Another older game from my growing "classic" collection finished. I'v read so many enthusiastic comments about this series from Lucas Arts that I just had to try one. Glad I did This is a humerous, clever, tounge-in-cheek romp thru an imaginary bunch of islands in the Carribean.

The game is keyboard controlled. It worked fine on WINXP. The appearance of the game is colorful and lighthearted, with big swirling cut-out clouds. The scenery and houses have a jaunty island flair-brightly painted and tropical. I especially liked the music,typical steel drum/marimba sound, that merrily plunks and bongs along with you as you move through the game.

The interface worked pretty well once I got the hang of it. Arrows to control movement and page up and page down to choose conversation. Occasionally Guybrush would get stuck and not move where I wanted him to go, mostly when navigating around on the map. Also it was sometimes irritating to try to place him in position to use something or talk to someone-he would jerk around too fast and get out of range and I would have to reposition him several times, but those were minor inconveniences and didn't detract from enjoymant of the game.The hilarious social commentary-making fun of mindless burocrats,greedy businessmen,destruction of the environment, eradication of local culture, and sanitised tourist traps-more than makes up for a few glitches.

Of course you are Guybrush Threepwood-pirate wannabe-and you have to defeat Ozzie Mandrill-the archvillain of the story, who is greedily buying up the entire Carribean and turning the whole area into a trendy tourist getaway for yuppies, complete with high-end condos and sushi bars.

Guybrush is married to the governor, Elaine Marley, but that isn't helping(much) She's busy with her re-election campaign and sends Guybrush off to figure out how to defeat Ozzie. Unfortunately, the infamous "Lechuck" (from previous games,which I havn't played) has aligned himself with Ozzie and wants to control everything.So little Guybrush is up against some pretty formidable enemies.He sometimes gets overwhelmed and wants to give up, but most of the time his can-do attitude in the face of impossible odds wins and he keeps on keeping on.

So, off he goes-first he has to figure out how to get the guy to stop torpedoing the governor's mansion, then find a crew for his pirate ship. And this is the easy part.

Soon you'll see that there is a handy map of each island that you can call up when you need to go to different locations within each island. Your inter-island transport is controlled by the game and consists of a rowboat or your pink pirate ship.

You meet some interesting and intriging characters along the way-these are the best part of the game: "Dave" the proprietor of the Palace of Prosthesis, where pirates can get replacements for just about any body part that they might lose during sword fights. The old battleaxe teacher at the pirate school-where pirates go to be sanitized for the tourist trade,courtesy of Ozzie Mandrill.As Guybrush you engage in lots of witty conversations with these and lots of other assorted misfits.

As you progress through the game, the puzzles get more complicated and your inventory gets larger with more than enough stuff to try to use.
With lots of patience and conversational ability, things will begin to make sense(sort of)The puzzles are original and clever, some very difficult to figure out,but there's lots of help out there if you get stuck, which I did a few times.

If you havn't played this game, you may have been put off by the reports of the infamous "monkey combat". I'd even seen comments by people who had given up on the game when they reached this puzzle. I can tell you it seemed almost totally impossible to make any sense of it, even with a WT. But never fear-there is an easy method to understand it-if I was able to-anyone can!Thanks to the clever soul who worked out a chart to help figure out your "insults" (they change with every game)It can be found at <worldofmonkeyisland.com>.

The ending is worth the monkey combat, of course with a major boss to defeat.(Guess Who!)

I will give this game a well deserved

If you liked Escape you have to playe the earlier games.

Somebody needs to remind LucasArts thet Guybursh and the Voodoo Lady have unbreakable 5 game contracts.

Yes, I'm also counting on that 5 game contract!

I loved this game, even though the keyboard controls made it a bit harder to play than the others.

Guybrush is my hero. I'd rather have him at my side in a tight spot than well, just about any other adventure character I can think of (even the competent ones).