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Load times are almost unbearable, but minus that, great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: June 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The monkey island series are perhaps the greatest video game series ever, even pitting up against the likes of Final Fantasy, Zelda and all the other great ones.

It's a shame not too many people have actually played the games.

But perhaps this, now on a mainstream platform, will change things.

For those familiar with the older games, there is no such thing as monkey lite on this thing. It's hard right from the get go. I feel sorta dumb after the fact, but the cannon puzzle really had me stumped. (I won't spoil it for you) :)

But the main con to this game is the horrendously slow loadtimes and sometimes choppy animation. Whenever a monkey comes on screen, it's not smooth AT ALL. It's pretty embarrassing if you focus on that, but luckily, not a lot of action takes place int he game. It's more a thinker game.

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Played A Demo Version

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: May 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have played a demo version of this game at a computer show in the Uk and i have to say that what i saw was pretty impressive. This is the 4th in the series and the best to date. This games see's the return to Melee Island when our hero entounters more puzzles and hilarious conquests. This is a must have for any fan of the previous outings, as its shows with age that the Monkey Island series can still be new and exciting

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!

excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: September 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Everyone knows the PC-style adventure game category's been hurtin' for some action for a while now,and many previoully devout followers have strayed from the genre,looking elsewhere to slate their thirst for a good story.But take heart,my comrades in the never-ending battle for quality adventure games,all hope is not lost!A messiah has finally come to deliver the faitful from this purgatorial plateau of thebanal.Classic Q&A style storytelling,mind joggingly scrumptious puzzles,zany wit and over the top silliness,plus visual candy that'll strip your saliva glands bare from all juices,await for the willing gamer.Doesn't that sound delicious?Of course it does.And yet,all good things do come with a price.Ironically,the pop culture heavy humor that is Monkey Island tends to go a bit overboard at times{no pun intended},leaving you with a tummy full of sour grog.But then again,what's a piratey adventure without some seasickness,argh?Overall,YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THIS FINALE TO A LUCAS ARTS LEGACY,so be sure not to miss the boat.

New Adventure Games Take Flight

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

A lot of people play Escape From Monkey Island for one minute and think it's boring. Well, THEY'RE TOTALLY WRONG. This game is awesome. If you like action and very challenging puzzles, and yes monkeys, then you'll love this game. The whole point of the game is you (the main character) just got back from a 3 month honeymoon on a ship with your wife. Your wife is the governer of an island in the caribbean. Since you and your wife were away so long, the 2 of you are pronounced dead at sea. So you have to go to another island and get some family lawyers to help with the "dead at sea" problem and get your wife's job back (which is a life term). I won't tell you anymore about the game except that he gets mixed up with a lot of other things which brings you to puzzles that have to be solved throughout the game. My advice to you if you plan on buying the game and you're not a genius with a whole lot of creativity, which is needed to do the mind-juggling puzzles, you might as well print a walkthrough off the internet. Also, throughout the game, go everywhere you possibly can on the map and look around for stuff you can pick up. You might even pick up stuff you don't need but it's always good to go EVERYWHERE on the maps. I can't stress it enough. Another little secret about the game is when you're on Lucre Island, go into the "Palace of Protheses" and talk to the guy about gettting prothsettic stuff. (I know I'm probably spelling protheses wrong, but go with the flow). Anyway, ask him about free stuff and he'll tell a story and you'll put names in the story. After that, you get a free protheses. He might offer the same free one as you might already have, but keep trying until you get all of them including the head, liver, guts, heart, feet, butt, and stomach. Once you have all of those, combine all of them together, which you would know how to do if you're this far in the game. But, if you got the prothesetic skin too, don't combine it with all of the other 7 protheses. Once you combine all 7, go to the start menu, and go under options. Now there will be an option called "Pong"...which if you like video games you should know this classic. Anyway, if you like mind-puzzling adventure games, I highly suggest you get this game. If you don't have Playstation 2, you can get the computer version.

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.

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.

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 :/

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!

A must get for puzzle lovers - humorless need not apply!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This gem of a game is - by far - the best adventure game to come out since classics such as ZORK and A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's part four of the Monkey Island series (MI in short) but you don't need to play the first three to enjoy it - I didn't play them and I had a blast. (Reading the story in the manual will make sense of most of the previous game reference jokes) It's quirky humor and odd references to pop culture here and there make a laugh out loud funny game. However, the game is not all fun and games. The puzzles range from medium-hard to near impossible, people who have played and enjoyed the "Army Men" series press your button now. The interface is excellent for a ported game from the PC, but be patient for loading times. By far the best feature of this game I've noticed is that there is NO way to permenantly screw something up. You can't die or use up all of your items you need later. Feel free to try everything and anything, and you'll need to!

If you do decide to purchase this game, do NOT, and I repeat DO NOT purchase or download any sort of guide or FAQ for this game. It's a waste of your money because it'll ruin the game. Once you know what to do, there is no thrill or thought involved.

With a more precise rating system, I'd give EFMI 4.5 stars. 1/2 star off for the shortness of the game (only 3 Acts then the ending battle) and loading times. All in all, an excellent game for the puzzle minded.

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