Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
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 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge |
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| Developer(s) | Lucas Arts |
| Publisher(s) | Lucas Arts |
| Designer(s) | Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman |
| Engine | SPUTM |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | PC CD-ROM (MS-DOS), PC Floppy (VGA), Macintosh, FM-Towns, ScummVM, Amiga |
| Media | Floppy disk / CD-ROM |
| Input | Mouse |
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (MI2) is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. 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 system, and Michael Land was again responsible for producing the music for the game.
The game's story centers on the wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood. After defeating ghost pirate LeChuck in The Secret of Monkey Island, little is known of what happened between Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley. The sequel involves Guybrush's attempts to both find the mysterious treasure, Big Whoop, and win back Elaine's love.
The development team for the game was largely the same as for The Secret of Monkey Island, the first game in the series. The project was lead by Ron Gilbert, and he was once more joined by Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. MI2 is considered by critics to be among the best of LucasArts' adventure games. Despite its popularity, its ambiguous and surrealistic ending drew criticism.
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[edit] Gameplay
It was the first adventure game which offered the player two levels of puzzle difficulty. In some versions, before starting the game, the player is prompted to choose between regular MI2 and "Monkey 2 Lite", a relatively stripped-down experience which bypasses many puzzles entirely. On the back of the game's packaging, it is (jokingly) stated that this mode is intended for video game reviewers. This choice of difficulty returned in The Curse of Monkey Island (CMI), the third game of the series. CMI's alternative option is called "Mega-Monkey", and is the opposite of "Monkey 2 Lite", offering some additional puzzles, dialog and items over the normal game.
[edit] Story
At the beginning of the game, we see Elaine and Guybrush, both hanging from two separate ropes. Elaine asks Guybrush to tell his story.
Guybrush' story begins with him talking to two pirates and telling them about the time he blew up LeChuck into pieces. He further tells them that he's looking for "Big Whoop", and is looking for a ship to take him there. The Pirates tell Guybrush that Largo LaGrande, LeChuck's ex-henchman, has placed an embargo on the island. Guybrush, with the voodoo-doll that Voodoo Lady gave to him, defeats Largo. However Largo steals the beard that Guybrush keeps, and resurrects his old patron.
After Voodoo Lady telling Guybrush that "the only way to stop LeChuck now lies only in the secret of Big Whoop", Guybrush continues his quest in search of said treasure.
After a lengthy quest involving everything from library research to a spitting contest, Guybrush finds the long-hidden map of Dinky Island, pinpointing the location of Big Whoop. He loses the map to LeChuck, but lands on Dinky anyway, where he discovers Herman Toothrot teaching philosophy. Herman is typically unhelpful, but his parrot remembers the conversation between the sailors who originally discovered Big Whoop and guides Guybrush to the treasure's burial site in exchange for crackers. Guybrush excavates the site and slides into the ground on a rope.
At this point, we come back to the scene where we saw in the overture, Elaine and Guybrush talking. Unfortunately for Guybrush, his rope snaps and he falls into a series of artificial tunnels. LeChuck confronts Guybrush, claiming to be the mighty pirate's brother, and stalks him through the tunnels, tormenting him with a voodoo doll. Running from LeChuck, Guybrush makes a number of surprising (more so for us than him) discoveries, including the skeletal remains of his parents, an elevator to Mêlée Island, and the infrastructure to an amusement park.
By taking advantage of his surroundings, Guybrush is able to construct a voodoo doll of LeChuck, and maims the zombie pirate. LeChuck begs Guybrush to take his mask off; Guybrush acquiesces, revealing the face of his brother, "Chuckie." The reunion of the two "brothers" is interrupted by a man in brown coveralls, not unlike the delivery crew in Acts II and III, telling them that kids are not allowed "down here." The two brothers, now both appearing as children, exit the tunnels together and meet their parents aboveground in the "Big Whoop" amusement park. As the family leaves to ride the Madly Rotating Buccaneer, Chuckie turns towards the screen and grins, voodoo magic playing over his eyes.
The last in-game screen shows Elaine standing outside Big Whoop excavation site, wondering, "What could be keeping Guybrush? I hope LeChuck hasn't put some sort of SPELL over him .... "
[edit] Production
The project leader and designer was Ron Gilbert. The development team for the game was largely the same as for The Secret of Monkey Island, and Gilbert was once more joined by Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Gilbert parted ways with LucasArts after Monkey Island 2, while Grossman would go on to co-design Day of the Tentacle. Schafer's future projects would include Full Throttle and Grim Fandango.
According to Ron Gilbert, the Monkey Island series was partially inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Monkey Island 2 features a number of tributes to it, particularly a scene with a guard dog in a prison being lured by a bone and Disneyland style underground tunnels and "E Tickets" in the closing scenes. An even greater influence was the 1988 Tim Powers book On Stranger Tides.[1]
The game was released on floppy disks for the PC (with VGA graphics), Macintosh and Amiga (with standard 32-color graphics) in 1991, and was later included on a CD-ROM compilation of Monkey Island games. Plans to release Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge for the Sega CD were scrapped after the Sega CD edition of The Secret of Monkey Island did not sell well. In 1994, the game was released on the FM Towns, the last title LucasArts ever published on that system. The game's graphic interface would later be adapted for the CD-ROM release of The Secret of Monkey Island.
[edit] References and in-jokes
The game contains numerous references to various pop-culture phenomenons. In the game, the gull from the LucasArts game LOOM makes an appearance once again and is mentioned in the credits. In a reference to the movie Back to the Future's character Doc Brown, Elaine yells "Great Scott!" when Guybrush blows the entrance to Big Whoop up with dynamite.
LucasArts founder George Lucas' Indiana Jones is referenced heavily through the game. Quoting Indiana Jones, Guybrush mentions how he hates snakes upon climbing out of the crate he hides in to get to LeChuck's fortress. In another reference to Indiana Jones, when Guybrush swaps two books, he weighs them both, and takes some pages off the replacement book, mimicking the idol and sand scene that opens the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. The minor game character Kate Capsize is probably named after Kate Capshaw, the leading actress in the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Similar to The Secret of Monkey Island, the game contains a faux-death easter egg. Guybrush can supposedly die by being lowered into a pit of acid. This results in a logical impossibility since, as we are then reminded, he is relating the story to Elaine in the past tense. Elaine points out this paradox and Guybrush backtracks, subsequently bringing the player back to the beginning of the acid pit scene.
[edit] Trivia
- In more of a continuity error, Guybrush temporarily loses his facial hair when he is sitting on the stump on the beach on Scabb Island.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Ron Gilbert (September 20, 2004). On Stranger Tides. GrumpyGamer. Retrieved on April 17, 2006.
| Games: | The Secret of Monkey Island | LeChuck's Revenge | The Curse of Monkey Island | Escape from Monkey Island |
|---|---|
| Characters: | Guybrush Threepwood | Elaine Marley | LeChuck | Ozzie Mandrill | Herman Toothrot | Voodoo Lady | Stan | Minor Characters |
| Islands: | Blood | Booty | Dinky | Jambalaya | Lucre | Mêlée | Monkey | Phatt | Plunder | Scabb | Skull |
| Various: | SCUMM | GrimE | iMuse | Insult swordfighting | List of Monkey Island topics |
