Escape from Monkey Island

"Guybrush sails the high seas to meet with his wife's lawyers and settle a troublesome land despute! With monkeys!!!"

The Monkey Island series has gone though many changes in the past decade. From 16 colors to 256 colors to 16 Million colors...and now to full blown 3d in Monkey 4. Some fans might not like the way the latest chapter in the legendary Monkey Island series have taken, in both game design and humor.

GRAPHICS (9/10)

Escape brings the colorful world of Curse of Monkey Island into beautiful 3d though the use of rendered backdrops. Some say it couldn’t be done, but LucasArts did it. Although I will say it sometimes looks a bit bland...

Character models look very nice, true to their 2d selves. However, they can look very “PSX” if they are close to the camera. (Meaning, they look pixel and not smooth.) I hear that some 3d cards can fix this problem. Characters have wonderful animation, which is a advantage to 3d.

Overall, this game is very nice to look at.

GAMEPLAY (7/10) and DESIGN (9/10)

Ack..... Yes, Escape is using a advance Grim Fandango engine, but it just doesn’t work sometimes. Like Grim, you use the keyboard to control the character, not the mouse. The biggest problem is when Guybrush is looking at more than one object, because he can’t line up with the right one. It works most of the time, but you might have to try a few time to look at the right object. This rarely happened in Grim became there was not a sentence line at the bottom of the screen, so object were never really place side by side.

Not to say the controls are so bad you can’t play the game, it’s just frustrating at times. Speaking of frustrating, when Guybrsuh runs near a door, he might enter it when you don’t want to. The inventory system is much improved. You can now combine items. (A MI must)

Okay, now the humor. Monkey Island is know for it’s humor, be it Herman Toothrot from MI1, the skeleton dance and LeChuck’s fort scenes from MI2, or Murray the disembodied demonic skull from Hell in MI3... Escape from MI is a very funny game.

HOWEVER, I do not place the humor on the same scale has the hilarious Curse. Escape humor is more like MI2, which is good. But, I like the silly humor is Curse a bit better. Escape is more of one liners and references from older games. .

Speaking of the jokes about older games, some new gamers might not get some of the funniest things in this game. A lot of old character return, like Meathook and Murray, but their more as supporting extras if anything. Otis and Carla are here, and they do a bit more. Escape also has several memorable new characters, Like Hellbeard, Jojo Jr, and LeFeet. Also, the best redering of Stan appears.

Puzzles are first class. Prepared to be challenged

SOUND 9/10

The sound instantly disappointed me in this game. Why? The Monkey Island credit theme is EXACTLY THE SAME AS CURSE OF MONKEY ISLAND! And the renderd backdrops stink, their not the cool Log book pages.

However, Escape has some great tunes. Most of them arranged from older games. Some of them are remixs of the Monkey Island theme, which is actually a good move, I think. While most of the music in Lucre Town is taken from Woodtick in MI2, but arranged to be something new.

Some of the best music in the game is on Monkey Island. (No, it’s not s spoiler! Look at the name of the game!!!)

Voice acing is perfect. Guybrush has much more of a personality.

STORY 8/10

Another thing that might upset die hard fans is the Escape’s story, because it strays from the MI theme a bit. First off, LeChuck plays a smaller role, while the main bad guy is a Australian named Ozzie Mandrell. Ozzie is buying up land in the Carribian and building themed restaurants and all that good stuff. Elaine and Guybrsuh, back form their honeymoon, find out the people of Melee has pronounced her dead, and a new man, Charles L. Charles is but for election.

It’s up to Guybrush to sail the high seas to meet with her wife’s lawers and settle is disturbing land dispute...and it all works out and feels like Monkey Island.

But you might be saying, “What! No!” Trust me, all the Monkey Island goodness you come to expect, even if it is a bit different than the others.

GRIPES

My 3d card isn’t great, so I have to play is 16 bit mode... There are some bugs....sometimes the characters look blocky... CRAPPY CREDIT SEQUENCE and MANUAL! (Compared to all other LucasArts games, I come to expect better from these people....) it strays a bit from the traditianl MI formula.

OVERALL 8/10

Escape from Monkey Island is a refreshing change. We get a different story, a new villain, while at the same time being true to the older games. And the ending is funny, unexpected, long, and wonderful. Just a few bugs and stray turns prevent it from being perfect.

Bring on Monkey 5.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/04/00, Updated 11/09/02