Review: Emerald City Confidential

[Susan Arendt]

Review: Emerald City Confidential

Emerald City Confidential is a noir mystery set in L. Frank Baum's land of Oz - and one of the best games you'll see all year.

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[PedroSteckecilo]

I love The Wizard of Oz, this definately sounds like awesome sauce. I'll need to check this out as soon as I get the chance.

 

[Chimaera]

Although I don't always agree with the verdict on reviews around here, I have to completely agree on Emerald City Confidential.

 

[Doug]

I'm going to have to check this one out over the weekend. Nice to see the possible return of good point and click adventures with the added possiblity of the new Wallace and Gromit game being good too.

 

[zoozilla]

Glad to know there's other people who still appreciate the adventure genre, and that good ones are still around.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Hmm..now I'm intrigued. I'm also wondering how long it'll take me to finish the entire thing, though.

This "free trial" is tempting...

Also, you made a typo: "I'm not trying to shove this down your throat because I'm think adventure games..."
But other than that, this review made me want to play the game.

And for that, I will never forgive you.

Oops, thanks for catching that. I shall fix.

As for how long it will take you to finish, let me put it this way: it's rather a lot like Portal. It may only take a few hours, but they're very, very satisfying hours.

 

[KDR_11k]

So what if I've never encountered any of the Oz material outside of jokes in webcomics? Would I still get what it's about?

 

[Susan Arendt]

So what if I've never encountered any of the Oz material outside of jokes in webcomics? Would I still get what it's about?

Oh, sure. While knowledge of at least the movie The Wizard of Oz certainly helps you appreciate the material more, it's not at all necessary to understand the action in the game.

 

[aaron552]

From your description, this game seems to have a lot in common with Beyond Good and Evil... Colourful and cartoony art style, but with darker themes. Sounds a lot like it in that regard, anyway. Because this was what I loved about Beyond Good and Evil, I will give it a try when I have time to play the 1-hour trial. Then I'll buy it if I like it

 

[Ronwue]

This game seems fun. I might give it a try. Although I have to say, a game in the land of OZ does not make me flip in the air with excitement, no matter how dark it is.

 

[Capo Taco]

I tried the trial. Although the land of Oz does not make me flip in the air either, the setting was actually the best thing to it.

However, the ease with which you sail through makes it less enjoyable and the early acquiring of buttons to unlock concept art was very breaking of the narrative. Apart from lion and pumpkinhead, there were no memorable characters. In fact the others were all rather annoying. I think they were meant to be mysterious or strange, but they come off as undefined rather.

Making a good adventure game is very hard. This one is ok, I guess, but it lacks the length, storytelling prowess and challenge for me to enjoy it. All other things would have been forgiven if the storytelling was better, but I felt at times the game was throwing data at me in the form of concept art and background information (knowledge pills), rather than immersing me into a beautiful noir magical world.

Or should that be vert magical world?

 

[Logan Westbrook]

So what if I've never encountered any of the Oz material outside of jokes in webcomics? Would I still get what it's about?

Oh, sure. While knowledge of at least the movie The Wizard of Oz certainly helps you appreciate the material more, it's not at all necessary to understand the action in the game.

Seeing Return to Oz doesn't hurt either.

This game is amazing. My only criticism is that I wanted it to be longer.