Escape from Monkey Island
Description official descriptions
Guybrush Threepwood has finally defeated the zombie pirate LeChuck, and married his sweetheart Elaine Marley. The happy couple is returning home from an exciting honeymoon. But as they arrive on Melee Island, they notice some very strange changes. A mysterious stranger who calls himself Charles L. Charles is organizing a campaign to become the next governor. The Australian businessman Ozzie Mandrill is turning the Caribbean into an attraction for tourists. And on top of that, Elaine's mansion is being demolished! Naturally, it's up to our hero to revert the things back to normal, even if that means traveling to exotic islands and solving puzzles on the way.
Escape From Monkey Island is a direct sequel to The Curse of Monkey island, and is the fourth game in the Monkey Island series. The gameplay relies mainly on inventory-based puzzles and branching dialogues, just like in the previous installments. The interface is similar to that of Grim Fandango: mouse is not used, and the interaction is done via context-sensitive commands that appear on the screen whenever you navigate Guybrush close to an object. The game utilizes pre-rendered backgrounds and 3D character models.
Spellings
- 猴岛大逃亡 - Simplified Chinese spelling
- 猴島小英雄4:逃離猴島 - Traditional Chinese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
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3D Backgrounds | |
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 79% (based on 68 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 192 ratings with 15 reviews)
A great game that is bound to please any adventure gamer!
The Good
The graphics look really amazing in this game, the gameplay is great, and the music is well, Monkey Island!
The insults are even better, the humour is great, and this game is really, really, cool, I don’t know if anybody noticed, but Gybrush is so much cooler in this game than he was in episode 3!
You play Gybrush Threepwood, you return from your honeymoon to find that your wife (also the mayor of Melee Island) has been declared dead! You have to go and talk to the lawyers on Lucre Island, while you are there you stumble upon adventure!!!
The Bad
I find nothing wrong with this game.
The Bottom Line
Shiver me timbers and poke me other eye out if this isn’t the coolest game ever, My personal rating for this game is 10 out of 10, as the Voodoo lady would say: I advise you to buy this game!
Windows · by Jim Fun (207) · 2001
Can Monkey Island escape from Escape from Monkey Island?
The Good
Unlike some of the other reviewers, I didn't have a problem with the 3D graphics. The animation in particular, was done with aplomb eg Guybrush moonwalking after winning 'monkey kombat'. The Monkey Island world was still there, with a lot of the old characters as well as some new ones. Marco de Pollo, the diver, was funny as were the judges for the diving competition. The puzzles and the humour were also there but.....
The Bad
....none of them were quite strong enough to carry me effortlessly through the game as they did in the other MI games. The problem was that the plot was rambling and unfocused, and there were no enough dramatic highs and lows. The formula seemed tired and a bit overworked, and the game was overlong. My guess is that MI4 suffered from being the brainchild of a massive team of programmers and designers. We have a saying in England: too many cooks spoil the broth...
The Bottom Line
I'd like to think this is not the last of the Monkey Island games, but there were signs to suggest that the series has run out of steam. This is definitely the weakest of the four. Having said that I thought MI3 was better than 1 and 2. If they exercise some tighter editorial control for the next outing (if there is one), perhaps LucasArts can get the series back on track.
Windows · by jossiejojo (37) · 2004
No. Not very good. Don't you dare make another one Lucasarts!
The Good
This comes with the typical Lucasarts quality. The soundtrack is ok (if worse than Grim Fandango's), the graphics are ok (if worse than Grim Fandango's), the cutscenes are adequate (if worse than Grim Fandango's), and the characters and their personalities are typically well brought across (if not as good as Gri...well you get the point).
Some of the locations are enjoyable, I particularly liked the diving game. The voice acting is generally good (even though Guybrush is too significant a personality, and should never have been given a voice no matter how good the actor). Some of the voices were brilliant however, the hippie diving judge for example.
The Bad
Look lets get one thing straight: just because it's a game that's trying to be funny, it doesn't mean it IS funny. Monkey Island 1 was slightly amusing at times, so was Monkey 2. Monkey Island 3 was NOT. And neither is this, only even less so. This is not funny AT ALL! It has less wit than most children's cartoons. Watch some if you don't believe me. This is told like a story for 5yr olds. It is NOT funny. Got it?
Some of the ideas are drained to the last drop, like Monkey Kombat, which wasn't very interesting to begin with. Monkeys are cool, but it's not a selling point so don't fill the game with them. The cut-scenes look worse than Grim Fandango's and that was made 2 years before; the camera doesn't swoop gracefully and artistically like the aforementioned Lucasarts title. It's too static, and they're never very interesting anyway. The plot is dull. Ideas are rehashed mercilessly. The series should have stopped when it still was respectable. Now it's a cash in, and even the critics still applaud it.
