The Curse of Monkey Island
Encyclopedia
The Curse of Monkey Island is an adventure game
developed and published by LucasArts
, and the third game in the Monkey Island series. It was released in and followed the successful games The Secret of Monkey Island
and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
. The game is the twelfth and last LucasArts game to use the SCUMM
engine, which was extensively upgraded for its last outing before being replaced by the GrimE
engine for the next game in the series, Escape from Monkey Island
. The Curse of Monkey Island is the first Monkey Island game to include voice acting
, and has a more cartoon
-ish graphic style than the earlier games.
The game's story centers around Guybrush Threepwood
, a wannabe pirate who must lift a curse
from his love Elaine Marley
. As the story progresses, he must deal with a band of mysterious pirates and a stereotypical French
buccaneer, as well as his old archnemesis LeChuck
.
engine was also used in this Monkey Island installment but it was upgraded to a "verb coin" (modelled after Full Throttle), an interface that consisted in a coin-shaped menu, with three icons: a hand, a skull and a parrot, basically representing actions related to hands, eyes and mouth, respectively. These icons implied the actions Guybrush would perform with an object. The hand icon would usually mean actions such as picking something up, operating a mechanism or hitting someone, the skull icon was most used for examining or looking at objects and the parrot icon was used to issue Guybrush commands such as talking to someone or opening a bottle with his teeth. The inventory and actions were thus visible on click, rather than on the bottom of the screen as previous point-and-click games by Lucasarts.
The player controlled a white 'X' cursor with the mouse, that turned red whenever landing onto an object (or person) with which Guybrush could interact. Holding left click over an object, whether in or outside the inventory, would bring up the coin menu, while right clicking it would perform the most obvious action with this particular object. Right clicking a door, for example, made Guybrush attempt to open it, while right clicking a person meant talking to him or her.
is inexplicably found on the sea in a floating bumper car
with two helium balloons. Guybrush is trying to recall in his captain's log how he ended up in this dire situation and his escape from the Big Whoop where he was trapped for an undisclosed period of time. He eventually approaches Plunder Island, which is governed by Elaine Marley
and is currently under siege by the Zombie Pirate LeChuck
himself. After a lengthy exchange where LeChuck is rebuffed in his attempts to woo Elaine, both notice Guybrush, and he is quickly recaptured by LeChuck. While seeking a way out, Guybrush fires an unrestrained cannon that causes LeChuck to blast himself to smithereens with a voodoo cannonball, finds a diamond ring in LeChuck's treasure hold, and escapes the ship whilst sinking it. He then reunites with his love, Elaine Marley, and officially proposes to her, offering her the diamond ring he found on LeChuck's ship. Unbeknownst to him is the fact that the ring is cursed, which Wally humorously points out, and Elaine gets turned into a gold statue a short while after she puts it on. Guybrush must then retrieve the statue, which is stolen almost immediately, and return her to human form.
The Voodoo Lady tells Guybrush that he must travel to Blood Island to find a certain uncursed diamond ring to break the spell. In doing so, he must get a crew, a ship, the statue of Elaine, and a map as nobody knows where Blood Island is anymore. In his attempts to get a crew, Guybrush hastily informs a captain named René Rottingham about his plan to go to Blood Island, which piques his curiosity. The map also presents a problem as the only known map is tattooed to the back of Palido Domingo, who is tanning on an exclusive beach and does not cooperate in his quest. Guybrush must also find out where the statue of Elaine is hidden. After various competitions, Guybrush manages to do all of the errands, as well as gather a crew, consisting of Cutthroat Bill, Haggis McMutton, and Edward Van Helgen, to join him on a voyage to Blood Island.
