PC Game Review: Emerald City Confidential

Forgive me for using this word… AWESOME!!!

The Wizard of Oz meets L.A. Confidential. Emerald City Confidential brings the world of film noir detective mysteries into the world of Oz along with a sordid tale of love, scandal, betrayal, and corruption. If you don’t read further, then know this point and click adventure has it all: Characters with unique personalities, strong story line that doesn’t lose you, smashing graphics and animation, humor, and long play time.

Dorothy may have had a happily ever after ending, but things have changed big time in Oz. Lion is a lawyer. Scarecrow is the former ruler of Emerald City and now adviser. Tin Man is the mayor of a town on the outskirts of Oz. Dorothy isn’t the sweet innocent girl we remember. No Auntie Em, but Toto does more than just run around and look cute.

Lots of dialog occurs that it might tire some gamers, but it tells a gripping and funny story with a few good one-liners. You can listen to the dialog, read it, or both. Petra, that would be the main character and detective, has flaws. She looks angry all the time, but we learn why as we unwrap her own story.

Dee enters Petra’s detective agency asking for help in finding her love. Of course, the story goes much deeper than that sending Petra on an adventure that affects the future of Emerald City. Don’t expect any predictability in Emerald City Confidential. Like Wicked, the musical, it reveals surprises of its own introducing new perspectives.

Petra travels around Oz on the Gump Transit System. Taxi stands appear in most scenes, so travel never becomes a pain with no waiting. She receives quests as she works her case. Upon solving a quest, Petra gains a jewel on her progress bar. Reaching the end of the progress bar means the story is nearing the end.

Players receive dialogue choices – sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure, except you might eventually use all of the dialogues or you might not. Scenes and characters hold objects that help Petra in her adventures including magic spells.

Emerald City Confidential brings a new world complete with culture, rules and procedures to complete the picture. Scenes contain things that aren’t critical to the story that if you skipped them, it won’t hold you back. However, this makes exploring more fun knowing that not everything has a part in the mystery.

The options allow you to adjust the sound for music, sound, and voice as well as mute. It also comes with a walking speed adjustment to push Petra faster. Speeding her can make some folks dizzy. She moves at a comfortable pace that won’t have you tapping fingers waiting for her to move it.

You win medals whenever you complete a chapter and complete a few milestones. The medals feel like an afterthought. They’re not noticeable and don’t feel special. The game offers plenty without the need to tack on more stuff.

This almost perfect game contains a few pests. For one, typos show up in the dialogue at times. “Discrete” should be “discreet, “than” should be “then,” “greatful” is “grateful,” and “Won’t unlock unless I wish it too” doesn’t use the right “to.” Considering the many lines in the story, I forgive a few typos – but it annoys some folks.

You collect buttons and objects from the scenes. A color sparkle hints a button hides there. While in the middle of a dialogue, I try to pick up the button to ensure I don’t miss it. Instead, I sped up the dialogue and missed part of it. So the interaction between the dialogue and scene has quirks. While Petra takes notes in her journal, it doesn’t hold all of the dialogue including the introduction. It would help to have the complete dialogue in a separate part of the journal.

The journal holds clues, sketches, and pill information. Here you can get hints when stuck. The hints remind you of dialogue or clues. You can request a few hints for the same quest from the journal, but it won’t go on forever. The hints provide enough to help you along without giving anything away. If the hint isn’t enough, click for another one. Emerald City Confidential offers a nice hint system that lets players receive a little assistance without all the details.

Another problem shows up in exiting the game (we need sleep, too!) and returning to it doesn’t quite return to the last scene. It requires replaying a scene before catching up.

Despite the little annoyances, Emerald City Confidential entertains for hours compared to many of today’s games especially point and click adventures, which tend to be short. The game’s wonderfulness will have people clamoring for more especially if the story takes place in a different world with different characters. Emerald City Confidential is a beautiful original with heart, brains and power (couldn’t use fear to represent lion).

P.S. This point and click truly brings back the adventure games like the old ones from the ’80s. Thus, it compels the need for a new category here called “Adventure Games.”