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Escape
from Monkey Island
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In
contrast to most LucasArts adventures, the Monkey
Island games have always been really over the top.
Whereas games like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango
emphasized character and story, the Monkey Island
games have increasingly leaned toward trying to
make you laugh by means of an endless barrage of
puns and pop-culture references. This is true of
Escape from Monkey Island, the fourth game in the
series. Much of it is funny, although a lot of it
isn't. This inconsistency winds through the whole
game, from the puzzles to the interface. When it's
good, Escape from Monkey Island is very, very good.
But the game's missteps do detract from the overall
experience.
In
this chapter of Guybrush Threepwood's adventures,
the self-proclaimed mighty pirate and his new
bride, Governor Elaine Marley, have returned from
their honeymoon only to find that Elaine has been
declared dead. This incorrect declaration has ended
her lifetime term as governor, so she must now run
against Charles L. Charles, a foppish glad-hander
with a dark secret. What adds to the political
intrigue is that the pirate hangouts in the
Tri-Island area are being bought up and made into
tourist-friendly venues like StarBuccaneer's and
Planet Threepwood, thanks to an Australian land
developer named Ozzie Mandrill. To top it all off,
everyone seems to be looking for a voodoo artifact
called the Ultimate Insult. These events aren't as
unrelated as they may seem, and Guybrush must help
Elaine stop the gentrification of his stomping
grounds and find the Ultimate Insult before it
falls into the wrong hands.
To
reach these ends, Guybrush must once again explore
the strange Caribbean Islands that surround his
home, Melee Island. He'll visit Jambalaya Island
(the island most affected by Mandrill's takeover)
and Lucre Island and once again return to the
titular Monkey Island itself. Many of the locales
will be familiar to longtime fans of the series, as
will a number of the characters. LeChuck, Murray
the skull, Herman Toothrot, Otis, Carla, Meathook,
and many, many others make guest appearances. In
fact, there may even be too many cameos by old
favorites.
There's
an old joke. A guy walks into a bar and notices
people keep yelling out numbers, and everyone in
the bar busts up laughing. He asks the bartender
what's going on. The bartender tells him that the
regulars have told the same jokes for so long that
now they just refer to them by number. Much of the
humor in Escape from Monkey Island is like this.
Many jokes allude to earlier events in the series,
and they're only funny if you're familiar with the
references. For instance, the fact that Otis the
pirate likes flowers is a gag from the first game,
and here it seems like the designers are simply
pointing it out, hoping you'll remember how funny
it was the first time around.
It's
true that Escape from Monkey Island does have
plenty of new gags and characters, and many of them
are really funny. The talking figurehead on
Guybrush's new ship is particularly amusing, as are
characters like Pegnose Pete; Marco de Pollo, the
world's greatest cliff diver; and Miss Rivers, the
teacher at the pirate reformation academy. The
humor is enhanced by the universally excellent
voice work. But some of the new characters aren't
quite as interesting. Ozzie Mandrill, the evil real
estate developer, is only funny if you think simply
being Australian is funny - although his particular
way of talking does lend itself to a very surreal
match of Insult Sword Fighting, one of the more
humorous sequences in the game.
The
bout with Ozzie is the only appearance of the
preferred dueling technique in the Tri-Island area.
This time, you'll learn Insult Arm Wrestling and
Monkey Kombat, a variation on the Insult
competition and a parody of the fighting game
Mortal Kombat. The concept is funny, but
unfortunately Monkey Kombat may be the single
biggest problem with Escape from Monkey Island. You
must learn to trade barbs in the monkey language,
and it all builds up to a really funny parody of
Mortal Kombat's famous opening. But the art of
Monkey Kombat itself is a frustrating
one.
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