The Bottom Line
About as worthwhile as Rocky 5. Seems even Lucasarts aren't daring to be original anymore. This is typically well presented but lacking any substance or worth. Great adventure games look at this, laugh and call it names behind it's back. The series, once great, is now a cash-horse. Just try and remember the days when Lucasarts created Loom. Remember all the talent they once had. Someday people will look at this and say it's bad the way they say no3 was bad. They thought it was brilliant when it was released yet look at it now. Lets hope they pull it off for the next one, otherwise they'll take the Bullfrog route.
Windows · by Shazbut (163) · 2002
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
*Alarm bells ringing, sirens wailing...* | DJP Mom (11333) | Jun 21, 2007 |
Trivia
Controls
Escape from Monkey Island emulates the controls of Alone in the Dark right down to double-tapping the up arrow to run; according to its manual and readme, this was in Grim Fandango as well, but was removed at the last minute.
Extras
The PC version came with a "quick-path" walkthrough that explained how to beat the entire game. However, not much detail was put into it, and no secrets were revealed (both to try and persuade the player to buy the full strategy guide). The walkthrough that came with the PC version was written entirely in bright blue ink, screenshots and all. This was probably to deter "helpomaniacs", people who look up what to do next, and then regret they did.
Names
- The "bad guy" of the game is an Australian named Ozzie Mandrill. A mandrill is a kind of a monkey.
- There is a character named Marco Pollo in the game. Beside being a parody on the famous traveler Marco Polo, the name also has another meaning: "pollo" is Spanish for "chicken".
- On Melee Island (TM), if you ask I. Cheese about his family, he'll eventually tell you about his aunt who was so ugly people turned to stone when looking at her. He also tells her name: Gorgon Zola Cheese. "Gorgonzola" is a kind of cheese, while "Gorgon" is a name of a monster in Greek mythology: whoever looks at it turns into stone.
References
- The SCUMM Bar and LUA Bars appearing in the game are named after two programming languages. SCUMM is the language developed by LucasArts for creating Maniac Mansion (and then many other games), and LUA is a language developed in a Brazilian university.
- In the Place of Prostheses, with the machine if you enter the right code then you can get one which has the name as 'Manuel J. Calaverus'. This is obviously referring to Manny Calavera in Grim Fandango.
- Escape from Monkey Island features a mini-game (obligatory to finish the game) called "Monkey Combat". No need to say it is a parody on the Mortal Kombat series.
- When you are in Lucre Island jail, if you look at the iron maiden, Guybrush would say, "Iron Maiden! Excellent!" This is refering to the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where they get arrested in ancient England, and the king says to send them to the iron maiden. Thinking they mean the rock band, Bill and Ted reply "Iron Maiden. Excellent!" then play the air guitar.
- On Lucre Island (TM), the parfume stand is entitled "Scents and Sensibilities". This is a reference to Jane Austin's book Sense and Sensibility.
- On Lucre Island, inside the swamp, you can see a crashed X-Wing there.
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" ( It changed the handling to annoying keyboard controls and many puzzles defy every logic and have to be solved through trial and error. The atmosphere suffers from sterile backgrounds and modern consumption criticism. Because of its humour and the lack of competition it is still the best adventure released in 2000.)
- PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/2001 - Best Adventure in 2000
Information also contributed by James Isaac, Jiguryo, J. Michael Bottorff, Ol Sverre Bauge, Unicorn Lynx and Xoleras
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Related Sites +
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Escape from Monkey Island
The official website -
Escape from Monkey Island - FAQs & Guides
A large collection of walkthroughs posted on GameFaqs.com -
Hints for EMI
These question and answer type hints give you just what you need without spoiling the rest of the game for you. Includes full solution. -
The International House of Mojo
A Site dedicated to the LucasArts Games (primarily the Adventures) -
The Talking Skull
Murray Goodwin's Fan Site, which some consider the ultimate Monkey Island site. -
Timber Looijen's Walkthru
Another Windows version walkthrough -
World of Monkey Island
About all Monkey Island games
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Ryan Prendiville.
Macintosh added by Corn Popper. PlayStation 2 added by Grant McLellan.
Additional contributors: Terok Nor, Swordmaster, Itay Brenner, Adam Baratz, Kirschsaft, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, chirinea, Sciere, Ghost Pirate, Solid Flamingo, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.
Game added November 10, 2000. Last modified April 13, 2024.