Escape From Monkey Island takes place on what is jokingly referred to in the game as the 'Tri-Island Area', a small group of fictitious islands in the Caribbean. You play the role of 'Guybrush Threepwood', a swashbuckling pirate with a quick tongue and a habit of getting into trouble-usually with the evil ghost pirate Chuck Le Chuck. This adventure is no different-there's trouble abound, jokes to be cracked, and you just know Le Chuck hasn't retired to Davy Jones' Locker just yet.

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of Monkey Island is the humorous dialogue, which is filled to the brim with puns, jokes, pop culture references, and witty responses. While many games make an attempt at being humorous, often with varying degrees of success, few games make it a lynchpin of their storytelling. Monkey Island constantly left me in stitches, while most videogame game humor can be generalized as uninspired if not just plain bad, Escape From Monkey Island manages to deliver lines that are full of wit and real sidesplitting humor.

A powerful ingredient in making the humor of the game so effective is the setting, a wonderfully fresh parody of modern commercialization, complete with pirate-flavored takes on trendy institutions like sushi bars, microbreweries, and even Starbucks coffee shops. The setting helps lay the groundwork for humor that is both visual and audible, a combination whose effectiveness is clear the first time you see a 'Planet Threepwood' restaurant and realize just how ridiculous it is. The jokes that follow play off the setting well, and reinforce the game's already whimsical tone. It's a really nice touch, and one that certainly tickles the brain as well as the funny bone.

Adding to the style of the game are the wonderful visuals, which sport some great hand-drawn, cartoony backgrounds and really add to the game's cartoony feel. The characters themselves are fully polygonal and are wonderfully textured and animated, preserving the great detail of their 2D predecessors. Music is a full of delightful Caribbean fare, think 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and you're right on target. Voice acting is especially professional, with all the characters delivering their one-liners in convincing tones. Sound effects are also very cartoony as well, and from the thwanging launch of a catapult to the squeaking of Timmy the Monkey, it oozes quality work. The visual and audio presentation of the game is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also does a superb job in bridging the gameplay with the humor and setting extremely well.

Of course, your brain will be more than just 'tickled' in Escape From Monkey Island. It will be taxed, wrenched, gutted, searched and searched again trying to figure out the game's many puzzles. The puzzles are quite varied. You'll go from figuring out how to get the various parts of a voodoo trinket, to trying to clear your name from a bank robbery. As in most adventure games, you need two things to succeed-you must be observant, and you have to be able to reason out the problem at hand with the equipment you have on you. Sometimes it is quite simple, and things aren't a problem. Other times it is extraordinarily difficult, and you'll be pulling your hair out faster than most middle-aged men lose it. Unless you are experienced with the genre, you're bound to find your save files littered with expletives, as the game can be very, very frustrating and unforgiving. Fortunately, the retail version of the game comes included with a hint book that covers the entirety of the game, so if you get stuck, you'll be able to go straight to it for your answers. While this may seem like a cop-out, it is there for a reason, and if you get stuck, go ahead and use it. It will save you a lot of grief when things just don't add up, which, in my case, far more common than my ego would like to think.

The game's controls are somewhat strange at first (when was the last game you played without the option to use a mouse?), but it works very well most of the time. The interface is very simple, when you enter interactive area of the screen you are presented with different options to use. Conversation works in a typical manner as you choose from the dialogue available. This interface extends into the 'insult' events, where you and your opponent test your mettle not with metal, but with sharp words. The only nag is that sometimes it is difficult to navigate in tight areas, and you'll find yourself accidentally exiting screens and areas when you don't want to. Fortunately for gamers everywhere, the game is relatively free of bugs. I never had the game crash on me once during my full romp through the game.

Despite the sometimes-baffling challenges (which, in all honesty, are pretty typical to the genre), Escape From Monkey Island delivers exactly what the Monkey Island name promises-a lighthearted, entertaining, and well-written swashbuckling adventure game. Kudos go to LucasArts and their team for not abandoning a genre many consider dead, and providing a product that lets both newcomers to the genre and old-school players enjoy the kind of madcap antics that have made Monkey Island such an PC gaming institution.