While sailing to Blood Island, the crew is distracted by sightseeing whilst Captain Rottingham boards the ship and fights Guybrush in a game of insult swordfighting. Rottingham easily wins and takes the map to Blood Island. By fighting other pirates, Guybrush learns various insults and defeats Rottingham, reclaiming the map. However, a terrible storm results in Guybrush's ship crashing into Blood Island, the golden statue of Elaine being launched inland, and the crew deciding to mutiny; leaving Guybrush on his own again. On Blood Island, Guybrush meets Griswold Goodsoup and other locals, including the cannibals from Monkey Island, and even has to feign death (at least twice) in order to complete his quest. Guybrush then removes the cursed ring from Elaine's finger, gambles with smugglers to acquire an uncursed diamond, and returns Elaine to normal. The two share a moment together before LeChuck's skeletal army seizes them.
After a lengthy conversation with LeChuck, who has reintegrated himself as a pyrokinetic demon-pirate, Guybrush is transformed into a child and left to roam the Big Whoop amusement park. Using a hangover
cure discovered on Blood Island, he becomes an adult again and gets on the Rollercoaster of Death to confront LeChuck. In an unseen cinematic, Elaine reroutes the tracks, causing Guybrush to go through the same sections of the ride over and over, avoiding the lava. LeChuck chases Guybrush over and over, tormenting him with his fiery powers. Regardless, Guybrush manages to gather up various items for a makeshift explosives barrel. He then blows pepper at LeChuck to make him sneeze and set off an avalanche, thus freezing and burying LeChuck under his own theme park. Some time later, Guybrush and Elaine are seen sailing off on a ship just married, as various friends he met on his adventures wave them goodbye.
parted ways with the series after Monkey Island 2, and the new project leaders were Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern, both of whom had previously worked on Full Throttle (the interface of the game was adopted almost entirely).
During production, examples of major changes include enhancing the role of Murray, the talking skull. Originally intended only to be featured in the first chapter, he proved so popular with test players that he was written to re-appear at several points later in the game.
The game was later re-released on a CD-ROM compilation of Monkey Island games, bundled with The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge called the Monkey Island Bounty Pack. It leaves a gap in the series for Macintosh users since it was never officially released for that platform (although the free ScummVM
software can be used to play The Curse of Monkey Island on a Mac).
After the game shipped, a Monkey Island film was in the works. This was only brought to light when Tony Stacchi, a concept artist for the project, sent his work to The Scumm Bar, a Monkey Island fansite
. The film was cancelled in the early stages of development but Tony Stacchi published the artwork on his portfolio.
, who provided the music for the first two games, once more composed the musical score for the soundtrack. The Curse of Monkey Island was the first game in the series to feature voice acting
. The primary voice cast consisted of Dominic Armato
as Guybrush Threepwood
; Alexandra Boyd
as Elaine Marley
and Son Pirate; Earl Boen
as LeChuck
; Denny Delk as Murray, Skully, and Father Pirate; Neil Ross
as Wally B. Feed; Alan Young
as Haggis McMutton; Michael Sorich
as Edward Van Helgen and Charles DeGoulash (Ghost Groom); Gregg Berger
as Cutthroat Bill; and Leilani Jones Wilmore
as the Voodoo Lady. Other voice actors included Kay E. Kuter
as Griswold Goodsoup, Tom Kane
as Captain René Rottingham and the Flying Welshman, Patrick Pinney
as Stan, and Victor Raider-Wexler
as Slappy Cromwell and the Snowcone Guy. The game even has special guest stars Mary Kay Bergman
as Minnie "Stronie" Goodsoup (Ghost Bride), Gary Coleman
as Kenny Falmouth, and future Angel
star Glenn Quinn
as Pirate #5.
said that "it joins LucasArts' hallowed pantheon of comic classics", and that "computer gaming rarely gets more entertaining than this". GameSpot
praised the graphical style for making the game "as much fun to watch as it is to play". Just Adventure emphasized that the "music is the best I've ever heard in a game; [...] it never stops and it's never annoying; it's always a joy". RPGFan commented that the "additions of detailed graphics and actual spoken dialogue managed to take the already hilarious story to a whole new level". Adventure Classic Gaming addressed plot criticism, saying "some [...] may criticize the numerous farfetched plot twists in this game", while "some may just call it creative writing!", and Adrenaline Vault likened The Curse of Monkey Island to the adventure genre as a whole, saying: "The twin vitals of an adventure game are a good plot coupled with strong dialogue. This game has both, in spades."
