The storyline takes place right after Datadog's previous Monkey Island fangame, Monkey Island The Devils Triangle, and revolves around Guybrush Threepwood's attempts to locate the fabled treasure of Big Whoop and once again defeat his arch-nemesis, the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, who has now returned to life as a zombie.
The game can be downloaded here
, and the old game website, along with a full walkthrough, is available on Wayback.
This game provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: This game's version of Guybrush is much tougher than Guybrush from the original Monkey Island games, up to single-handedly defeating LeChuck's entire army of the undead in Part 3.
- The Cameo: Loads and loads of them.
- In Part 2, you can meet Chris Tucker under the Big Tree on Booty Island.
- Enemies and bosses encountered in Part 3 include a monster similar to the Balrog from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (ironically named "Poochie"), Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy on a broomstick, Goombas from Super Mario Bros., Bub and Bob from Bubble Bobble, and Kitty from Hello Kitty, dressed up as The Grim Reaper.
- At the beginning of Part 4, the tied-up Guybrush is found by a bunch of hamsters from Hamtaro who (unsuccessfully) try to untie him.
- Later on in Part 4, Guybrush finds a bottle with Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie.
- The three-headed monkey that attends Guybrush and Elaine's wedding in the game's happiest ending is actually conjoined Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne from Day of the Tentacle.
- Crapsaccharine World: The Big Whoop theme resort. Due to a voodoo curse placed on it, it attracts vacationers who waste away all their money and remain at the resort forever till they die.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The two map pieces in Part 2.
- Expy: Guvna the Phatt, the Governor of Phatt Island, is a very obvious expy of Jabba the Hutt. The Governor of Phatt Island from the original Monkey Island 2 was also based on Jabba the Hutt, albeit in a more subtle way.
- Multiple Endings: The game has nine endings in total, and the player may choose any of them:
- One ending has Guybrush escape LeChuck on a bumper car from an amusement park, directly tying into the beginning of The Curse of Monkey Island.
- In another ending, which is a parody of Scooby-Doo, the zombie LeChuck turns out to be a masked goon, and is unmasked in a typical You Meddling Kids scene.
- In a yet another ending, which parodies the cliches of mind-bending movies like Vanilla Sky and Mulholland Dr. that were popular in the 1990s, it turns out that Guybrush is actually Ron Gilbert. Gilbert hallucinated the whole thing while unconscious after the crash of the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which explains Monkey Island's trademark Anachronism Stew, and various characters were based on his friends and colleagues who came to visit him in the hospital (Elaine was inspired by Tim Schafer, Simon Jeffrey was Captain Dread, Steve Purcell - also known as Kaiser Soze - was Wally B. Feed, and George Lucas was LeChuck's tiny clone Mini-Chuckie). Then, in a yet another twist, it turns out that George Lucas was with Ron Gilbert on the ride and died in the crash, which means Ron is seeing dead people.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: LeChuck, who intends to use the Big Whoop theme resort for his evil plans (see Worthless Treasure Twist), has also planted bombs in the resort's buildings out of sheer stupidity. The resort explodes, leaving him with nothing.
- Red Herring: The Big Tree on Booty Island. Unlike the original Monkey Island 2, the location plays no role in the story, and the only thing you can do there is talk to Chris Tucker.
- Shout-Out: Basically, the entire game is comprised of them:
- The opening scene, in which Guybrush begins his monologue against a backdrop of a highway, is a nod to Full Throttle (accompanied by music from the same game).
- The narrative framing device, which has Guybrush tied to a chair in a skyscraper and telling his story to LeChuck who holds him at gunpoint, references Fight Club.
- In Part 1, Guybrush inserts a coin into a fortune-teller machine, and the machine turns him into a fully hand-drawn character from the pixelated sprite he was in the original Monkey Island 2 and in The Devil's Triangle. This is a reference to the movie Big, in which a fortune-teller machine turns a small boy into an adult.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The scenes of LeChuck plotting nefarious plans with his henchmen are shown against the backdrop of cheerful lounge music from Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work.
- Worthless Treasure Twist: The fabled treasure of Big Whoop turns out to be a tropical theme resort. It was built by a voodoo practicioner who cursed it, so that vacationers would waste all their money there and never leave. LeChuck intends to use it to become rich, capture Elaine with the curse and recruit the trapped people for his army of the undead, but Guybrush is visibly disappointed:No gold... no jewels... not even a lousy McDonald's toy. Eons of legend surrounding the fabled treasure had been greatly misleading. In truth, Big Whoop was not a cave of riches, or a mystic fountain of great power and youth... It was a valuable piece of real estate manifested in the form of a tropical theme resort.
