Buy Al Emmo

This is a game from another decade. A time when adventure games had lots of screens, many of which were just graphical interludes to walk through. Where your inventory quickly swelled with dozens of items, and visual clues telling you what to pick up were considered patronizing.Al Emmo isn’t just old-school; it’s total old-school immersion that’ll thrill genre-lovers and the pathologically curious. It does its best to be funny, with an every-line-as-joke approach similar to Sam & Max.Interacting with the environment uses a similar method to Full Throttle, where you can interact with anything using your hand (examine), eyes (get/use) or tongue (speak). It’s not as elegant as the LucasArts implementation, but serves its purpose well enough.Puzzles are, with a few exceptions, all inventory-based, although there are a few light action sequences. There are a few clunkers in the bunch, but most of the puzzles that I came up against maintained the right balance between challenging and frustrating. On the music front, there's not much to be said. I found the score fairly negligible, consisting mostly of variations on old west themes that we've heard in pretty much every western game that's come out before this one. While I was quite impressed with the content of the game, Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine is probably one of the tougher games to recommend, as much will depend on what people expect. For those seeking a complete throwback to the classic adventures of old, Al Emmo certainly delivers in many respects.

Himalaya Studios (formerly Tierra/AGD Interactive) has a long history of making quality adventure games and they don't disappoint with their first paid outting. While not quite up to the standards that I had expected from their King's Quest remakes, Al Emmo is still a hilarious and fun romp through a Western town. It's full of in-jokes and bad puns, which is a plus to anyone who wants a good laugh. The puzzles are pretty intuitive and with some thought can be easily solved with time. There were a couple minor things that I found mildly offensive, but not enough to diminish my overall experience. For anyone who wants a good comedy adventure set in the Wild West, I highly recommend this one.

This game is exactly what it says on the tin. A retro styled point & click adventure game that takes inspiration from the golden era of Sierra and Lucasarts. While the game is quite old now, I still remember first buying it almost ten years ago when Telltale Games were selling it on their store. I enjoyed it back then and I like the improvements to this new enhanced edition. The game is a very niche title made for adventure game fans from a specific era. The newer generation of gamers who are unaccustomed to this style of old school adventure games may be left scratching their heads and they may not understand what the appeal is. But as a gamer of the golden era I absolutely revel in a game where every single item has a unique description and there's a large, dangerous and very descriptive open land to explore with interesting characters and quests to solve. Yes, this game has all that and more. It's classic Sierra adventure, through and through.

It's a bold risk on the developer's part to use such a non-heroic character for their protagonist, but I don't think the game suffers for it. In fact I found that I actually got attached to the little guy! A few little quirks here and there can't override a solid adventure gaming experience. It's a thumbs up from me.

This is a real eye-opener game. Unique design concept deep heart and it made ​​a very good detail. Plot is entirely inferior to Hollywood blockbusters. Role model is very fine, making good interface. So what? You worth trying to play!

我了個去..!這遊戲誰買誰傻逼!
連小FLASH遊戲都說不上,你看那人物走路的樣子你都能醉了
連掛卡試玩的時間我都不想浪費在這破遊戲上!

Great adventure game :D !!!!! Love it

In short:
A truly great adventure classic (some twisted humor put aside)! A must have.

Cons:
- it is an AGS game, which means rather pixelated graphics, if you do mind that side of adventure gaming, -
- and not very comfy interface: scrolling between possible actions means pressing RMB a lot;
- still, the biggest disadvantage for me was that the game is too mature in its themes, even more than old and racy Sierra games. I have no idea why the authors decided to put so much innuendo into it. There is quite a number of indicencies in 'Al Emmo' - that suit neither the good taste nor the setting of the 19 c. Wild West!

Pros:
- Why, the protagonist! 42-year old 'anti-hero' is somebody you rarely meet in games as your alter ego;
- Humor is mostly quite good, if you can bear the noted innuendo topics;
- 2D graphics, voices, and writing are excellent indeed. John Bell who plays the Narrator is especially great;
- That game has so many details thrown into it that a single walkthrough could possbily show you only 1/10 of the game's capacity! Each location has at least half a dozen of active objects in it, and every single action you perform with any of them gives you a special comment. That's how they used to make games in 1980's, you know...
- That richness of details gives a whole new light to achievements, which are very interesting here and make you want to play the game again and again while searching for more easter eggs :)

While I haven't finished Al Emmo yet, it's pretty easy to figure out my opinions from the small amount of time I played. The game was built in Adventure Game Studio, or AGS, back in 2006. This is an enhanced edition of that project, improving the animation and voice acting. It's actually really impressive for an AGS game, especially considering the original game is 8 years old now.