Although Adventure Gamers
cited the graphic style's "refusal to take itself seriously" was adding "immensely to the game's charm", they found the secondary characters "criminally underdeveloped" and the ending "an anticlimax, leaving the player thinking he could have done so much more, if only the game’s programmers had let him". The abrupt ending of the game received criticism from GameSpot, Just Adventure and Computer Gaming World
; the last of which called the ending "the game's only real disappointment". PC Zone
described that due to the introduction of cartoon-ish graphics "for Monkey devotees of the first two titles something tiny and almost intangible has been lost", while still scoring the game a 92/100, praising the voice over work and humor of the game.
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
developed and published by LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
, and the third game in the Monkey Island series. It was released in and followed the successful games The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by the same company after its name was changed to LucasArts. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series...
and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts in 1991. It was the second game of the Monkey Island series, following The Secret of Monkey Island, and the sixth LucasArts game to use the SCUMM engine. It was the first game to use the iMUSE sound...
. The game is the twelfth and last LucasArts game to use the SCUMM
SCUMM
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion....
engine, which was extensively upgraded for its last outing before being replaced by the GrimE
GrimE
GrimE is an adventure game engine, created by Bret Mogilefsky at LucasArts using the free software scripting language Lua. It was first used for Grim Fandango. Partly based on the Sith engine, GrimE was the successor to SCUMM, preserving some of that engine's features...
engine for the next game in the series, Escape from Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island is a computer adventure game developed and released by LucasArts in 2000. It is the fourth game in the Monkey Island series....
. The Curse of Monkey Island is the first Monkey Island game to include voice acting
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
, and has a more cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
-ish graphic style than the earlier games.
The game's story centers around Guybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood is the main character of the Monkey Island series of computer adventure games by LucasArts. The voice of Guybrush is actor Dominic Armato in the third, fourth and fifth games, as well as the enhanced remakes of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's...
, a wannabe pirate who must lift a curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
from his love Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley–Threepwood is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure video games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, the character first appears in The Secret of Monkey Island and is one of the core characters in the franchise...
. As the story progresses, he must deal with a band of mysterious pirates and a stereotypical French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
buccaneer, as well as his old archnemesis LeChuck
LeChuck
LeChuck is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, LeChuck was introduced in The Secret of Monkey Island and is the chief antagonist of the series. Gilbert drew on aspects of the characters in the 1988 novel On Stranger...
.
Gameplay
The Curse of Monkey Island is a point-and-click adventure game. The SCUMMSCUMM
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion....
engine was also used in this Monkey Island installment but it was upgraded to a "verb coin" (modelled after Full Throttle), an interface that consisted in a coin-shaped menu, with three icons: a hand, a skull and a parrot, basically representing actions related to hands, eyes and mouth, respectively. These icons implied the actions Guybrush would perform with an object. The hand icon would usually mean actions such as picking something up, operating a mechanism or hitting someone, the skull icon was most used for examining or looking at objects and the parrot icon was used to issue Guybrush commands such as talking to someone or opening a bottle with his teeth. The inventory and actions were thus visible on click, rather than on the bottom of the screen as previous point-and-click games by Lucasarts.
The player controlled a white 'X' cursor with the mouse, that turned red whenever landing onto an object (or person) with which Guybrush could interact. Holding left click over an object, whether in or outside the inventory, would bring up the coin menu, while right clicking it would perform the most obvious action with this particular object. Right clicking a door, for example, made Guybrush attempt to open it, while right clicking a person meant talking to him or her.
