 Overview
Guybrush Threepwood, legend in his own mind, has never been happier. After all, he’s defeated his undead rival LeChuck, he’s married to Elaine Marley (the loveliest public official in the Caribbean), and for the last three months they’ve enjoyed a grand pirate honeymoon on the high seas. But upon their return to Mêlée Island, they discover that Elaine’s been declared dead, a new politician named Charles L. Charles (hmmm) is trying to buy the election with “good times and free grog,” and a mysterious Australian land developer is ruthlessly buying up all the islands in the Caribbean. It’ll be up to Mr. Marley…er…Threepwood to save the day yet again.
Escape from Monkey Island, the fourth game in LucasArts’ popular
Monkey Island series and the first in 3D, offers “new jokes, new puns, new insults, and more monkeys than the three previous Monkey games combined.” Does it follow through? Well, yes... but is it worth buying?
Gameplay, Controls, Interface
As with the previous games, Escape from Monkey Island is a blend of pirate adventure, puzzle solving, and goofy humor. As such, getting to the final destination isn’t as important as enjoying the journey. You’re encouraged to try all kinds of things, even the totally ludicrous, just to see what happens; the game usually rewards you for the trouble.
LucasArts appears to have discarded its old SCUMM adventure interface in favor of keyboard-based controls. If you’ve played
Grim Fandango, you’re already familiar with this new setup. Use the arrow keys to move Guybrush around, choosing between character-relative and screen-relative movement. When Guybrush passes something he can pick up, use or look at, his head automatically tracks on that object and an option or series of options will appear at the bottom of the screen. Press E to examine an item more closely, P to pick it up or U to use it. The I key brings up your inventory, which can be cycled through in carousel-fashion to find the item you want; you can also combine inventory items to create something new. (Often, if you start cycling through your inventory, other characters in the room will complain about you spreading your stuff all over the
place -- a nice touch.)
Conversation is much the same as in previous games; walk up to a character and press U (use) to talk, then cycle through the possible conversation choices. As this is a LucasArts game, where it’s difficult or impossible to kill off your character, don’t be afraid to use the goofiest, most audacious comments you can. (And beware, Cap’n, thar be puns ahead!)
Although LucasArts was wise enough to include the full series of key commands in the manual, I was never entirely comfortable with the keyboard interface. Occasionally I had to remind myself not to use the mouse (there is no mouse support for the game, although you can use a joystick or gamepad to play if you prefer). Because keyboard controls are inherently slower, it was often frustrating not to be able to just click on the area where I wanted to be, particularly since that’s how previous LucasArts games worked.
 Puzzles
As with the previous Monkey Island games, Escape is packed with
puzzles -- some ridiculously simple, others maddeningly convoluted. Realizing that this might be the first foray into the adventure genre for some gamers, LucasArts included a spoiler manual in the box. This should be used only if you’re at your wit’s end, as liberal use of a walkthrough will whisk you through the game too quickly and you’ll miss a lot of extras. The puzzle solutions do make sense within the framework of the game, if you make sure to listen to even offhand remarks and inspect your inventory carefully.
A word about “Monkey Kombat,” the mini-game within Escape: someone at LucasArts thought this was a brilliant
idea and someone else programmed it into life -- and if I ever find those people, I will make them wish they’d never been born. This frustrating little game is more evil than LeChuck and Ozzie Mandrill combined, and that’s saying something. By the time I was through with it, I was muttering, “Oughtta’ve called it
Escape from Monkey Kombat if y’ask me” under my breath.
Graphics
I’m an old-school adventure gamer and it took a while to win me over to the new 3D graphic style. Just because a game can be in 3D, that doesn’t necessarily mean it should be. (Anyone up for a debate on classic movie colorization?) For a while,
Escape too closely resembled the look of a console game for my tastes. But
Escape isn’t a true 3D game in all respects -- camera angles are static rather than dynamic, for instance. The 3D-rendered characters work very well against the backgrounds, exhibit a bit more subtlety of movement and expression than in traditional
animation and even with a low-end 3D card the “jaggies” common to the edges of 3D-rendered characters are minimal. Cutscenes between gameplay are smoothly executed and actually move the storyline along.
