Emerald City Confidential review
May. 1st, 2012 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73L. Frank Baum’s magical land of Oz has been loved for generations. Ever since the his original series of books entered the public domain, others have taken temporary possession of Oz and run with it in gleeful abandon. Authors such as Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neil wrote books in keeping with Baum’s original vision; others, most notably Gregory Maguire, imagined alternate versions of the world. The video game we finished this weekend, Emerald City Confidential, is another wonderful addition to the alternate realities of Oz.
In this point-and-click adventure, you play as Petra, an entirely new inhabitant of Oz who works as a private investigator. She can always use the income from her cases, but she ultimately has her own reasons for being an investigator. As the game starts, Petra is approached by a young woman calling herself Dee who wants Petra to take on a missing-persons case. As Petra investigates, the case spins out of control, ultimately becoming a much bigger problem that endangers the entire kingdom of Oz.
During the course of the game, Petra meets Ozians both famous (Dorothy and her three companions, Queen Ozma, certain witches) and obscure (the Shaggy Man, the Sawhorse, Mombi). Aspects of most of the familiar characters have been completely re-imagined - you’ll be quite amused when you find out who turned into a thoroughly nasty lawyer and who developed a drinking problem in this very noir version of Oz. The characters also look fairly different compared to the original book illustrations or the movie versions. Dave Gilbert and Wadjet Eye Games obviously gave themselves tremendous freedom with this game, which results in an unusually strong story. The dialogue through which character motives and actions are revealed is also very well-written, and almost all of it is beautifully voice-acted to boot.
The one uneven aspect of the game is the gameplay. Through the first half or so of the game, the puzzles mostly consist of figuring out who to talk to next or where to go, and they’re all pretty trivial. In the later portion of the game there are some puzzles which are real head-scratchers, one of which is hard mostly because a newly-acquired ability is explained badly. (Fortunately, none of the ‘hard’ puzzles are in the same class as the infamous mustache puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3 - once you figure out a solution, it makes sense.) As a side issue, it feels like half of Petra’s quest was completely skipped due to a lack of development time or money. Finally, there are a couple of weird graphical glitches, but none of them affect gameplay. None of these issues are deal-breakers. The story and dialogue are more than strong enough to carry this indie game through. Now when is Wadget Eye going to port more of its games to Mac or come out with a sequel?
Emerald City Confidential is available for Mac and PC on Big Fish and PlayFirst Games (and several other web stores, all of which seem to offer 1 hour of free play) for $6.99 for members ($9.99 for non-members) and through the Mac App Store for $9.99.
In this point-and-click adventure, you play as Petra, an entirely new inhabitant of Oz who works as a private investigator. She can always use the income from her cases, but she ultimately has her own reasons for being an investigator. As the game starts, Petra is approached by a young woman calling herself Dee who wants Petra to take on a missing-persons case. As Petra investigates, the case spins out of control, ultimately becoming a much bigger problem that endangers the entire kingdom of Oz.
During the course of the game, Petra meets Ozians both famous (Dorothy and her three companions, Queen Ozma, certain witches) and obscure (the Shaggy Man, the Sawhorse, Mombi). Aspects of most of the familiar characters have been completely re-imagined - you’ll be quite amused when you find out who turned into a thoroughly nasty lawyer and who developed a drinking problem in this very noir version of Oz. The characters also look fairly different compared to the original book illustrations or the movie versions. Dave Gilbert and Wadjet Eye Games obviously gave themselves tremendous freedom with this game, which results in an unusually strong story. The dialogue through which character motives and actions are revealed is also very well-written, and almost all of it is beautifully voice-acted to boot.
The one uneven aspect of the game is the gameplay. Through the first half or so of the game, the puzzles mostly consist of figuring out who to talk to next or where to go, and they’re all pretty trivial. In the later portion of the game there are some puzzles which are real head-scratchers, one of which is hard mostly because a newly-acquired ability is explained badly. (Fortunately, none of the ‘hard’ puzzles are in the same class as the infamous mustache puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3 - once you figure out a solution, it makes sense.) As a side issue, it feels like half of Petra’s quest was completely skipped due to a lack of development time or money. Finally, there are a couple of weird graphical glitches, but none of them affect gameplay. None of these issues are deal-breakers. The story and dialogue are more than strong enough to carry this indie game through. Now when is Wadget Eye going to port more of its games to Mac or come out with a sequel?
Emerald City Confidential is available for Mac and PC on Big Fish and PlayFirst Games (and several other web stores, all of which seem to offer 1 hour of free play) for $6.99 for members ($9.99 for non-members) and through the Mac App Store for $9.99.
