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 system.

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 first game in the series. The project was led by Ron Gilbert, and he was once more joined by Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. LeChuck's Revenge is considered by critics to be among the best of LucasArts' adventure games.

Gameplay
LeChuck's Revenge plays like most SCUMM-based point-and-click adventure games. Actions and dialogues are depicted on an Animation Window which covers the top of the screen; verbal commands are listed in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, while Inventory items are shown as icons on the lower right-hand corner. A Sentence Line is located below the Animation Window and serves in describing the actions of the player.

The game was one of the few adventure games that offered the player a choice in levels of puzzle difficulty. In some versions, before starting the game, the player is prompted to choose between regular version and "Monkey 2 Lite", a relatively stripped-down experience that 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.

Setting
LeChuck's Revenge is set in the fictional Tri-Island Area of the Caribbean, several months after The Secret of Monkey Island. The game opens in medias res as Guybrush Threepwood hangs on a rope above a hole, narrating to Elaine Marley on a separate rope the events that led to this situation. The flashback sequence starts on Scabb Island and constitutes most of the playable game's setting. During it, Guybrush also visits Phatt Island, Booty Island, and Dinky Island, voyaging on two different pirate ships.

Characters
Some of the notable characters include:
 * Guybrush Threepwood: The protagonist, a mighty pirate and thrill-seeker.
 * Elaine Marley: Governess of Booty Island and Guybrush's love interest.
 * LeChuck: The antagonist, Guybrush's sworn enemy.
 * Largo LaGrande: LeChuck's old first mate whom Guybrush must overcome.
 * "The Voodoo Lady:" A mystical woman who assists Guybrush on his journey.
 * Wally B. Feed: An eccentric mapmaker.

Story
Guybrush's story begins with him talking to two pirates and telling them about the time he defeated LeChuck. He further tells them that he is looking for the treasure of "Big Whoop", and 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 gives him, defeats Largo. However, in trying to prove that he was the one who killed LeChuck, Guybrush makes the mistake of showing Largo that he has LeChuck's beard. Largo steals the beard and uses it to resurrect his old patron. After the Voodoo Lady tells Guybrush that "the only way to stop LeChuck now lies only in the secret of Big Whoop", Guybrush continues his quest in search of this treasure.

After a lengthy quest involving everything from library research to a spitting contest, Guybrush is able to reconstruct 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 lowers himself 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 for 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 .... "

Development
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 for LucasArts 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, however, was the 1988 book On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers.

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 called The Monkey Island Bounty Pack. 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.

LeChuck's Revenge was the first game to use LucasArts' iMUSE audio engine. All the tunes are in MIDI.

References and in-jokes
The game contains numerous references to various pop-culture phenomena. 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.
 * At one point, when Guybrush needs to switch 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.
 * When Guybrush enters the Big Whoop burial site and finds himself on a platform opposite one holding the treasure, he uses a rope and crowbar to swing to the one on which it is held. As he swings, the familiar Indiana Jones tune can be heard.
 * In the antique shop located on Booty Island, an item called "Indy's whip" is on display, but the shopkeeper will not sell it because he does not have enough overstock.
 * There is a book in the Phatt Island library called X Never Marks the Spot by I. Jones.

Lucas' Star Wars films are also referenced in the last part of the game: LeChuck tells Guybrush that he is his brother, and later, when he is lying on the ground, severely wounded, he asks him to take off his mask. Both are parodies of well-known scenes from the original trilogy.

The two pirates Guybrush speaks with around the campfire on Scabb Island are named "Bart" and "Fink," when said together, is the same as the Joel and Ethan Coen's film Barton Fink.

Reception
After the success of The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was highly anticipated. Amiga Power called it the most eagerly awaited game of 1992. When the game was released, it received consistently high reviews for all versions, 95% from Amiga Computing for the Amiga version, 96% from Computer and Video Games for the IBM PC version. When Kixx XL rereleased Monkey Island 2 as a budget game, the reviews remained high getting 91% from CU Amiga. The game is still considered very high quality with contemporary reviewers scoring the game highly. Monkey Island 2 is often cited as one of the greats in the point-and-click genre, which stands up well against modern adventure game titles. The game currently holds a rating of 91.6% on the review aggregator site GameRankings.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was rated highly for several reasons. The game is considered user friendly as it has a "lite" mode. This allowed beginners to play the game at an easier setting. The overall difficulty of both modes is also considered to be good. The redesign in controls, such as the fewer verbs and graphical inventory were rated well as increasing the game's ease of use.

Music in Monkey Island 2 was noted for its use of the iMUSE system. Reviewers noted that for the first time the sound is an integral part of the atmosphere. Graphically, the game was considered an improvement over its predecessor, with reviewers very impressed.

It is also noted by critics that the developers of Monkey Island 2 made using the 11 floppy disks the game came on relatively smooth, but also noted that installing the game on a hard drive is recommended.

LucasArts fansite "Mix 'n' Mojo" announced that a speech modification was being worked on.