Plot
After the vague and surreal ending of Monkey Island 2, Guybrush ThreepwoodGuybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood is the main character of the Monkey Island series of computer adventure games by LucasArts. The voice of Guybrush is actor Dominic Armato in the third, fourth and fifth games, as well as the enhanced remakes of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's...
is inexplicably found on the sea in a floating bumper car
Bumper car
Bumper car is the generic name for a type of flat ride consisting of several small electric cars which draw power from the floor and/or ceiling, and which are turned on and off remotely by an operator...
with two helium balloons. Guybrush is trying to recall in his captain's log how he ended up in this dire situation and his escape from the Big Whoop where he was trapped for an undisclosed period of time. He eventually approaches Plunder Island, which is governed by Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley–Threepwood is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure video games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, the character first appears in The Secret of Monkey Island and is one of the core characters in the franchise...
and is currently under siege by the Zombie Pirate LeChuck
LeChuck
LeChuck is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, LeChuck was introduced in The Secret of Monkey Island and is the chief antagonist of the series. Gilbert drew on aspects of the characters in the 1988 novel On Stranger...
himself. After a lengthy exchange where LeChuck is rebuffed in his attempts to woo Elaine, both notice Guybrush, and he is quickly recaptured by LeChuck. While seeking a way out, Guybrush fires an unrestrained cannon that causes LeChuck to blast himself to smithereens with a voodoo cannonball, finds a diamond ring in LeChuck's treasure hold, and escapes the ship whilst sinking it. He then reunites with his love, Elaine Marley, and officially proposes to her, offering her the diamond ring he found on LeChuck's ship. Unbeknownst to him is the fact that the ring is cursed, which Wally humorously points out, and Elaine gets turned into a gold statue a short while after she puts it on. Guybrush must then retrieve the statue, which is stolen almost immediately, and return her to human form.
The Voodoo Lady tells Guybrush that he must travel to Blood Island to find a certain uncursed diamond ring to break the spell. In doing so, he must get a crew, a ship, the statue of Elaine, and a map as nobody knows where Blood Island is anymore. In his attempts to get a crew, Guybrush hastily informs a captain named René Rottingham about his plan to go to Blood Island, which piques his curiosity. The map also presents a problem as the only known map is tattooed to the back of Palido Domingo, who is tanning on an exclusive beach and does not cooperate in his quest. Guybrush must also find out where the statue of Elaine is hidden. After various competitions, Guybrush manages to do all of the errands, as well as gather a crew, consisting of Cutthroat Bill, Haggis McMutton, and Edward Van Helgen, to join him on a voyage to Blood Island.
While sailing to Blood Island, the crew is distracted by sightseeing whilst Captain Rottingham boards the ship and fights Guybrush in a game of insult swordfighting. Rottingham easily wins and takes the map to Blood Island. By fighting other pirates, Guybrush learns various insults and defeats Rottingham, reclaiming the map. However, a terrible storm results in Guybrush's ship crashing into Blood Island, the golden statue of Elaine being launched inland, and the crew deciding to mutiny; leaving Guybrush on his own again. On Blood Island, Guybrush meets Griswold Goodsoup and other locals, including the cannibals from Monkey Island, and even has to feign death (at least twice) in order to complete his quest. Guybrush then removes the cursed ring from Elaine's finger, gambles with smugglers to acquire an uncursed diamond, and returns Elaine to normal. The two share a moment together before LeChuck's skeletal army seizes them.
After a lengthy conversation with LeChuck, who has reintegrated himself as a pyrokinetic demon-pirate, Guybrush is transformed into a child and left to roam the Big Whoop amusement park. Using a hangover
Hangover
A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dysphoria, diarrhea and thirst, typically after the...
cure discovered on Blood Island, he becomes an adult again and gets on the Rollercoaster of Death to confront LeChuck. In an unseen cinematic, Elaine reroutes the tracks, causing Guybrush to go through the same sections of the ride over and over, avoiding the lava. LeChuck chases Guybrush over and over, tormenting him with his fiery powers. Regardless, Guybrush manages to gather up various items for a makeshift explosives barrel. He then blows pepper at LeChuck to make him sneeze and set off an avalanche, thus freezing and burying LeChuck under his own theme park. Some time later, Guybrush and Elaine are seen sailing off on a ship just married, as various friends he met on his adventures wave them goodbye.
