Escape From Monkey Island - Worth Playing?

[DalekFlay]

I got rid of all my old game boxes and discs years ago but while sorting out a box of old shit this morning I stumbled on the discs for this shunned game. I don't really remember ever playing it past the opening segments. I'm not sure if that was because I was gaming less at that time or because it was so horrible it turned me off.

Anyway... is this game a complete loss, throw it away and pretend I wasn't reminded of it? Or is it like Thief 3, less worthy than the originals but still worth playing?

Help me Codex bastards.

 

[Eyeball]

It's alright, but nowhere near as good as 1-3. Worse writing and humour, plus they replaced Elaine's voice actress and gave her too large a part in the storyline.

I liked Telltale's games better (from episode 3 onwards).

 

[ghostdog]

Yeah, it's not complete crap, if you've played all the rest it's worth a try.

 

[taxalot]

When I played it, I thought it was better than CMI. In hindsight, I now of course think otherwise but I think it's proof enough that the game is fairly enjoyable in its own right.

 

[Jaesun]

It is worth a playthough. Get is on sale, but don't expect too much from it.

At least it's before Telltale went all QTE Interactive Movies.

 

[procrastinator]

Played it a year or two ago, have to agree with the above gentlemen.

And here are some dialogues that reminded me of the Codex for some reason:

Spoiler

- Umm, miss?
- Can I help you?
- What happened to the SCUMM Bar?
- Oh, we're under new management now. We've done away with all the pirates, swill, and wenches.
- But I liked the pirates.
- Ew, gross. Nobody likes real pirates anymore. That's so last week.
- But I liked the swill.
- We've replaced that old swill with family-friendly fun beverages. We have quite a selection.
- But I liked the wenches. I mean they, um, made it seem so authentically piratey.
- Our decorators went for realism without the fright. They insisted that we replace the wenches with totems and bamboo.

- Did you know this place used to be a real pirate bar?
- Really? More real than this?
- Oh yeah. They had real grog, real pirates, and real fights.
- Sounds great! But, um, what's grog?
- <Sigh> Never mind. Enjoy your stay.

- Pardon me.
- Yes?
- Do you know what they did to the SCUMM Bar?
- SCUMM Bar? What's that?
- It's what this place used to be. Before they redecorated it. It was dark, dingy, smelled like grog gone bad...
- Sounds disgusting.
- <Sigh> Yeah. It was great.

 

[VonVentrue]

I'd say it's a decent adventure in its own right, but a rather poor Monkey Island game. Taken as a whole, it fails on too many levels to ever be considered a worthy entry in the series - I simply couldn't get over the "hit-and-miss" quality of the art direction, Monkey Kombat and the seemingly endless string of pop-culture references, all working to the game's detriment.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah, how does monkey combat work on PC?

 

[groke]

GrimE is terribad, but at least Grim Fandango was decent enough to endure the shitty trappings. MI4 is not.

 

[Jugashvili]

Back then, I had a hard time enjoying it. Nowadays, I can't even bring myself to play this trainwreck of a game. Skip this one. (P.S.: Skip Tales also.)

 

[DalekFlay]

Back then, I had a hard time enjoying it. Nowadays, I can't even bring myself to play this trainwreck of a game. Skip this one. (P.S.: Skip Tales also.)

I liked Tales a good bit actually, and finished it. So maybe that means I can tolerate Escape.

 

[Keshik]

I found Escape to be the worst of the series, they should have stuck with CMI's style rather than the Grim Fandango approach. It wasn't a terrible game, though, from what I recall of playing it there were some funny bits and some decent puzzles. I'd say LeChuck's role, Herman's identity and Monkey Kombat are the big negatives.

Also, not enough Murray in it.

 

[Scroo]

I didn't enjoy Escape at all. The puzzles suck, the dialogue and humor seems forced and that monkey battle minigame made me deinstall it immediately. You are better of replaying MI 1-3

 

[VonVentrue]

Yeah, how does monkey combat work on PC?

It's the same regardless of platform, fairly similar to insult sword-fighting (only childish, tedious, devoid of any charm and totally unfunny).

 

[Eyeball]

It kind of hinges on whether you think "Monkey Combat" is a hilarious pun. It isn't, so that entire section of the game sucks.

The worst thing about MI4, on the other hand, are the facial expressions, or lack thereof. As it came out just when 3D was starting to become halfway advanced in video games, the environments and models look fairly decent most of the time. Except for the facial expressions. Compared to the wonderfully drawn expressions of MI3, MI4's mimicry just looks extremely wooden.

Thankfully, Telltale's graphics had advanced to the point where the faces were more expressive than ever, but MI4 looks far more dated than any of the previous games.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, there's a mod for grim fandango that gives a mouse based interface, which is the sister project of scummvm, residual. They probably will later release a mouse interface for escape.

