Escape from Monkey Island

The Good
I love the hilarity of this game - as with all other MI games, the jokes are common and well executed, meaning that the player always has a smile on his/her face.

The storyline is pretty good, although perhaps not as strong as the previous games, and it lets the player truly become a part of the experience.

The Bad
Unfortunately, there was a lot more to dislike in this addition to the series.

Firstly, the graphics are horrible. When 3D was advertised for it, we all thought "great, it'll look awesome" - but how wrong we were; since it runs in extremely low resolution, it can look pretty jagged on the big monitors. The facial expressions are not clear enough due to the image distortion, and this takes a huge chunk out of the game, as a lot of the game is based around reaction and timing (which TV comedies also rely upon).

Secondly, I don't like the new control method - I prefer the classic point and click interface, rather than having to use the keyboard to control Guybrush. Often, while running, I will end up going to the wrong place because of the difficulty I have in controlling the character: Point and click was far more efficient. Also, various parts of the game were extremely difficult to master, like Monkey Kombat - this is an adventure game and should not have something that is so hard to beat present in an action game form. With the insult sword fighting of Monkey Island 1 and 3, and the insult arm wrestling of this game, at least it wasn't too difficult and was incredibly amusing - but Monkey Kombat simply doesn't have the enjoyment, and is more of a 'chore' than anything else - this is something I really disliked.

The Bottom Line
Probably worth buying, but ONLY if you have played the other games in the series first; otherwise, avoid it as it will make little sense to you and you will probably find the poor graphics and control difficult to master and not worth the hassle.