Escape From Monkey Island

Needless to say it was a long weekend.

I'm not quite done with the game yet, but I think I've played enough to offer up my full review.

So here we go.

While Escape from Monkey Island is one of the prettiest games I have played in quite a while, it does have its ugly side. What exactly am I talking about? Glad you asked.

LucasArts has forsaken the familiar list of point-and-click commands at the bottom of the screen and replaced the actions with hotkeys. If you want to pick up and object you hit "P." If you want to use an object you hit "U." Kind of retro. I don't think I'm crazy about it either.

In this latest edition to the series, users navigate Guybrush through his world via the arrow keys, a joystick, or a gamepad. Not quite as intuitive as the point-and-click method, and I often found myself running into walls or circling around for another try at turning a corner.

These, however, are all forgivable. What is harder to forgive is non-intuitive puzzles. Even as I opened the box I was wary. Included with the game was a Prima walkthrough. Now, when a developer includes a walkthrough, to me that says somebody at the home office thought about it and said, "Ya know, no one is going to figure this out." Seriously. I was near critical mass several times this weekend. I found myself forced to look at the walkthrough, and even then I still scratched my head. Some of the puzzles had bizarre solutions that I never would have figured out. I'd explain in detail, but I don't want to give anything away. If you want to discuss it, e-mail me. At any rate this isn't anything new. I replayed the first two games recently and was surprised at how my memory had colored the games. While I recalled breezing through these games, upon re-inspection I found similar non-intuitive puzzles in them as well.

However, the jokes are funny and plentiful, and they make the not-so-fluid character interactions seem worth it. All in all, this is a fun game and nothing I could say would make fans think differently, nor would I want to. All I'm saying is that this game aimed quite high and while it's better than 97% of the games on the market, it still just misses its mark.

-Charon

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