Escape from Monkey Island™

I've seen some reviews here claiming this is the worst of the series. I disagree. I rate the Monkey Island games based on their script, and this one is on par with the ones that came before it (it's certainly better than Monkey Island 2 in that regard). What those other reviewers are forgetting is that this game is a product of its era, back when game developers found themselves with access to new technologies and graphics capabilities. Escape from Monkey Island's only fault is that it was trying some new and different things; it took risks. How many games made today can make the same claim? Over the past ten years or so, it's been established that Triple-Aaaaayyyyy games follow formulae that allow them to sell to the lowest common denominator, and indie games have an annoying tendency to capitalize on nostalgia-blindness (what's your favorite Baldur's Gate throwback?). The point is that Escape from Monkey Island is damn good where it counts: Its script. Everything else is a moot point because they were experimental. The only reason I'm giving it only four stars is because I had to download a third-party program in order to play it in windowed mode.

This is the only monkey island game I havent played yet so I bought it without looking at reviews first. Game looks ok and its the usual silly guybrush. What kills it is the controls. You walk around using arrow keys. Text can be cycled with page up/down and confirming with enter. To pick up or use something you have to click "u" or "p". Mouse do not work. Ill update this review if I can figure out a better way to play it.

Worth playing but the tank controls are horrible and some of the puzzles are beyond difficult and illogical even for MI. Still the feel of the game is true to the series with lots of humor, charm and character. Definitely a buy to anyone who likes Adventure games, but giving it 5 stars is not correct - if you come straight from Curse, you´ll know what I´m talking about.

Apart from not being as good as the previous installments in the series (though Tales wouldn't be much better) but not bad either it was the change from 2D to 3D that put me off. Gone was the fantastic cartoony artstyle from Curse with in it's place a somewhat ugly looking world that tried to the same but just could't because of the graphical limitations of the time. And where Curse still holds up pretty well after a little over 20 years Escape suffers for it. It didn't look great then and it definitively doesn't look good now. Sure the first and second Monkey Island games don't look good now either (if you're not into the whole 8bit thing) but at least they remade and they remade them well. Same game but with an updated art style that does the games justice. They should do the same for Escape from Monkey Island. It deserves it.

I really hope they release a 2D remake someday ;)