
	Platform PC Genre Adventure Developer LucasArts Publisher LucasArts Released 1997
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The Curse of Monkey Island

I suppose all the gorgeous watercolor illustrations, groovy island rhythms, and charmingly self-deprecating sense of humor of LeChuck’s Revenge really worked to obscure one of the most deeply disturbing and perverse games ever made, which culminated in a deeply admirable and ambiguous ending which burst with more potential for one, final, all-encompassing Monkey Island game than anyone could reasonably have expected at the game’s beginning. But Ron Gilbert’s departure from Lucasarts directly after Revenge hit stores threw the future of the series into question…and although years later another game was promised, the concern remained: how would the sequel really be able to adequately follow-up on the promise of the previous game? Unfortunately, I should probably have seen the ultimate answer coming a mile away: “Kind of a hallucination, maybe?” But you know what? The highest compliment I can pay The Curse of Monkey Island is that the borderline cop-out…really doesn’t matter, when all is said and done.

Maybe I was still a little too young in the mid-90s to appreciate this, but there was good reason to fear yet another shift in the series’ aesthetics. In 1994 the “other” main adventure game series, King’s Quest, had redesigned its interface and colors into a truly hellish sub-Disney design…and the new Monkey Island was also going to be “cartooned up”, so to speak. Happily, any fretting over the dreaded change would have been unfounded. It’s difficult to adequately express just how appealing the visuals of Curse of Monkey Island are. The best I can do is say that this is probably the most visually ravishing game I’ve ever played. I’m trying to think of another game that has such exquisite, vibrant colors…I can’t think of a single one.

And while we’re on this subject, we have to get that aural element in there too: the soundtrack is sublime. To be sure, there are dozens of video game soundtracks that I think might be “better”, but then a lot of these soundtracks tend to call attention to themselves by virtue of their more rousing numbers, don’t they? Here instead is a soundtrack with no big theme (outside of the justly famous title track), that is so modest, subtle, and so closely resembles natural ambience that you could easily finish the game and think that “There was no soundtrack”. Even the musical style evades me: the closest I can come to expressing what it sounds like is “colonial American jazz”. Michael Land, the composer, also scored the first two Monkey Island games, but his work here is a revelation. The “standard” instruments (drum, violin, flute, trumpet, piano) are completely eschewed in favor of the oboe, bassoon, piccolo, accordion, clarinet, saxophone,

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etc. The xylophone and steel drums are present, but not as heavily as you’d expect from a Caribbean-situated game. I know it’s a cliché, but each musical piece so tenderly caresses the environment it’s performed in you’d expect it to have grown there organically, rather than painstakingly pre-designed to “fit” there.

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The flawless visual and aural presentation combined is what makes this such a masterpiece. I always have my cracked, battered jewel case close at hand, for there are at least a dozen locations in this game that I leave on the screen for hours at a time during those times when I have menial things to do that don’t require my computer. And this game is now a decade old; how many other games of such vintage can make the same claim? Some games that came out within the past six months aren’t worthy to be in the same room as Curse of Monkey Island. (For years I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn the Barbery Coast into a screensaver for my desktop, but haven’t had any luck. If anyone out there has been able to do such a thing, I’d be grateful to hear more about it.)

As sometimes happens when playing a game years after its initial release, Curse of Monkey Island makes for a surprisingly poignant experience; as far as I’m concerned, this is the “last” Lucasarts game. Without making any value judgment on the post-Curse games, their “airbrushed-to-a-mirror-sheen” waxy three-dimensionalism really isn’t my thing, and gets in the way of my appreciating them. I wish another game could have been, or could be, made like this one.

Problems, matey, tharr be two. Curiously, the world is a creatively thin one. I finished the game originally over a weekend without even trying, but that’s not entirely what I mean. LeChuck’s Revenge, perhaps only because it was significantly harder, felt like a much richer world with unnecessary detail. Curse of Monkey Island has neither the time nor the space for extraneous material. If you can interact with something, that means you have to in order to finish the game; so you very rarely find a place like the fried chicken hut or the gravedigger’s hut that’s nifty to look around. They manage to introduce many nifty new characters (the troupe of barbers, Murray the demonic skull, and Goodsoup the hotel man among them), but then they’re hardly ever allowed to contribute to the material, so they seem criminally underused. Here is the rare game that might have greatly benefited from some filler.

The other problem really shocked me. LeChuck’s Revenge had one of the best climactic end-games it’s ever been my privilege to experience in a game. I can’t believe that the awful conclusion of its follow-up came from the same people. Taken in conjunction with its two-second non-ending, you should not waste a second of your precious, short life actually finishing the game. Once Mr. Brush makes his way back to the Big Whoop carnival, it’s time to log off and shut down.

Speaking of which, apparently the fact that Gilbert wasn’t around to work on Monkey Island 3 didn’t escape the staff’s notice. When the Zombie Pirate LeChuck gets the chance to “explain” (heavy sigh…) the totality of his pillaging career, he includes free of charge his master plans for Monkey Island. Over the last few years a shamelessly commercialized, Disneyland-ish theme park was erected on the island, its seemingly family-friendly pirate atmosphere only masking the fact that the theme park is actually the gateway to hell, with the poor monkeys enslaved within the bowels of the island to operate the island’s many rides. “After I defeat you, LeChuck,” solemnly swears our hero, “I swear I’ll come back and free all the monkeys!” The demonic pirate only rumbles with mirth…

From what I’ve experienced, many people harbor an insistence that North American voice acting is unworthy, uniformly inferior and disastrous compared to virtually every other country in the world. I therefore take great pleasure and pride in paying heed to (and pointing out) outstanding vocal performances in English. On the level of performance, The Curse of Monkey Island is, once again, tediously, predictably phenomenal. Like the soundtrack, the marvel comes from how no one is allowed to have a “big scene” or monologue, not to mention the ancient tradition that “comic” acting is unimportant when compared to “dramatic” acting. Back in 1997 a great deal of fuss was kicked up over the fact that Gary Coleman would be playing a cameo character in Monkey Island 3. Well, gosh…who cares?! I was much more excited when I heard the beautiful voice of Alan Young (better known to many as Scrooge McDuck) coming out of a minor character (no excitement over that, of course…).

LeChuck’s Revenge had a significantly more profound impact on me, and I don’t think any Lucasarts game could dethrone the timeless masterpiece Sam and Max Hit the Road…but The Curse of Monkey Island is really nipping at its heels. I believe only its shameless brevity keeps it from knocking the dog and rabbit from the top of the totem pole, and I would get deeply annoyed at anyone daring to call this game an “also-ran”. I could probably praise it for hours, but I really need to bring it to a stop. Um, hmmm…We’ll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange. Ah…yes, that did it…

Uh, door hinge…?

Brendan Lynch

April 20, 2007