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A noble attempt, but my least favorite MI game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Escape From Monkey Island is the 4th entry in a series of adventure games starring our favorite wannabe pirate, Guybrush Threepwood. I grew up on these games, developed by the LucasArts gaming company and consider myself a pretty good adventure gamer. However, being well versed in all things Monkey Island, I can confidently say that this is the weakest game in the series thus far. I'm not implying that it's unplayable by any means, but it just didn't quite have the spirit of the previous 3.

So once again, Guybrush finds himself on Melee Island, the first island you visit from the original MI. The game picks up pretty much where the last one left off, with Guybrush and Governor Elaine Marley newly wed and returning from their honey moon. Elaine has been pronounced dead and must run for re-election against Charles L. Charles, a mysterious newcomer. There's also a new villain introduced, the pirate hating Ozzie Mandrill from Australia, and what MI game would be complete without the ghost pirate Captain LeChuck. Or the demon from heck pirate as he's now referred to. Just like previous games, you're after one goal. In EFMI, that goal is to discover The Ultimate Insult before Ozzie Mandrill can.

Just like any MI game, there are familiar characters from previous games to interact with. The only problem is the project leaders on this one are new to the world of Monkey Island and instead of really creating anything new or original, they spend most of the story rehashing old jokes. In fact there are so many inside jokes for fans of the old games, it starts to become a little tedious after a while. I found myself rolling my eyes more often than laughing. It feels like they tried so hard to please former fans that they ignored the fact that most of these jokes would go right over the heads of newcomers, but I guess they figured the target audience would only be fans of the previous games.

So once you leave Melee Island you explore a couple other islands before ending up on Monkey Island. If I'm not mistaken, this installment features the fewest islands to explore out of any other game, which is a shame because it makes it feel a lot shorter. When sailing around on your ship, you can see Phatt Island and Booty Island, previous islands from Monkey Island 2, but to my disappointment, you never get to revisit them. Insult sword fighting is replaced by Monkey Kombat, which I found to be quite challenging. I believe it took me a whole night to solve this part of the game. Overall the puzzles were pretty challenging and sometimes I don't know how an average gamer could solve them without the help of a walkthrough. Unlike previous MI games, there isn't an option for easy or difficult puzzles.

Escape From Monkey Island runs on the GrimE engine that was developed for the superior Grim Fandango. That makes it the second LucasArts adventure game not to run on the SCUMM engine, and the first MI game to feature 3D graphics and atmospheres. That's not necessarily a problem, it is necessary for games to take advantage of advancing technology, but unfortunately the 3D graphics in this game just don't look that great. The only time they look acceptable is when the game pauses for a cut scene to further the plot. Other than that, they look rather primitive by today's standards and even by the standard set by Grim Fandango which was released only a year prior. I prefer the look of Curse of Monkey Island which featured beautiful 2D graphics and backgrounds.

I was delighted that Dominic Armato and Earl Boen reprised their roles as Guybrush and LeChuck from Curse of Monkey Island, the first "talkie" MI. They do a great job voicing those characters and hopefully will continue to do so should a 5th MI go into production. The rest of the voice actors however were average to bad. Every time Otis opened his mouth I usually found myself hitting the button to skip his dialogue. I know this is only a computer game but I expect a little better voice acting. The music was decent but not as good as the music in Curse. It usually got a little repetitive in some areas and there weren't any new character themes or motifs introduced that stuck in my head.

Overall, it's a decent adventure game if you look at it from a stand-alone point of view, but in comparison to the rest of the MI series, it doesn't stand up to its predecessors. If you're a fan of MI, I would recommend playing it just for nostalgia's sake, but don't expect it to blow you away. For newcomers to the series who still enjoy adventure games, I would recommend playing the other games first or any of the other adventure games developed by LucasArts.

a GREAT game! .. but hard to sell :(

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: April 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I absolutely loved this game!
The characters, the music, the art, the dialog .. it's all just done so amazingly well.
The worst part about it for me was when it ended .. I just wanted it to keep going.
I really, really hope they make another one.

Unfortunately a game like this is not easy to sell to the general gaming public. It's hard to advertise to people what is so great about it and because of that I would imagine that it's difficult to sell many copies.
I can only guess about the outrageous number of hours and the extreme amount of effort that must have gone into making this game.
I don't know how many copies have sold, but I don't think it's nearly enough to make up for the amount of work that went into it.

If you can manage to do so, I recommend playing all the other monkey island games first (in order) to really immerse yourself in the Monkey Island world.
Monkey Island 1 and 2 are pretty old so don't expect to be impressed with graphics or sound but they're both still great fun.
Monkey Island 3 (The Curse of Monkey Island) is a more recent release that is comparable to this game in quality .. even without the 3D graphics .. it too is a great game!

Monkey island: more fun than a barrel of monkeys... with one

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

4 star fun rating is because of all the game's bugs (little programing errors that they didn't catch) the only one i hit was in monkey combat, i couldn't get through cause it would freeze up and i would hav to restart the game (i don't know if it on cpu version i have ps2 version) it did it each time so i played to that spot again (like 5 sixths of the way in) and it did it AGAIN!!!!!!! te game itself is hillarious i used online guides for the puzzles i couldn't figure out. it has more bugs than what i found (looking on various websites makes it odvious) i rate it 4 stars because of the bugs.

