Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

"The best the Monkey Island series has to offer."

No matter who you are, how old you are, where you come from or which gender you are you must agree on one thing: pirates kick ass. I mean literally, they killed like thousands of people. But there is one thing that is more kick ass than any normal pirate. That thing is a funny pirate, and there are plenty of them in Monkey Island 2.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge continues the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, a self-proclaimed pirate who defeated LeChuck in the first Monkey Island game titled The Secret of Monkey Island. After washing up on shore of MeLee Island, all Guybrush wanted to do was become a pirate, instead of maybe trying to remember his past or something. Well, he accomplished his dream, and it's been quite a while since it happened. He's sort of become a one-hit wonder in the pirate world and he needs to do something new to become famous again. Guybrush then decides to pursue the greatest known treasure of all time. The treasure of Big Whoop...

Just as in the previous game, Monkey Island 2 features a slew of funny, quirky and just plain neat characters. Elaine Marley, Guybrush's love interest from the first game makes an appearance, but she doesn't play as big of a role as in the first game. Of course, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck is back and up to no good. Fresh faces appearing for the first time are: Largo LaGrade, LeChuck's right hand man and all around asshat. Wally B. Feed, a sort of nerdy little cartographer who wears a sweet monocle and... Captain Dread! Although you might be surprised at how the word ''dread'' is used.

Monkey Island 2 uses a point and click interface and is built upon the SCUMM game engine. The SCUMM game engine allows for multiple, branching conversations that will require you to play through the game multiple times to see all of the great dialogue(did I mention how funny this game is?). Aside from talking, the engine also allows you to interact with your environment by letting you do things such as look, pick up, talk, open, close and so on. It's a great engine that LucasArts has used quite often in many of it's adventure games.

Even though MI2 was released only about a year after the original Monkey Island, the graphics are noticeably better. Guybrush and the rest of the cast all have much more detail and the environments all almost look hand-drawn except for a bit of pixelation here and there. If this game were to be ported to the GBA, it would most likely look just as good as any other game on the platform. However, one area where it would shine above almost all of the rest is music.

The songs in MI2 are wonderful to listen to. The music guys did a great job of making songs that sound both authentically piratey and just plain catchy! Many people like to listen to CDs or MP3's while gaming, but when you're playing this chances are you won't. Aside from the music, the game also has some really good sound effects, considering this game was made over a decade ago. They aren't as high of quality as the music, but then again... if a game's sound effects outshine it's music there's definitely something wrong.

To put the proverbial icing on the cake, Monkey Island 2 gives you a good reason to play through this great adventure a second time: the addition of two difficulty levels. For the beginning adventurer, there is Monkey 2 Lite, which is substantially easier than the mode simply called 'Monkey Island 2'. If you're just starting, then I suggest first playing the easy mode, then the hard mode. Then, for all of you hardcore adventure gamers out there, try to play the hard mode first and then test out the easy mode. This way, you get to play through the great game a second time and try out dialogue options that you missed the first time around, aside from seeing just how damn easy the game is on Lite mode!

One thing that might scare off a potential player is the fact that this game is(as I said before) over ten years old. But believe me, this doesn't hinder the experience one bit. At first the primitive graphics may be startling, yes, but they're worlds better than games from the same year on consoles believe me! So just give the game a chance, you won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/25/04