A fter LeChuck's Revenge, it seemed like the Monkey Island series might had completed its run. It wasn't that the second installment wasn't profitable or well-received (its success eclipsed that of the original game) or that there wasn't a story left to be told (if nothing else than to explain a certain bizarre ending), but that so much time had passed since Guybrush's last outing and that the series' creator, Ron Gilbert, had moved on. One of the company's earliest fixtures, Gilbert left LucasArts in 1992 to found his own studios with producing partner Shelley Day, and with him went, in the minds of many, the possibility of the swashbuckling series he created being continued, a possibility that became more distinct as the years accumulated.

But sometimes you just can't keep a lovable pirate dope down. The popular franchise's fan base demanded more, and ultimately LucasArts decided to deliver further adventures of Guybrush Threepwood in a long overdue third installment, released in 1997. The project was put in the custody of Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern (the latter also the game's art director), both new to the project leader role but who had proven themselves with experience on several of the company's classic adventures, having worked in various programming/art capacities on such titles as Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Full Throttle and The Dig. Ahern was an animator on Monkey Island 2 and "Additional Background Artist" Bill Eaken contributed to the 256 color upgrade of The Secret of Monkey Island, but for the most part the series was placed in fresh, albeit very capable, hands. (Dave Grossman had followed Ron to work on children-oriented SCUMM games for Humongous Entertainment and embark on a freelance career, and Tim Schafer was working on Grim Fandango at the time).

As Ackley once described it, he and Ahern represented the third generation of SCUMM honchos: "Ron trained Tim and Dave. Tim and Dave trained me. I could insert a classic Star Wars reference here about the whole master/apprentice bit, but I'll refrain." Their team included Lead Artist Bill Tiller (of The Dig), writers/programmers Chuck Jordan and Chris Purvis, animators Graham Annable, Derek Sakai and Marc Overney, and composer Michael Land to name just a few. The product of their efforts is a game so high in quality that many would argue it to be the best the company put out, in addition to being a successful installment in a franchise where such a distinction could not be considered a small feat. It was also, in many ways, the last hurrah of a dying breed.

The game's story begins off the coast of Monkey Island, with Guybrush Threepwood lost at sea, reflecting on his grim situation via his captain's log aboard a floating bumper car in a recap, if not exactly an explanation, of the climax of LeChuck's Revenge. Guybrush's narration is interrupted by the sudden sounds of gunfire, and he looks up to find himself on the coast of Plunder Island, witnessing LeChuck and his minions exchanging cannon fire with Tri-Island Governor Elaine Marley, who is attempting to defend the island's fort from the assault of the undead. After Elaine and LeChuck are simultaneously surprised to discover that Guybrush is alive, he is captured and thrown into the hold of LeChuck's ship, where he is reunited with an ineffectively pirate-a-fied Wally B. Feed, and encounters a relentlessly evil yet hilariously helpless talking skull.

A gargantuan voodoo explosion and clever escape later, Guybrush finds himself having defeated the zombie LeChuck (again), and decides to propose to Elaine with the enormous diamond engagement ring he found among the loot in LeChuck's treasure hold during the battle. Unfortunately, the ring turns out to be cursed, and it transforms Elaine into a solid gold statue when it is slid onto her finger. (As the effect occurs when Elaine realizes Guybrush's lack of discretion, she is frozen in a pose of mid-punch.) What follows is an epic journey in which Guybrush has to reverse the voodoo spell, which entails recovering Elaine from thieving pirates, finding a ship, gathering a crew, becoming a master of the high seas, sailing to the mysterious Blood Island, restoring prestige to a dynasty of soup chefs, irritating a volcano god, outsmarting a pair of murderous smugglers, and rekindling a romance from beyond the grave, among other things. All of this transpires with a ton of laughs, a genuine sense of scope, and a fun cast of characters in an immaculately polished game with super high production values.

While some fans bicker, though certainly less so now than at the time of the game's release, about whether the exaggerated art style that Ahern, Tiller, and the rest of the art team came up with is true to the previous games (probably because some people mistake the resolution and detail restraints on the first two games as a "realistic" art style), what no one seems to argue about is how well it works. The heavily stylized, cartoony backgrounds and character designs feel like a sensible progression of the series' style in its foray into higher resolution 2D, and hardly prevents the game from getting dark or moody when necessary; indeed, the game has a wonderful atmosphere and some of the "heaviest" moments of the entire series, which hopefully most people recognize as being generally lighthearted. It would not be a reckless claim to call The Curse of Monkey Island one of the most gorgeous games produced, and the relative lack of compression makes the artwork easier to appreciate in full than any previous LEC adventure, as well as helping the game come off even more as an interactive animated film or picture book. The animation is equally excellent, and not just in the feature film quality pre-rendered cutscenes. Advancements in tech allowed the art team to hand animate characters on paper for the in-game cycles with a fluid framerate and no color loss. As it was as much a function of budget and resources, this costly technique was not seen again from the company, which is a small reason among the many that the game is so outstanding. With the presentation allowing for the "graphics" and the artwork to be equivalent, The Curse of Monkey Island is a perfect example of state of the art technology being used in the wisest ways.

