Escape From Monkey Island  

by LucasArts  Reviewed by: Jim Weber  

Overview

Guybrush Threepwood and his new bride Elaine Marley-Threepwood are just returning from their honeymoon on the high seas. Expecting to return to Melee Island with a grand entrance, as Elaine is also the island's Governor, they prepare to greet the many locals welcoming them back. To their dismay, upon landing there isn't a soul to be found. Finding this odd but not overly disturbing, the newlyweds head back to the Governor's mansion to unpack and start their new life together. Once there, however, they discover a demolition crew (one man with a catapult) attempting to raze the mansion. After questioning him and asking him to cease his bombardment, they find that the Governor, Elaine, has been declared dead! What's going on here? After more detective work, they discover the island is in disarray. Elaine has been declared dead, an Australian land developer is buying all the property from the locals, and the SCUMM Bar has run out of its famous kudu-jerky-flavored pretzels. Looking to get to the bottom of this, the self-proclaimed pirate Guybrush heads out to rectify this confusing and odd predicament.

Escape From Monkey Island is one of the first adventure games to make a solid appearance outside the PC. The dashing Guybrush, in attempting to solve Melee Island's troubles, will take you through various puzzles and problems as you try to set things right again. A direct port from the PC, Escape From Monkey Island will challenge and entertain you with its involving puzzles and witty humor. As you'll see, this game delivers, and both fans of adventure games and those who haven't played an adventure game since King's Quest will be equally impressed.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

After showing the credits, the game begins with Guybrush daydreaming about his last adventure where he married Elaine and defeated the evil demon zombie ghost pirate LeChuck. He's brought to attention by Elaine, who is fighting pirates, and we see that Guybrush was daydreaming while tied to the mast. From here the adventure begins as Guybrush tries to find a way to be useful and defeat the boarding pirates.

The game moves forward by Guybrush getting into a situation that causes him to either find an object to use and locate the specific way to use it, talk to the right character and have that character perform some action, or use some other unique method. These puzzles can be anything from relatively easy to downright difficult. Some will stump even experienced adventure game fans, as they require the player to notice peculiar items or unique-looking parts of scenery to figure them out. There is a logical flow to them, however, and it's usually very rewarding when they're finally figured out. Once a puzzle is completed, the game progresses by giving a short animated clip furthering the story and setting up the next problem to be solved. These short clips are loaded with the dry humor and one-liners that fans of the previous Monkey Island games have come to expect. Chances are that throughout the game you'll find yourself laughing out loud at some point and smirking at other times.

While taking Guybrush out exploring, you'll notice how many different things he can look at. Some are relevant to the storyline, but most are there to add humor or attempt to distract from his current predicament. This is where the interface comes in. It's a simple structure that basically gives options for the things in front of Guybrush. For instance, when standing in front of a table, you'll have a few sentence fragments at the bottom of the screen. It may say, "Look at pretzels," "Talk to pirate," and "Look at balloon." All that needs to be done is select the sentence you want Guybrush to perform. Depending on whether you're holding an item or if you performed some other task first, you may get a different set of options.

The controls are also straightforward and easy to use. The left analog joystick moves Guybrush around, and when pushed down he'll quick-exit a room. The L2 button shows inventory, L1 skips dialogue, R2 cycles objects down and R1 cycles objects up. The buttons also perform simple functions like look, action, and pick up. Overall, the controls are easy to learn and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to get comfortable with them.

Although it is animated, and talking about how the laws of physics are portrayed in a cartoon may seem odd, Escape From Monkey Island does an excellent job in this department. For instance, when looking at how the characters move, you'll notice a smooth fluid motion as they walk around, jump, open doors or whatever. You can tell the developers paid attention to things like point of reference, how much force is being transferred from one object to another, and how that object should respond under specific force. The camera angle will also occasionally change by pulling way back, maybe 100 feet in the air and down to three feet away from the characters talking. When this happens, the dimensions are perfect with all the objects scaled the same, creating a realistic atmosphere that is generally more enjoyable to watch.

One of the few problem areas with this game is the load times. Since this is a PC port, it was designed to hit the hard drive -- but since the PlayStation 2 doesn't have a hard drive, load times of three or four seconds are fairly common. This can be distracting, but rarely was I overly annoyed. Only when I would accidentally walk out of one area and have to walk back did it become problematic.

Graphics

Keeping in mind that this is an animated game, I was hard-pressed to find any flaws. The animation during cutscenes and also during general gameplay was smooth and detailed. The flame on a candle flickers, water in the harbor ripples around the dock, and when characters speak, their mouths and lips move in a natural manner, creating sharp graphics even though it's based on animation.

Audio

The audio is where this game really shines. The character voices fit their personalities, with some being goofy and others stuck-up. One big issue that is handled almost perfectly is when the characters are talking, the audio syncs up almost perfectly with the character's mouth. When voiceovers don't line up with the characters, it can be extremely distracting and I was pleased to see it could be done accurately. In addition, there are various other sounds that add fullness to the game like birds chirping during the day, crickets at night, and when in certain places like a bar, all the sounds you'd expect there are captured too.

Documentation

Usually documentation is standard across games, with few either adding something to improve the game or missing something that distracts from it. This documentation, however, is more useful than most, giving helpful information that improves the game. For instance, in addition to showing how to use the controls and interface, Escape From Monkey Island also gives a history of the previous games in the series. This allows those of us who are new to the series to come up to speed.  It also walks you through the first few puzzles, showing how to solve them.

Bottom Line

What you'll get with Escape From Monkey Island is a rich adventure game that entertains with its quick wit and colorful characters. Even if you are new to the series like I am, you'll rarely notice, as the plot isn't dependent on it. What would have earned the game an even higher score, however, would be if LucasArts found a way to appeal to those who don't enjoy adventure games, as the puzzles can be too difficult or time-consuming for the novice to complete. Overall, if you enjoy adventure games or have enjoyed them in the past, Escape From Monkey Island will definitely appeal to you.

Review Posted On 5 July 2001.