Al Emmo tries very, very hard to emulate the Sierra adventure game formula. If I didn't know better, I'm sure that I could easily be convinced that this is Sierra's "Wild West Quest" It has the Sierra style interface, a snarky narrator that will squabble with Al, and lots of humor.

I've been enjoying the game so far, and if you like quirky humor with the Sierra style of adventure mechanics, you will too!

Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine (AEatLDM) was a point & click adventure game that I honestly didn't think I would bother playing, but I had it from buying bundles it featured in, so I gave it a go while keeping my expectations cautiously low.

So the narrative revolves around a middle-aged balding virgin named Al Emmo who ventures to a small town to meet his bride.... who he paid for. However, when she meets him and it turns out that he has no cash to his name, she quickly leaves. Emmo is then awestruck by another lady and sets out upon his mission to win her heart through a series of ideas to impress her and also make himself a little cash over the course of 9 chapters of varying length. The entire game hinges on the way this story plays out and Emmo's comedic interactions with everyone around him (and also how the narrator berates Emmo for being a useless human being). The game has many short-comings, but comedy is definitely not one of them. I found the game was able to make me laugh a lot, cringe often, chuckle every few minutes, and it even managed to develop a sort of bond (through pity) for the hapless Emmo. Unfortunately this game suffers almost everywhere outside of the writing though. One of these areas is the way the game is broken down in to chapters, with each chapter being a new day. Some chapters are quite long, but there are a couple where you literally have to find a couple of items and they only take 5 minutes. The pacing of the game never quite feels right because of this.

As a computer game, AEatLDM plays incredibly slowly... even for a point & click game this plays slowly (which is really saying something). Every animation feels clunky, and Emmo himself moves so painfully slowly that you could die of boredom when transitioning screens. Some items are quite obvious that you can interact with them, but some are part of the pre-rendered background and are not obvious at all which leads to the game feeling padded as you often have to re-visit areas to find items you did not pick up earlier. There is a quick travel system that allows you to go to quickly visit about 5 landmark areas which probably saved me from just quitting this game completely, but even with the fast-travel it still felt like a chore re-visiting old areas. Aside from the slow gameplay, the puzzles are often not very logical. While this is to be expected in a comedic game, it can seriously hamper players trying to progress as answers often do not make sense. While the gameplay itself is tedious, for the most part this does not stop me enjoying point & click adventure games, however the final boss requires some quite precise movement (and timing) which this game simply was not designed for. The final boss ends up being an incredibly messy affair where even if you are doing the right thing you will still end up dying over & over again due to the frustrating movement of Emmo.

Now if you have actually loaded up AEatLDM, you may have noticed something straight away... the game is ugly. The cartoon cut-scenes are actually quite well done, but the game uses low resolution and during gameplay you will be staring at some very pixelated scenes that are usually saturated with yellow sand. The graphics are just about good enough to get by, but there is nothing good to actually say about them (so I wont). You can mostly tell what item is what, and what is actually happening on the screen, but due to the low resolution there are no small details that you can admire. What you see is what you get, and nothing more.

The sound is at odds to the graphics in that they are actually quite good (mostly). The voice-acting is clear, and every character has a distinct voice. The soundtrack is not particularly inspiring though, which is a little annoying considering there is often a lot of "adventuring" between your conversations. Also, there is one character who has TERRIBLE voice-acting and scripting. The barman, who Emmo meets at least once every day, has some of the worst voice-acting I have ever heard. His scripting does not come across as realistic and his voice sounds like it was recorded in a garage on a 20 year-old microphone. It is a real shame as that one characters brings down the rest of the game when everyone else is actually quite well written and voiced.

This may sound odd after mostly pointing out the game's various flaws, but I actually enjoyed what time I spent with Emmo. This is not a good game at all, but it is a decent comedy. If you like laughing, and also point & click games, then give this a go. It certainly has a very unique charm.