Truly Original

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I suppose you could say that I've been living underground, as this is the first exposure that I've had to the Monkey Island series. I bought this game based on the cover art and the concept. I was looking for an inventive game, and boy, did I get one. I've never encountered a game quite like Escape from Monkey Island, and it depresses me that it is the last game in the series. The puzzles are challenging, but only because they require thought. The jokes are incredibly funny, and they last through the entire game. Although I've never played any of the other Monkey Island or LucasArt games, I picked up on a lot of the inside jokes and laughed some more. The interaction with the settings was unique, as were the responses from other characters. The music was fitted perfectly to the theme, and was highly addictive without being annoying. The gameplay was slick. The graphics were sharp and colorful. The only drawback I can think of is the insanity of Monkey Kombat. I didn't like that I had to go online to figure out how to win Monkey Kombat and advance to the end of the game. The designers could have come up with something less involved in that situation, which is the singular reason why I gave the game only 4 stars.

Overall, this is a wonderful game. I highly recommend that you check it out.

Best series of games ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is part 4 out of 4. I gotta say i've been playing monkey island ever since i accidently discovered it and i've been hooked. Believe it or not i learned a lot of things from it, like what "grog" is and a lot of other things. This game requires you to use your head and use found objects to create tools to escape all kinds of challenges. Part I was excellent Part II was pretty good too, part 3 (Curse of Monkey island) is probably my favorite. I'll be honest in Curse of monkey island i got to the very last challenge and I never completed it. It was quite hard and was taking sooooo long that i just quit the game...but the overall game is great and so humerous and helarious i love it. The best thing is you really can't die in the game unless you discover a secret way to. Another great thing is it usually has 2 different endings depending on which route you took during the game. I love it!!! And i want Part 5 to be released already!!!!! If you've never played this game, start with Part I (graphics are a little old and 2d but it looks classic) if you can find it in stores, that way you won't be confused with the story line! Part 3 (curse of MI) is more of a great cartoon look, and part 4 (escape from MI) is a 3d game which is kinda hard to control he tends to walk the opposite way you press the arrow key! You'll have to get used this one. Hope this helps :/

Nowhere near as bad as some make out to be

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've read many people's view of this game on the internet... and some treat it like the worst game ever made. There are some very mixed views as well. For instance, some say the puzzles are too easy, others say they are too hard. A lot of all time Monkey Island fans say this is not as good as the last three, as the point n' click method has been abandoned in favour of using the keyboard, and they HATE the 3d graphics.

In my personal opinion, this game is good. It's just as good as "The Curse Of Monkey Island" (the 3rd game), or perhaps better. It's also funnier than the last games, as there are tons of references to movies, especially "Star Wars".

This game starts off at where the last one finished, where Guybrush and Elaine get married and the demonically evil demon/zombie/ghost/pirate Le Chuck has been burried under a mountain of ice. When they arrive back at Mêlée Island after their honeymoon, they find that Elaine has been declared dead, and a new govenor called Charles L. Charles has arrived to take her position, and decides to destroy her mansion (but the catapult operator is absolute garbage at throwing rocks) Elaine needs to run for govenor in order to beat Charles L. Charles. Meanwhile Guybrush has to do everything his wife tells him to do, which results in various problems, like being framed for bank robbery and trying to win a diving contest.

The previous games' graphics were in 2D, but the 3D graphics here look pretty good, especially the detailed backgrounds.

The music is also great in this game. Some of tunes will get stuck in your head for weeks!

I give the game 4 stars, because of a few letdowns like the stupid ending and Monkey Kombat.

Escape From Monkey Island

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game just didn't live up to the other 3 previous games. The graphics were great, but the puzzles were complicated and incredably illogical. I often found myself asking, what is the point? The dialogue was good, but sometimes kind of repetitive. They had somewhat of a good idea for a plot, but it went awry. I'm glad I only rented this game and didn't waste too much money.

THE WORST GAME EVER!!!!!!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 22
Date: October 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is by far the worst game ever! I rented it thinking it was going to be a pirate fighting action game but I was wrong! You don't even get to move around. All you get to do is choose what action you want to do and most of the time it doesn't even work. What ever you do don't buy or rent this game. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

is or isent this the game i want

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 9
Date: May 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a vary fun and hard game to play.IF YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY IT!!! dont play this game unless you are a GREAT gamer and know what to do because you are just a good gamer and know your video games or have the book to go along with it. man, i would still be at the first leavel clueless if i dident have the gide for it.

Absolutely Hilarious

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

You could say I've been living under a rock, but this is my first Monkey Island game. I've rented it at least three times (I don't know why I just don't buy it). The game in itself is hilarious, with the crazy characters and odd gameplay. I love this game especially, though, becuase of it's magnificent level of difficulty. It definitely isn;t easy, but I've never been frustrated or thought it was hard. I also love the way that it's not a normal game in the sense that you have to collect golden coins or kill enemies. You don't just have to press buttons-you actually have to think about the solutions to the strange puzzles. Lastly, the graphics and sound are of a good quality. If you have never tried a Monkey Island game before and have somewhat older kidsm just trust us on this one and buy this game. It's awesome!

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