Audio
Good voice acting is essential these days, especially in games that rely on comic timing and delivery. In this arena,
Escape passes with flying colors. Dominic Armato is funnier than ever as “Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate,” and Earl Boen reprises his role as the Demon Zombie Ghost Pirate LeChuck (with that many names, he might as well be a member of the Royal Family). Nick Tate voices the misanthropic übercapitalist, Ozzie Mandrill, and newcomer Charity James interprets the role of Elaine with intelligence and sardonic wit. The supporting cast offers solid, often hilarious backing, although a peek at the credits confirmed some voice actors are “recycled” for several different bit parts in the game. (Armato does his bit here too, lending his voice to at least two minor characters.)
In the music arena, composer Michael Land returns with help from artists Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell and Anna
Karney -- though there’s little new material here (much of it is recycled from
Curse of Monkey Island), a few motifs in the series have been orchestrated to good advantage. The original, stirring sea chantey tune over the main menu is noteworthy.
System Requirements
Windows 95/98/2000/ME, 200 MHz (266 or higher recommended), 32 MB RAM (64 MB RAM for Windows 2000 users), 4 MB Direct 3D or OpenGL-compatible graphics accelerator card (supported chipsets listed at LucasArts Technical Support), 16-bit sound card, 4X CD-ROM drive, Windows-compatible keyboard (optional support for gamepads and joysticks),
and DirectX 7.0 or higher (included with game).
Reviewed on: Windows 98, PIII-667 MHz, 128 MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 256,
and 48X CD-ROM drive.
 Documentation
The typical jewel case manual runs sixteen pages covering installation, minor troubleshooting, menu options, game interface, keyboard/joystick/gamepad commands, credits, contact information, software license and some shameless product placement just for good measure. LucasArts has also included an official hint book with a “quick-path” walkthrough of the entire game, sealed at the edge to help prevent accidental spoilers.
Multiplayer
Enjoy one of the game’s Easter eggs by selecting Options from the main menu, then Alter Gee Whiz Factor, then Multiplayer Options. Good, goofy fun.
Relation To Previous Games
Escape has much more in common with Curse of Monkey Island than with the first two games of the
series -- more silly than serious and less sense of foreboding. (In Monkey Island
2, when LeChuck made an appearance, it was usually creepy and startling. In the last two games, he’s been more funny than frightening.) If you’ve played the series from the beginning, you’ll notice some familiar faces and locations, updated with 3D rendering.
Patches / Updates
The LucasArts site hosts the latest update, which fixes some issues with certain sound and video cards and other known problems with the original release. You should also look over the support page if you’re having any additional technical
trouble -- I ran into a sound problem near the end of the game that I was able to work around, thanks to a comment posted in support.
Room For Improvement
Considering the amount of development time spent on this game -- it was officially announced in April and pushed out the door in
November -- I’m amazed at the level of quality and polish. Still, there’s some evidence of rushed or incomplete play testing. Some conversations won’t work at all unless you employ a workaround, and in other situations Guybrush seems to have more information than he
should -- in one section of the game, for instance, he can complain about a person’s drunkenness even if he hasn’t yet found that person lushing it up in a local bar.
I never did get comfortable with the new keyboard interface, first introduced in
Grim Fandango and only marginally improved in Escape. Granted, the keyboard offers a wider range of options, but as far as simplicity and general functionality goes, it feels like a step backward compared to the old popular point-and-click SCUMM interface.
Bottom Line
I freely admit my bias in favor of this game; I’ve loved the series ever since the original
Secret of Monkey Island released ten years ago. It’s not perfect,
though -- for those who have never played the previous games, the in-jokes may be confusing; for long-time fans of the series, the new interface and game glitches will be frustrating. Despite these drawbacks, the game is a lot of
fun -- it passes the “time travel” test, where you sit down to play for just a few minutes and suddenly realize it’s 3 a.m. And honestly, how many other developers could manage to slip “Schadenfreude,” “ichor” and “potzrebie“ into a game successfully? Although not the high point of the
Monkey Island series, Escape from Monkey Island earns an overall score of 80 as a worthy addition to the adventure game genre.
Review Posted On 29 November 2000.
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