P.S. a final note of warning to those of you that are achievement hunters: avoid this game.
The achievements are mostly very well hidden and rather cryptic. I completed the game and only managed 5 of 20. I dont mind this, but I know some people might find that off-putting.

I can confirm all another player said about this game and more, the constant innuendo, the constant and thinly veiled sexual reference, potty humor, and really "jokes" that are just so snarky and poorly written make up the bulk of this game. I mean it, this is probably the filthiest game i've seen on steam, not filthy like buxom zombies of Dead Island, but filthy like dirty old man gives me the creeps everytime he opens his stank hole and sounds come pouring out kind of filthy.

The engine is acceptable, the art is acceptable, the way items are handled, all classic point/click adventure, but it is entirely wasted by this niche marketing. This is the adventure game equivalent of a stupid drunken idiotic "Spring Break" Z rated teen movie.

I wish I could scrub the activity from my profile, but the only reason I ever stuck with this game was for playfire rewards, which works based on obtaining certain achievements.

This game could've been fun for the whole family, were it not for the writing/storyline. Definitely not my cup of tea.

A Solid good laugh, occasionally Al gets stuck on things but it seems the norm for games on the AGS Engine

Video Review Below (warning spoilers)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=262475751

Poor animations and stuttering audio are just the most obvious superficial flaws in this title. While not necessarily enough to keep you from getting "into" the game and its story, although it does come close, the real obstacle is the story and the game, neither of which are very compelling or interesting. What starts off looking like an interesting tale of adventure during the longish introduction cut scene, ends up looking like an attempt to make a Leisure Suit Larry clone. And not a very good one, at that.

Anyway, after about an hour and a half of trying, I just did not feel like subjecting myself to any more of it, and ended the game.

I had played this game in the past and enjoyed it, so I was very pleased to find it again. The developer has apparently made several improvements since its initial release.

Al Emmo is a true, classic-style adventure game with challenging puzzles and hotspots to explore in every scene. The music and sound effects are especially nice. There are all kinds of unique narrator responses, which makes trying all kinds of silly actions all the more fun.

The interface is very clear with labeled hotspots and easy to use controls. Double-clicking to run is also a welcome option.

This game is a great value and will keep you busy and entertained for many hours. At this price you can hardly go wrong.

Some people in the reviews have complained about the risque humor. Well, I liked it. Maybe I'm immature, but I did laugh when the train station employee said, "I don't have any other services to offer. And I do have a wife" after I offered him money. It's a silly, fun game, people. Lighten up!

Oh I get it, alamo

I can NOT STAND the main character's voice. It's atrocious. I had this on Desura long before it came to Steam but they boasted "New voice actor!" and all this other jazz so I figured I would check it out. Nope, still garbage. If you don't know what he sounds like watch the trailer. Can you imagine listening to that constantly for hours on end? If so then enjoy. For those of you like me however, move along. Much of it is way too over the top (not in a good way), poorly done, and just seeming like they're trying too hard to push things in your face, especially innuendoes. The humor of classic adventure games was calculated and always put in the right places. In this game it's more like "HAHAHAHA THAT SURE IS FUNNY RIGHT? DONT YOU THINK SO? HAHAHA" and it gets so incredibly annoying.

There are countless better games to spend your money on than this. Don't waste it here.

Not a terribly great game, but the production value is great. There's a lot of what appears to be hand-drawn cinematics and cutscenes, and the game itself is in the style of Leisure Suit Larry or so. It's not awful or anything, but the western thing just isn't my funbag.

Pros:
.For an AGS game, the graphic is nice
.Cards

Cons:
.Cheap jokes
.Weak story
.Worst story telling for an adventure game I ever played.

I play to the 6th 0f the total 9 chapters and I still can't see waht the point is. All I did were trying to win a girl's heart, doing meaningless chores, and being a drag queen...great. Well maybe threre would be a big plot/consipracy later, but after 6 hours of play and you still have no solid story to tell, then I don't think this is any closer to a good way of story telling.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

This review is based on watching the intro. It has absolutely terrible animation, one of the worst dialogues I've seen in any game, and introduces a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist. And oh, I could not figure out a way of skipping it. After this experience, I just couldn't find myself playing this game. As a fan of point'n'click adventures, I was all excited to play another one - but now I know it will just sit in my library and wait until I run out of other games to play.

I may update this review in unforseeable future.

A fun throwback to the vintage era of adventure gaming.