Anyway, if you like Monkey island because of jokes and puns, escape has some good ones (like an Y2K bug joke and an abacus and the LUA bar). If you like the puzzles, the game has some very clever and creative (I love the swamp and it's space time continuum puzzles). The bad part are the graphics, now outdated, and some gameplay elements and interface. Oh, and I hate this game version of zombie form lechuck. Though elaine changed voice, we still have dominic armato and earl boen. And we have returning characters and locations. I liked the revelations of the plot, even though some people pointed a lot of plot holes, I think MI is a comedy series that would explain those with a joke...

The game doesn't feel "pirate-ish" as monkey 1 to 3, but that's the point of the game plot.

Tales of monkey island, a telltale game, is the return to form of the series, though it has a lot rehash puzzles that are common in the series (forests with the right order of directions that can be achieved with a strange map, insults, end with lechuck annoying you and jumping from screen to screen until you figure a way to defeat him), they made a fun adventure game with bold design choices for the status quo, like adding a "romantic interest" (even though GB is married) with the bounty hunter morgan, cuting guybrush's hand and giving him a hook, and

Spoiler

killing guybrush, giving a ghost and zombie form for him

. Tales has one problem, though: walk controls are not mouse-click based.

 

[Metro]

I didn't find Escape particularly funny and LeChuck is subordinated to 'hench-villain' status. The main villain is a dated parody of Rupert Murdoch.

 

[wwsd]

I'm a bit soft on this game, because it was the first MI that I ever played. At 13, I thought it was pretty funny. Of course, I then went on to play the first game, and that put things into perspective. I have yet to play the rest of the series. I guess if you've played the other games and you want to be completionist, then you might as well play EMI. In retrospect, I don't think it's very good, but it doesn't actively offend me either. But perhaps that's just because I never grew up with the classic games, so there's no real emotional attachment there.

Monkey Kombat is just retarded and indefensible, though. It's like insult swordfighting, except instead of insults, you have different combat stances, which you can switch to by means of different monkey noise combinations. One stance beats the other, basically. It's a colossal waste of time, it's just dumb monkey noises instead of insults, and the final section of the game revolves around it.

By the way, speaking of Monkey Island, are those fancy special editions of the earlier games any good?

 

[Darth Slaughter]

By the way, speaking of Monkey Island, are those fancy special editions of the earlier games any good?

They are exactly the same game, even the new graphics have the same old animation, like guybrush only waving his arm when using items on the background. It's like the just superimposed the new sprites over the old ones. The cartoon art style of the special edition of the first one is a little exagerated, because graphics of the original monkey island tended to be more "realistic", like indiana jones games and the dig, with very few cartoon clichés. They tried to aproach the visual stile of monkey 3, 4 and tales of MI, to bring some consistency, but guybrush looks like a nazi boy with that new hair.

The new graphics of monkey 2 SE are more like the original art, and guybrush actually looks like guybrush. It's a proper HD remaster.

Both of then can be changed to old version by pressing a key and it's seamless, but only monkey 2 has the new voice acting (which are top-notch) in the old version, something that is not in TSOMI:SE.

 

[Jugashvili]

By the way, speaking of Monkey Island, are those fancy special editions of the earlier games any good?

They are exactly the same game, even the new graphics have the same old animation, like guybrush only waving his arm when using items on the background. It's like the just superimposed the new sprites over the old ones. The cartoon art style of the special edition of the first one is a little exagerated, because graphics of the original monkey island tended to be more "realistic", like indiana jones games and the dig, with very few cartoon clichés. They tried to aproach the visual stile of monkey 3, 4 and tales of MI, to bring some consistency, but guybrush looks like a nazi boy with that new hair.

The new graphics of monkey 2 SE are more like the original art, and guybrush actually looks like guybrush. It's a proper HD remaster.

Both of then can be changed to old version by pressing a key and it's seamless, but only monkey 2 has the new voice acting (which are top-notch) in the old version, something that is not in TSOMI:SE.

This. Also, if you choose to play SOMI:SE, get the Guybrush Hair Patch to get rid of the Nazi look.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

This. Also, if you choose to play SOMI:SE, get the Guybrush Hair Patch to get rid of the Nazi look.

But does it change the hair in close-ups/cutscenes?

Edit: I checked it. Yes, they change...

 

[CyberWhale]

This. Also, if you choose to play SOMI:SE, get the Guybrush Hair Patch to get rid of the Nazi look.

Why the Hell would you want to do that?

 

[Jugashvili]

Why the Hell would you want to do that?

...because I would like the game to at least vaguely ressemble the one I played in 1990?

 

[Aeschylus]

EMI is the worst game in the series, including the Telltale ones, but it's still better than a lot of the Euro shovelware adventure games that came out after it. Not that that's saying much.

 

[Eyeball]

Which games are you referring to here? I'd say that just about all the Daedalic stuff I've played is far better than EMI, for instance.