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Adventure Game Scene of the Day — Wednesday 26 September 2012

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Seven games that make you want to commit suicide, Day 3: Escape from Monkey Island.

There’s more than one way for a game to make you hate life, and pissing on your childhood memories is one of them. In this weird sequel, Stan and Murray have become painfully unfunny (that’s quite a feat on the writers’ part), and LeChuck has been reduced to a mere henchman to the new villain, an Australian land developer who wants to turn the Caribbean into a family resort and make millions off pirate-themed merchandise. I have to say that George Lucas’s company making a game about how merchandising ruins everything has to be the pinnacle of irony. (The only thing that could be more ironic than that would be Disney making a movie glorifying a band of pirates fighting a big, soulless corporation and the politicians it holds in the palm of its hand. Oh, wait…)

And then, after hours of listening to unmemorable secondary characters, solving dubious puzzles and lamenting the loss of the joyful adventurey feel that got sacrificed for the sake of trite political commentary, you get to the gaping HT Marley plothole and realize that the people who’ve been raping you childhood memories aren’t even half as familiar with the original material as you are. That’s enough to give up on life and let a monkey kill you in Monkey Kombat.

     
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I really don’t get all this hate for Escape from Monkey Island, I thought it was a really good game.
I agree it was the worst of the series, but “worst” isn’t an appropriate word regarding this game, imo. Maybe “least awesome”.

And I rather enjoyed Murray’s cameo…

One of the most underrated games ever, imo. Simply because of the legacy of its three predecessors…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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Not at all underrated. This game is pretty bad, and not just for the obvious hideous graphics.

     
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I agree TimovieMan, it has an undeservedly bad reputation. First time I played it I was disappointed, but I tried it again a few years later and enjoyed it quite a bit. The humour is still good, the puzzles are still clever, and characters and story are done well. Graphics are cute.

More importantly, you can’t complain about Escape ruining the legacy of MI when Curse did that already by completely ignoring the ending of Le Chuck’s Revenge.

Kurufinwe - 26 September 2012 11:16 AM

Stan and Murray have become painfully unfunny

Stan had overstayed his welcome already in Curse I thought (don’t even mention Tales), and I never found Murray that funny anyway, but his presence as a salesman was mildly amusing given his character.

     
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Am I hearing you correctly, Oscar, you’re saying Curse is the bad game? I’m both utterly confused and appalled. To me Curse is the best MI game by far.

     
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I had fun playing EfMI, and I’ve replayed it a couple of times. For me it’s a very nice (if not great) adventure game that is funny and has a lot of clever puzzles (that swamp time travel riddle is one of the best I had the privilege to solve).
(Unlike Kurufinwe) I had played it BEFORE MI1 and MI2 (I also loved those two) and after MI3 though.

I think each game in Monkey Island series is a separate game that doesn’t have much to do with the other games in the series (they all just share the same characters and the MI label), and that’s OK with me.

     

Everybody wants to be Cary Grant.
Even Me.

-Cary Grant

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Kasper F. Nielsen - 26 September 2012 12:01 PM

Am I hearing you correctly, Oscar, you’re saying Curse is the bad game? I’m both utterly confused and appalled. To me Curse is the best MI game by far.

Curse is great, I’m just saying that Escape gets too much hate.

(edit: actually that’s not entirely true - AGers gave Escape a higher score.)

Every game has its share of problems and Curse is no exception.

zobraks - 26 September 2012 12:04 PM

I think each game in Monkey Island series is a separate game that doesn’t have much to do with the other games in the series (they all just share the same characters and the MI label), and that’s OK with me.

That’s how I see it, which is why the continuity problems and plotholes don’t bother me. And the fact Guybrush changes his appearance. He looks kinda cute in Escape.

On the graphics: It’s the same engine as Grim Fandango, yet one gets universal praise and the other scorn. So yeah…

     

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Oscar - 26 September 2012 12:06 PM

On the graphics: It’s the same engine as Grim Fandango, yet one gets universal praise and the other scorn. So yeah…

I felt the graphics style fit better with Grim Fandango than with Monkey Island, personally. The extremely stylized “Day of the Dead” artwork seemed, to me at least, to lend itself better to the blocky 3D with textures that looked painted on.

Whereas I personally had felt Curse of Monkey Island, with it’s “traditional animation” look, had captured the “feel” of that series perfectly. Escape’s 3D animation was a huge step backwards by comparison, IMHO, and at the time lost a lot of extra points in my book by inflating the system specs in the process of making the game look worse.

That’s MY explanation for why, in my eyes anyway, two games with the same engine got very different reactions to the graphics.

     
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Great game… it’s not artistically appealing as “The Curse”, Monkey Kombat quickly becomes tedious, and it might be slightly “uneven” in terms of islands (Melee feels deserted and Jambalaya is too eccentric)... but it’s as clever in writing and humor as the previous ones. For example, each character on Lucre deserves a spin-off, like Freddie the Stick Maker Grin

Saying that it’s the worst in the series is just like saying that 100m racer who finishes fourth in the final race is “slow”. The style is very much different from the others, indeed, as it deals with even more “loony” characters and more anachronisms.

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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It is a good game in general with a nice story and clever riddles. I even liked Ozzie! What I really disliked was Guybrush’s quotes and expressions. I felt like I was controlling a total idiot…espessialy in comparison to the rogue and witty (in most cases) Guybrush of the first three MIs. And I agree that it is really a feat to make Murray, one of the funniest characters in adventure game history, not funny…

Oscar - 26 September 2012 12:06 PM

On the graphics: It’s the same engine as Grim Fandango, yet one gets universal praise and the other scorn. So yeah…

No one talked about the background. The awful models is what most people complain about. That’s because of 2 reasons : a) People have used to 2d MI’s until that day. The sudden 3D MI was a bit strange to their eyes. GF had no such 2d predecessors…
b) GF models didn’t really require that much facial details (a skull is a skull after all). When it comes to people’s heads however, the only worse than MI4 that I can think of is Simon 3D…

     
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It’s not a great game, but it’s not worthy of this title.

There are waaay worse game that are suicide worthy.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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I really liked Escape from Monkey Island - i think I played it on PS2 & wasn’t crazy about the interface but that’s my own fault for buying a consol version!

     
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EFMI is my least favorite MI game. And yes it pales in comparisson to COMI or TOMI but it’s still an enjoyable game. It has some flaws. Graphics that don’t fit with the style of the game, the near undable Monkey Combat. Ugh give me insult swordfighting any day. But there are still the basic atractions of any MI game. The colourful places and people you get to meet there. And it has some pretty original ideas such as the steampunk ending. So definitely not the best in the series but neither a game that makes me want to commit suicide.

     
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I’m surprised no one mentioned Guybrush’s quip “Goodbye cruel adventure game! Eh, forget it.” (Who didn’t try to make him jump off the cliff? Innocent)

I’ll echo the comments about EfMI being an OK but not great game, it was also my least favourite. The keyboard controls weren’t too difficult but they made some of the timed puzzles very tricky. This game seemed to have more annoying new characters, the humour seemed to be more hit-and-miss compared to the others (I remember groaning loudly at the self-parody of Planet Threepwood). Monkey Kombat was kind of fun before it got really tedious, but Murray Pong was a nice little Easter egg!

     

Diabolus ex Machina since 1993

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I still say it’s a great game… Tongue

“BUT… IT’S… PINK!!!” is a phrase that’s been in my daily vocabulary ever since…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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I think even the worst game in the world would still be entertaining with Dominic Armato playing the main character!

(and EFMI is far from being the worst game in the world…) Smile

     

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