Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Adventure

Publisher: LucasArts

Developer: LucasArts

ESRB: T (Teen)

Released: Q2 2001

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Escape From Monkey Island

Score: 8.0 / 10

Pros: 

- Runs just like the PC version

- All of the hilarity and great gags that you come to expect from the Monkey Island series

- Love those pop culture references

- Some funny mini-games

- Great "making-of" features

Cons:

- Annoying load times on game

- Strange sound cutting on speech

- Little replay value

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Review: Escape from Monkey Island (PC)

"Escape from Monkey Island provides a good PC-style adventure game to the Playstation 2, which performs as well if not better than it's predecessor."

Ahhh!!!! More Monkey Island! A few years ago with the release of Curse of Monkey Island, after it's extended hiatus, an itch in the adventure gamer's mind-eye was scratched. (Ouch! - Omni) After finishing the game, I was worried that the next game might be a long way's away, but thankfully, Escape From Monkey Island came out for PCs in October of 2000. LucasArts, never missing a step, decided that it would be a great game to port to the Playstation 2 (a game going from PC to console, what will they think of next?) and here is their final product.

For the uninitiated, the Monkey Island series involves the bumblings of Guybrush Threepwood, the most swashbuckling buccaneer ever to sail the Tri-Island region. Now married to his love Elaine, they return to Melee Island so that Elaine can once again govern. Upon their arrival, they discover that Elaine has been declared dead and that there is to be an election for a new governor. Enter the opponent: Charles L. Charles. (Gee that doesn't look anything like the evil Zombie Ghost Pirate LeChuck.) Anyways, you are thrown headlong into the action of trying to resolve the usual series of misunderstandings, problems, and general weirdness using only your cunning, ability to hold your breath for 10 minutes, and collection of useless items (how else can you refer to an artificial head?). The puzzles that you must get by in gameplay are aggravating at times in not only their complexity but in their completely insane solutions. Almost any item that you find could be the key to solving the problem but don't count on it - more likely it's something that you haven't found yet and you're going to be spending some time backtracking trying to find the missing piece to that puzzle. Remember that this game is not a traditional adventure game, so remember that humor is the most important facet of this series and your solutions should be geared towards thinking that way.

Visually, this game is identical to the PC version. All of the characters are 3D rendered but move on a 2D background. It looks really good, but personally I prefer the Curse of Monkey Island visuals with the painted backgrounds. Aurally, this game sounds really good but suffers

 from a little glitch that drove me insane at times. For some inexplicable reason, the speech will sometimes get quieter and then return to normal in a moment. (Imagine my chagrin at playing with the remote while trying to watch a cutscene). The last remaining gameplay

 problem is the frequent load times - every time you leave an area expect to wait for a few moments as well as during transitions on cutscenes, both can be annoying at times.

Strengths? A really funny game that incorporates some of the abilities of the PS2 well, such as the Dual Shock controllers that 

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rumble whenever something explodes. The controller layout took much less time to learn on the PS2 than on the PC and is more intuitive. Remember to check out the options on the game, there are some great things to find on the disk (try the multiplayer options) as well as some great "making of" features.

All in all, Escape from Monkey Island provides a good PC-style adventure game to the Playstation 2, which performs as well if not better than it's predecessor. Unfortunately, it does lack the replay value besides nostalgia which might detract for some but may help increase the audience to PC-style adventure gaming.

- Tazman

(July 20, 2001)

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