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ESCAPE FROM MONKEY ISLAND (PS2) | 
 enlarge | From: LucasArts Entertainment
Category: Video Games
Buy Used: $3.49
New (3) Used (11) Collectible (2) from $3.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 3536
Platform: Playstation2
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Operating System: Playstation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: Unknown
UPC: 023272110352
EAN: 0023272110352
ASIN: B00005AW20
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Disc is in very good condition. Manual not included. Some stickers.
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Product Description
In a world dominated by grim and gritty console games, it's difficult to find a madcap adventure about the triumphs of a goofball would-be pirate. Yet that's exactly what we have in Escape from Monkey Island. This PC port follows the latest misadventures of Guybrush Threepwood as he tries to make sense of his ridiculous world. The PC-style gameplay consists of conversing, exploring, and lots of puzzle solving. Gamers who lack patience or who loathe Myst-like puzzles might want to skip this game, but they'll be missing on one of the most unique console experiences on the market. The game's forte is clearly its style. Its dialogue, while sometimes lengthy, is often witty and boisterously entertaining. Its characters and environments are bright and vibrant. Its puzzles--in which you often match wacky objects in bizarre situations--are straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Few games can match Escape from Monkey Island's humor, and none of them are on the PlayStation2. Although the character designers and animators were able to achieve a playful style, some of the series' personality was lost in the translation from 2-D sprite-based graphics to 3-D polygons. Still, there's really nothing else like it on the PlayStation2. Gamers looking for something different or wanting to take a break from saving the world from cataclysmic menaces should give this game a shot. --Raymond M. Padilla Pros: - A unique, lighthearted, hilarious adventure
- Playful graphics
- Side-splitting dialogue
Cons: - Some puzzles are tricky, with unobvious solutions
- Myst-like gameplay mechanics may bore some players
- Some conversations are unnecessarily long
Amazon.com Product Description
Escape from Monkey Island continues in the hilarious anachronistic tradition of its award-winning PC predecessors, The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, and The Curse of Monkey Island. Escape features an original cinematic story full of drama, intrigue, and, of course, sidesplitting humor.The story follows wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood and his new bride, Elaine Marley-Threepwood. Upon their return to Melee Island, of which Elaine is the elected governor, the couple finds out that Elaine has been declared dead and that her office has been usurped by a slick--yet strangely familiar--politician. Escape from Monkey Island is highlighted by hundreds of challenging puzzles, which are set amidst dozens of rich and brilliantly rendered backgrounds.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 A noble attempt, but my least favorite MI game January 1, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
 a GREAT game! .. but hard to sell :( April 19, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
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!
Monkey island: more fun than a barrel of monkeys... with one April 15, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
4 star fun rating is because of all the game's bugs (little programing errors that they didn't catch) the only one i hit was in monkey combat, i couldn't get through cause it would freeze up and i would hav to restart the game (i don't know if it on cpu version i have ps2 version) it did it each time so i played to that spot again (like 5 sixths of the way in) and it did it AGAIN!!!!!!! te game itself is hillarious i used online guides for the puzzles i couldn't figure out. it has more bugs than what i found (looking on various websites makes it odvious) i rate it 4 stars because of the bugs.
Truly Original November 25, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
Best series of games ever! September 13, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
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 :/
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