Development
Monkey Island creator Ron GilbertRon Gilbert
Ron Gilbert is an American computer game designer, programmer, and producer, best known for his work on several classic LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. Gilbert was also co-founder of Humongous Entertainment and its sister company Cavedog...
parted ways with the series after Monkey Island 2, and the new project leaders were Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern, both of whom had previously worked on Full Throttle (the interface of the game was adopted almost entirely).
During production, examples of major changes include enhancing the role of Murray, the talking skull. Originally intended only to be featured in the first chapter, he proved so popular with test players that he was written to re-appear at several points later in the game.
The game was later re-released on a CD-ROM compilation of Monkey Island games, bundled with The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge called the Monkey Island Bounty Pack. It leaves a gap in the series for Macintosh users since it was never officially released for that platform (although the free ScummVM
ScummVM
ScummVM is a collection of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system , it now also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies like Revolution Software and Adventure Soft. It was originally written by Ludvig Strigeus...
software can be used to play The Curse of Monkey Island on a Mac).
After the game shipped, a Monkey Island film was in the works. This was only brought to light when Tony Stacchi, a concept artist for the project, sent his work to The Scumm Bar, a Monkey Island fansite
Fansite
A fansite, fan site, or fanpage is a website created and maintained by a fan or devotee interested in a celebrity, thing, or a particular cultural phenomenon...
. The film was cancelled in the early stages of development but Tony Stacchi published the artwork on his portfolio.
Audio
Michael LandMichael Land
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.-Early life and career:Michael Land was born in the North Shore area north of Boston, Massachusetts...
, who provided the music for the first two games, once more composed the musical score for the soundtrack. The Curse of Monkey Island was the first game in the series to feature voice acting
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
. The primary voice cast consisted of Dominic Armato
Dominic Armato
Dominic Armato is a voice actor who is known primarily for his work on LucasArts games.Dominic had been a fan of adventure games, specifically LucasArts game such as the Monkey Island games...
as Guybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Threepwood
Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood is the main character of the Monkey Island series of computer adventure games by LucasArts. The voice of Guybrush is actor Dominic Armato in the third, fourth and fifth games, as well as the enhanced remakes of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's...
; Alexandra Boyd
Alexandra Boyd
Alexandra Boyd is a British actress, who is best known for playing Clarissa Mason in Coronation Street. On British TV Alexandra has also appeared in two episodes of Doctors was Denis Waterman's love interest in New Tricks and has also appeared in Holby City...
as Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley
Elaine Marley–Threepwood is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure video games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, the character first appears in The Secret of Monkey Island and is one of the core characters in the franchise...
and Son Pirate; Earl Boen
Earl Boen
Earl Boen is an American actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known as criminal psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman in the Terminator series...
as LeChuck
LeChuck
LeChuck is a fictional character in the Monkey Island series of graphic adventure games. Created by Ron Gilbert for LucasArts, LeChuck was introduced in The Secret of Monkey Island and is the chief antagonist of the series. Gilbert drew on aspects of the characters in the 1988 novel On Stranger...
; Denny Delk as Murray, Skully, and Father Pirate; Neil Ross
Neil Ross
Theodoric Neilson "Neil" Ross is an English voice actor and announcer, born in London, England and now resident and working in Los Angeles, in the United States. He has provided voices for in many American cartoons, particularly those based on Hasbro products and Marvel Comics, and numerous...
as Wally B. Feed; Alan Young
Alan Young
Alan Young is an English-Canadian actor and voice actor, best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games...
as Haggis McMutton; Michael Sorich
Michael Sorich
Michael John Sorich is an American voice actor who is also a screen actor, writer, director and voice director.- Biography :...
as Edward Van Helgen and Charles DeGoulash (Ghost Groom); Gregg Berger
Gregg Berger
Greggory "Gregg" Berger is an American voice actor, who is known for his longtime role as Odie the dog from the Garfield franchise...
as Cutthroat Bill; and Leilani Jones Wilmore
Leilani Jones (actress)
Leilani Jones is an American actress who first came to the world's attention in the original production of Little Shop of Horrors.-Biography:...
