Himalaya Studios, 2006
Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine is a beautifully created low-budget humorous adventure game that will take you on a roller-coaster ride into the very heart of the Gold Rush era, the time when whacky westerners were wild on discovering gold by fighting or vigilantly evading belligerent Indian tribes, who never wanted outsiders to invade their land.
The game starts in a wild western town of Anozira, a town surrounded by nothing but harsh desert full of hot sand and cactus, where our totally broke and out-of-luck hero, Al Emmo arrives by train to meet Ivanna Lottakash, the mail-order bride of his wildest dreams, but she dumps him when she finds out that he has no cash. Heartbroken from this situation Al Emmo tries to leave the town, but there is no train coming for a week, so he looks for a place to stay and stumbles upon Rita Peralto, a stunningly beautiful babe, mysteriously linked to the legendry Dutchman's mine that claimed lives of many who ventured it in search of gold. Charmed by Rita's beauty, Al Emmo determines to win her heart and embarks on a perilous adventure to search the Dutchman's mine for its riches and also find a way to get rid of his only rival, Antonio, a local pain in the neck.
The game flaunts tons of beautifully illustrated hand-painted graphics and backgrounds with excellent quality pre-rendered three-dimensional character animations, and good quality lip-synced voice acting. Multiple dialogue options allow the player to choose the most appropriate dialogue while interacting with the game characters, which are choke full of hilarious sentences and remarks including some mature quality lines. Background music is totally western and meshes well in the game environment. Since the game is designed using the acclaimed AGS engine, the traditional, but retouched point and click interface amuses the classic adventure players with huge inventory that pops up by pressing TAB button on your keyboard. The puzzles are mostly inventory based, but there are few time-based puzzles too and there is a possibility of dying, so make sure that you save early and save often in this game to avoid any regretful consequences. Overall, the game is all fun and enjoyment with good quality puzzles to solve and must not be overlooked by the fans of classic adventure games.
