History: Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge are two of the greatest games of all time, created by Ron Gilbert who left LucasArts to found his own company Humongous. Since that time Ron Gilbert has toyed with returning to adult animated graphic adventures, but has spent his time well bringing out Freddi Fish and other great titles. Sadly Ron will not be working on the third installment of the trilogy, .

Plot: The evil and wily buccaneer LeChuck is still dead, but persistent in his amorous pursuit of Elaine, whom he wants to kill so that she can join him in un-death. Guybrush Threepwood still has his own intentions were Elaine is concerned and while trying to insure his success manages to get Elaine to put on a cursed ring that turns her into a gold statue. And while gold is precious, Guybrush, who was named after a hair brush, has found that gold cannot snuggle up to you on a bear rug in front of a fire quite the way he had intended. So Guybrush must leave his hearth and seek out the antidote to his love’s golden predicament, while defending himself against the nefarious intentions of LeChuck’s scurvy-ridden villains and grog-guzzling pirates and other wise thwart the evil plans of LeChuck and make the seven seas safe for honest pirates like himself.

Jonathan Ackley, who co-developed the Curse of Monkey Island (CMI), recently remarked, "The previous Monkey Islands games provided an incredibly fertile platform, especially from a visual standpoint." Of course the amount of fertility will have to stay on hold until the heroine is destatued, and dumping horse manure on a platform will only grow plants. Larry Ahern, the other co-developer of CMI, was recently heard mumbling the following ditty, "The Curse of Monkey Island will include all of the elements that made the series great but with a stylized, hi-resolution look that could not have been accomplished before." As Larry sang and accompanied himself on the accordian, Jon fiddled with his computer keyboard.

Interface: Of course the interface must be intuitive, which Websters’ defines as "knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes . . . insight . . . an impression," which we all know is easy to get as manure, but even more important it speaks without words, that is to say, it will be obvious to all concerned what is going on, and it surely will be funny.

Game play: Like most graphic animated adventures, you examine and collect things from the environment and place them in your inventory, until such time as an opportunity for their use presents itself. The real trick is when to use that intuition to determine the right time, place, and manner to use the items collected, that is, of course, if any of the objects are to be used at all.

Not only will the treasure hunt type puzzles present themselves for solution, but other puzzles of different, as yet unnamed, types will present themselves for solution, as well. You will be allowed to talk to the other characters in the game, who hopefully will stop to give you the time of day. From these conversation, pearls of wisdom are gleaned, and in the gleaning the puzzle solutions will then drop from that old intuition like rain.

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