Just as switching to 3D was probably never on the team's mind, the gameplay doesn't set its sights beyond what's traditional and familiar, retaining tried and true fundamentals and simply perfecting the execution. The Curse of Monkey Island is a pure point ‘n click SCUMM adventure game (the last LucasArts would put out), based heavily on the Full Throttle engine. In fact, the interface is nearly identical, with the exceptions that the interaction icon is now a medallion instead of a tattoo, the sentence line is reprised, and the inventory is reworked to allow for item combination (an apparently irremovable Monkey Island characteristic) to accommodate crazier and more complex puzzles. Interspersed throughout the game are a small number of story-relevant arcade sequences, including cannon firing, banjo dueling, and ship-to-ship combat (the only one that feels a bit hampered by the engine). Unlike the well-intentioned failures that I would described most of Full Throttle's action sequences as, these are all consistently fun and require no special dexterity to complete (the ship-to-ship combat has a difficulty option), making them one of the more enjoyable additions to the game. CMI even reprises Monkey Island 2's difficulty selection feature, giving the player the choice between "Mega Monkey" mode and regular mode (where the trickier puzzles are removed or simplified).

As invaluable as they can be, a great visual style and a solid gameplay mechanic only go so far, but the content of The Curse of Monkey Island lives up to its stellar presentation. The story, writing, and puzzle design are all worthy of the Monkey Island name, with the good humor, entertaining characters, and strong atmosphere of the first two games being expertly captured here. Elaboration about strengths and weaknesses of the puzzle solutions could be made, but what's the point? They're fun, clever, and overall the balance feels about right, which sometimes is all that needs to be said. The "feel" of the game is undoubtedly (and inevitably) a bit different from the first two games, but CMI manages to straddle the difficult line of being familiar and fresh at the same time. Clearly heavy inspiration was taken from its predecessors, with the first section where Guybrush must assemble a crew and find a ship coming across as almost an extensive homage to the first act of The Secret of Monkey Island, and insult swordfighting, which sat out in Monkey Island 2, is reprised with a rhyming twist.

A large part of what makes The Curse of Monkey Island as relentlessly successful as it is, however, is the fact that it's at least as concerned with telling its own yarn than reminding players that the previous ones existed. It's a fully self-contained game, with a new story, new characters, and new islands to explore. (The name of the Tri-Island Area turns out to be a falsity.) Players familiar with the previous installments will find tons of in-jokes (an unshakable tradition that continues with Telltale, Autumn Moon, and Double Fine), references, and even several returning characters, but these nods are not heavy-handed - this is a game clearly designed to stand on its own. Many Monkey Island fans were introduced to the series with this game, and the team made sure that they would enjoy the experience as much as the ones who were catching up with Guybrush and the always inviting version of the Caribbean that he exists in.

But it's not only the production values that makes music memorable, and despite the cinematic quality that can be distinctly heard in The Curse of Monkey Island, the interactive aspect is not neglected. There's an attention to detail, such as a discernible relationship between the music and the sound effects, which seem to recognize each other's existence. The barking of dogs, for example, or the creaking of an old windmill, synchronize or comment in some way with the background music. And as always, iMUSE is employed here, and while the system can never do with recorded music what it can do with MIDIs (the still impressive arrangements of Monkey Island 2 can get insanely complex to a degree that not any of its MIDI-based successors came close to), its implementation in The Curse of Monkey Island is still fairly involved and makes for some of the more memorable musical segments of the game. When talking to the characters in the Barbery Coast or the Goodsoup Hotel, the way the compositions are woven in and out of the location's central, overarching theme never fails to make me stop and listen, engrossed. In a nutshell, Michael Land's soundtrack is nothing short of a masterpiece from a composer who always delivers. The extensive score for The Curse of Monkey Island does more than effectively complement the game's tropical settings and sense of high adventure - it's an inspired work, and about as good as game soundtracks get.

Of course, the audio of a LucasArts adventure game made after Monkey Island 2 does not end with the tuneage. CMI's voicework, both from a performance and technical standpoint, is yet another step up from the already noteworthy efforts heard in Full Throttle (and to a slightly lesser extent, The Dig). The first thing to point out is the casting, because of the anticipation and apprehension surrounding it. The Curse of Monkey Island is the first Monkey Island game in which voice acting is used, and filling in the role of Guybrush Threepwood, an iconic character to many, is no easy task, especially when a character who spoke only in text (and who was thus "voiced" countless time in the heads of every gamer who's played the first two games) can't really be satisfactorily interpreted.