as the Voodoo Lady. Other voice actors included Kay E. Kuter
Kay E. Kuter
Kay Edwin Emmert Kuter was an American actor who starred on television and in film. Kay was born in Los Angeles, California....
as Griswold Goodsoup, Tom Kane
Tom Kane
Tom Kane is a prominent American voice actor with over 25 years of experience. He is most widely known for his animation work...
as Captain René Rottingham and the Flying Welshman, Patrick Pinney
Patrick Pinney
Patrick Pinney is an American voice actor. He attended college at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he had many friends including assistant director Michele Panelli Venetis and San Francisco Bay area costumer Alison Barnwell Morris , with whom he costarred in "The...
as Stan, and Victor Raider-Wexler
Victor Raider-Wexler
Victor Raider-Wexler is an American television and film actor.-Career:Raider-Wexler started his career in the 1970s. He was the stage manager for the 1976 Broadway play Best Friend...
as Slappy Cromwell and the Snowcone Guy. The game even has special guest stars Mary Kay Bergman
Mary Kay Bergman
Mary Kay Bergman was an American voice actress and animation voice over teacher, who was the lead female voice actress on South Park from the show's 1997 debut until her death and was best known as the official voice of Snow White for the Walt Disney Company starting in 1989 with the Snow White...
as Minnie "Stronie" Goodsoup (Ghost Bride), Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman
Gary Wayne Coleman was an American actor, known for his childhood role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and for his small stature as an adult. He was described in the 1980s as "one of television's most promising stars". After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman...
as Kenny Falmouth, and future Angel
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
star Glenn Quinn
Glenn Quinn
Glenn Martin Christopher Francis Quinn was an Irish actor in television and film, known for playing Mark Healy in the American sitcom Roseanne, and Doyle, a half-demon, on the 1999–2004 television series Angel, a spin-off series of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.-Early life:Quinn...
as Pirate #5.
Differences in localized versions
Non-English versions of the game omit the section at the beginning of CD2, where Guybrush's crew sings the song "A Pirate I Was Meant To Be". In this section, the player as Guybrush has to stop the crew's singing - however, at each attempt, they just start a new stanza rhyming to the player's line, until he says a line ending with the word "orange" making the song unable to continue. As the whole section relies on English language rhyming, it was removed from international versions of the game.Reception
The Curse of Monkey Island received almost uniformly positive reviews from the media. Computer Gaming WorldComputer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
said that "it joins LucasArts' hallowed pantheon of comic classics", and that "computer gaming rarely gets more entertaining than this". GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
praised the graphical style for making the game "as much fun to watch as it is to play". Just Adventure emphasized that the "music is the best I've ever heard in a game; [...] it never stops and it's never annoying; it's always a joy". RPGFan commented that the "additions of detailed graphics and actual spoken dialogue managed to take the already hilarious story to a whole new level". Adventure Classic Gaming addressed plot criticism, saying "some [...] may criticize the numerous farfetched plot twists in this game", while "some may just call it creative writing!", and Adrenaline Vault likened The Curse of Monkey Island to the adventure genre as a whole, saying: "The twin vitals of an adventure game are a good plot coupled with strong dialogue. This game has both, in spades."
Although Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers is a computer game website created in 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game designers....
cited the graphic style's "refusal to take itself seriously" was adding "immensely to the game's charm", they found the secondary characters "criminally underdeveloped" and the ending "an anticlimax, leaving the player thinking he could have done so much more, if only the game’s programmers had let him". The abrupt ending of the game received criticism from GameSpot, Just Adventure and Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
; the last of which called the ending "the game's only real disappointment". PC Zone
PC Zone
PC Zone was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as PC Leisure, PC Format and PC Plus had covered games but only as part of a wider remit. PC Zone was founded in 1993.The magazine was published...
described that due to the introduction of cartoon-ish graphics "for Monkey devotees of the first two titles something tiny and almost intangible has been lost", while still scoring the game a 92/100, praising the voice over work and humor of the game.
External links
- Official web page
- The Curse of Monkey Island at the Monkey Island Wiki
- Soundtrack