island series. When we were still knee-high to our folks and messing about on our dad's Amiga 500, we borrowed all 11 (count them) floppy disks of MI2: LeChuck's Revenge from our cousins to play at home. I had to read the dialogue to Marv, but we played the crap out of it. It was funny, smart, amazingly rendered (for the early 90s), and it appealed as much to us littluns as it did our older cousins. Guybrush Threepwood, in all his pixelly glory, became as an important a name to us as Lion-O or Optimus Prime. When we got a bit older, Marv brought home the first four games in the series for PC, so we played the crap out of it all over again. There's nothing like revisiting childhood memories as good as those.

But when Lucasarts ditched Sam & Max, it seemed to us all that the in-game promises of a fifth MI game might never come true. It just seemed so wrong to let Guybrush and LeChuck's battle go unfinished; wronger still to let the travesty of Escape from Monkey Island be the end ("WHAT? No point-and-click?!") With Telltale making leaps and bounds in the gaming world, surely it would only be right for them to take up the challenge.

Well, on Monday, Telltale and Lucasarts revealed one of the best-kept secrets of the decade. From Telltale: 'Tales of Monkey Island', a brand-new five part adventure with Guybrush and the gang. From Lucasarts: 'The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition', a completely faithful reworking of the original game, now in 3D graphics and with full voice-acting.

What Pook heard from my room: "No way! NO FREAKIN' WAY!! AAAAGH!"

The conversation I had with Marv over the phone, upon my discovery:
me: "Marv! Something awesome has happened!"
Marv: "What?"
me: "You know Telltale? The Sam & Max games?"
Marv: "Yeah..."
me: "Guess what they've done, dude! Guess what's out next month!"
Marv: (silence as he realises) "No way..."
me: "Monkey Island! Guybrush is back, man!"
(mutual screaming)

So, just a teensy bit excited about this one. We've only been waiting, oh, nine years or so. July 7th seems like an eternity away right now, but 'pon Neptune's navel, 'tis sure to be worth the wait.