Under the direction of Darragh O'Farrell (The Dig), Dominic Armato (at only 21 – the same age of his character) did the impossible. Much like the art direction, not everyone fell in love with the voice of Guybrush (maybe just in principle) at first, but few who have played through The Curse of Monkey Island can associate a voice with the character that isn't Armato's. The man is Guybrush Threepwood. The supporting cast, which includes a number of familiar voices (Denny Delk brings to life Murray, a character who became an instant fan favorite) as well as the unexpected celebrity cameo (Gary Coleman, anyone?) all do fantastic jobs to bring to life the large cast of original characters. And although Guybrush was certainly the take fans were most concerned about, he wasn't the only reprised character who was being voiced for the first time. The others include LeChuck (Earl Boen), the Voodoo Lady, Stan, Wally, and Lemonhead, and though I think Elaine's accent is as unexpected as her red hair, these are on the whole pleasant surprises. From every possible perspective – there's even a full-fledged interactive musical here, for goodness sake - the voice work in The Curse of Monkey Island continued LEC's trend of topping themselves on every outing. Audio was always an area for which the studio was consistently and deservedly praised, and CMI is as good an example as any as to why.

As a bonafide classic, there isn't much not to love about The Curse of Monkey Island. The only legitimate complaint of any significance that I think can be made about the game is its ending. Unlike the conclusion to LeChuck's Revenge, it's neither insane nor a cliffhanger, but what it is is abrupt. After a gaming experience of such satisfying length and the depth of gameplay to back it up, an ending cinematic that clocks in at a couple of seconds is just a tad anticlimactic. Additionally, the game, perhaps inevitably, struggles to deal with the baggage left behind by LeChuck's Revenge. The explanation for what exactly happened to Guybrush when he encountered LeChuck at the end of the previous game is as good as any, but the degree to which CMI wants to tie up all the loose ends and answer any question a fan might have gets in the way sometimes. Although delegated across the game to some degree, the majority of this exposition is housed in the game's fifth "Part," titled "The Kiss of the Spider Monkey," which takes place at the nefarious Carnival of the Damned on Monkey Island - a giant dialog tree that serves the purpose of filling us in on the events between the second and third game. To be sure, the information learned in the chapter is amusing and of particular interest to veteran players, and there was probably no preferable way to handle it, but it grinds the game to an absolute halt. The surreal twist of Monkey Island 2's ending left a toll that CMI had to pay, and it does so as admirably as it can.

Although there were (and still are) kooks out there who will not accept a third Monkey Island game that wasn't helmed by Gilbert out of principle, the game was universally embraced, and the acclaim has only strengthened over the years. The critics, who fell madly in love with the game, were joined by the series' fans, whose reaction was loud and passionate. In fact, no exploration of The Curse of Monkey Island would be complete without noting the game's strong kinship with the LEC adventure fan scene, which emerged and then exploded around the time of the game's release in the form of an active community, a large part of which (including this site) fell under the banner of "The LucasArts Fan Network." While perhaps it wouldn't be accurate to say that The Curse of Monkey Island was exclusively responsible for this phenomenon (that time period was, after all, when a good deal of the general public started migrating online), it seems impossible to deny that the countless overnight fan sites dedicated to the anticipated sequel speaks to something.

Given all that passion and praise, it's fair to ask what makes the game so special. While I wouldn't try to pinpoint it, there is something that continues to strike me about The Curse of Monkey Island, and that's that it doesn't seem capable of aging. The reason is simple. There is not one decision, large or small, made about the use of technology in this game that was for any other reason than to support the final vision. Strong story-driven games tend to stand the test of time well, but the aforementioned reliance of artwork makes CMI the ultimate example. Ask yourself the following question: If the game were made this year, with the same vision and intentions, what about it would look different? The resolution would be a bit higher, the cutscenes would be better compressed, and…I can't think of much else. A game comprised of high resolution illustrations and 2D animation is only ever going to look as good as the quality of the artwork. There might be room for some slight and ultimately pointless bells and whistles but, like an old animated film, it's timeless. The Curse of Monkey Island is as appealing a game now as it was on its first day of release, and I suspect that in the future age is going to do little to change that.

Of course, a large budget played a huge role in making those endeavors possible. With The Curse of Monkey Island and its sister production, Grim Fandango, LEC was at the top of their adventure-making game, and no expense was being spared to make them as first-rate as possible. For a number of reasons, the two games were inevitably the last no-holds-barred AAA titles for the genre from LEC, the world's premiere adventure developer. A game like CMI is therefore to be cherished not only for being great, but for being something that is no longer possible. Whatever it's cherished for, it's on a short list of the all time best games, and only someone foolish enough to feed nacho cheese to a lactose intolerant volcano god would say otherwise.