Escape from Monkey Island Preview

It's another Monkey Island game; it's another Monkey island game... Did you hear the news? It's another Monkey Island game! And to conclude this article; it's another Monkey Island game!!! Did you get it yet... ... nah, I won't repeat myself that much; I'm just very excited. And I swear not to use any pirate talk to show my exaltation.

The puppet show...

Off to the canyon...

About 6-7 months ago, the word was out that Lucas Arts is working on the forth sequel to the series, probably so that they would stop the inflow of profanity-rich flame mails, sent by our editor Dex. I guess he finally managed to blackmail Lucas into starting their work on the next Monkey game... Apparently, they felt so threatened that they decided to comply with the demand. Not long after the last ICQ-bomb was sent, a shady, trench-coated character approached Sean Clark and Mike Stemmle, whose main claim to fame was the rather funny Sam and Max Hit the Road, and ordered them to create Escape from Monkey Island. The two designers later claimed "We've heard from almost a dozen eager fans, some of them non-relatives!" and "...One of us heard voices telling them to make EFMI, and the other one said, "Dude, I heard the same voices." Of course, only the more gullible of the readers would believe such a lame excuse...

The story of Monkey Island 4 begins a few months after the events in The Curse of Monkey Island, with Guybrush and Governor Elaine Marley returning from their honeymoon, only to realize that "something's rotten" on Melee Island. No one has seen Elaine on Melee since the original game, The Secret of Monkey Island; I guess the folks felt she's as dead as that Monty Python parrot (No... it's just sleepin'!) --- she's been declared "no more" and her governor's mansion put up for grabs; actually under siege by a catapult-wielding (Drunken, or blind?) pirate. But that's just the start of newlyweds' troubles...

It seems that, there's a new boy in town, going by the name of Charles L. Charles. Oooh, the initials kinda sounds familiar, don't they? I swear I smell a rat (or a dead pirate)! L. Charles (now all scented and civilized) is running for Governor, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. When Guybrush is sent off on a little errand-run to Lucre Island to get in touch with Elaine's lawyers (Somebody's got to stop that drunken pirate!), he soon discovers that there are greater forces at work...

An evil land developer named Ozzie Mandrill (He wouldn't happen to be Australian, would he now? In any case, he's the newly introduced villain.) is buying up all the land in the Caribbean and attempting to replace it with theme shops, fast-food restaurants, and shopping malls. Places like Starbuccaneer's (great Scumm Coffy), Planet Threepwood, and many more popular tourist attractions are popping up across the island, causing the slow extinction of the oozy, and hardened swashbuckling pirates... Instead, the place is crawling with pansy ass, well-mannered pirate-marketing-stunt tourist guides... Someone (A hard guess, but I would go with Ozzie.) is trying to destroy the very spirit of the Caribbean cutthroats, so that they could make Melee island, an ideal Caribbean tourist spot. And who else to stand in the way of L. Charles (C'mon, you must've guessed it by now), and the evil landowner Ozzie than our mighty pirate named after a paint program, Guybrush Threepwood. I won't reveal the rest of the plot, since that is certainly one of the great teasers of the adventure genre, but I'll tell you this... It's about a talisman (an ancient voodoo skull) scattered all over the tri-island area, and it has something to do with the "Ultimate Insult"...

Oh yeah, the Ultimate Insult... Insults are not just a sideshow in Monkey Island 4... Remember the exhilarating swordplay of the prequel? They are now an integral part of the plot, and could even be perceived as the game's prevailing motive. New to the series is the (famous) tradition of Insult Arm Wrestling, which during the course of the game becomes a crucial weapon against the bad guys. IAW represents a clear combination of wits, and strength, or at least I hope that's how it's treated on Melee. According to Clark, him and Mike haven't spent much time coming up with the insults. This is, I'm afraid, blatantly apparent from the examples given to the press during the recent San Fran presentation of the game... "I'm going to put your arm in a sling." Comeback: "Why? Are you studying to be a nurse?" and Insult: "I've defeated twelve people today alone." Comeback: "How do you know? You don't have that many fingers." But we have faith in the lads... I'm sure the teasers represent just a small portion of the game's full load of humor; anyways, I'm certain they made those up "on the spot"...

And what would a great adventure be without some mind-boggling puzzles? Remember the one in "Curse" when you had to fly a golden tooth through the window in a helium balloon? Man, did Dex ever had troubles with it... Monkey Island 4 will have only one skill level in the game, so you can forget about "Monkey Lite." The idea is that people, who played the game, played it mostly at "Hard", so there'd be no need to waste development time on the lite version. I kinda feel that's a sound development move, since the latest PC games are taking way too much dev. time. Sean and Mike claim that the puzzle difficulty is on par with Grim Fandango and The Curse of the Monkey Island but a bit easier than the devilishly tough Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge. If we're to believe the developers (yet again), puzzles should be more intuitive (yeah right). Meaning, they'd cause you to kick yourself in the ass repeatedly after you've solved them, and then realized how the answer was right in front you all along. True Monkey fans won't mind though... After all, that's what makes the series so special; that and sayings like: "I'm drier than a dead monkey!"