Game 27: Emmanuelle - Final Rating

Emmanuelle was really bad. Still, I’m not convinced it will stoop as low as Psycho did, as that game was broken in so many ways. I’ve looked forward to punishing this game though, so let’s get to it.

Puzzles and Solvability
Oh where to start!? There aren’t really all that many puzzles in Emmanuelle. The majority of what might be considered puzzles have too much of a random element to have any sort of logical solution. Hours of my time were spent trying to seduce women, only to find that what worked with a particular woman one minute didn’t work the next. In a game with no save feature that expects you to play a flawless game if you’re to have any hope of completion, making the seduction process fairly random is pretty unacceptable. Speaking of randomness, many vital pieces of information are collected through luck alone. The manual suggests the first thing you should do on arriving in Brazil is track down Mario (which is also the only way to get the mask) and yet finding Mario is next to impossible. His room number can only be found by seducing Nancy at the Salvador hotel, but then she only tells you about Mario’s location about one in every four successful seductions. Why should the player seduce her again after the first time turned up nothing?

 

How do I compare three pickup lines when none of them sound complimentary?

Before I move on from the seduction sections, I should also mention that I was able to use the same pickup line twice in a row with women and still have success. Imagine how things would go in real life if you walked up to a woman and said “I think you’d look great wrapped in something white and silky” and then followed it up with “I think you’d look great wrapped in something white and silky”. Even ignoring the random elements, there are a few puzzles that I solved without even knowing about it. The game never informed me that I used the toucan to successfully jump from the cliff in Iguacu, nor is there any explanation as to how that worked. I feel like I haven’t even touched on how bad this category is. There are puzzles that are solved when there’s no way you could know there was a puzzle to be solved (giving the pandiero to Old Silvinho). There are puzzles where the solution can only be guesswork (which item from the buffet should you give to Sam at the garden party?). Finding Emmanuelle at the end of the game was painful enough for Emmanuelle to get a really low rating for this category, so 1 it is!
Rating: 1

 

Sure. But if you're not going to tell me what you want, then you probably won't like it.

Interface and Inventory
I’ll start with a positive here, although it could barely be called that. The inventory is presented very clearly at the bottom of the screen, with each item nicely and obviously displayed. That being said, there are certain items that simply don’t appear there (the toucan and the harness), with both of those items being used to “solve” the same puzzle with no explanation. There’s also no way to “use” any of the items and they are simply applied at the right time. As for the interface, well I have to start with the three unacceptably infuriating aspects of the game. Firstly, there’s no save game! This seems to be a devised attempt at making the game longer rather than an oversight or technical challenge, which makes it beyond unacceptable. I had to start again dozens of times when I could have saved my game after collecting each statuette and after each successful seduction. Basically I reckon I would have finished the game in a couple of sessions if I could have saved my game and instead spent over ten hours on it.

 

Well all the inventory items look ok apart from the statuettes. They are just ugly!

Secondly, not being able to use a mouse makes the game stupendously irritating. Moving the cursor around with the keys would be painful enough, but combined with the third major issue, which is the speed the game runs at, and it becomes a reason to reach for the razor blade. I had to slow down and speed up the game constantly for it to be playable, with the dialogue options moving way too fast to make a correct selection and the cursor movement subsequently way too slow to do anything at all. On top of all this, the cursor “collision detection” is atrocious, meaning I had to click just to the left and just above everything I wanted to select for it to work. I can’t tell you how frustrating using the lift buttons in the hotel was!!!  I could go on and on (need I mention the overly simplistic fighting scenes) but I’ve said enough. 1!
Rating: 1

 

Actually, would you mind pressing it too? I find pressing buttons to be unusually difficult!

Story and Setting
There’s a lot that I came across in Emmanuelle that had me shaking my head in disbelief, but probably the thing that stands out is that it was written and designed by a woman. I’ve never played a game that objectifies women more than this one (Leisure Suit Larry’s got nothing on this) and there isn’t anything remotely romantic about anything that goes on. Perhaps it was Muriel’s personal take on the liberation of women’s sexuality, but it comes across as a laughable and very sexist piece of garbage. The aim of the game is to sleep with Emmanuelle (which isn’t exactly moralistic to begin with) and the only way to achieve that is to sleep with numerous other women on the way. That’s the story right there!!!! All the other bits and pieces are just time killers and make very little sense at all (such as the collection of the statuettes).

 

Maybe Muriel just has low standards when it comes to men approaching her and asking for sex.

Even the minor attempts at extending the story elements can be completely avoided. As mentioned earlier, finding Mario is the first instruction in the manual, and yet it appears you can finish the game without ever doing that (albeit without 100 erotic potential). Finding the judo master is also mentioned, and yet not only can that be completely avoided, the fighting scenes themselves are entirely pointless and avoidable. To top it all off, Emmanuelle has next to no closure, simply crashing back to the C prompt without any sort of completion outro. As for the setting, well I guess Brazil is a good place for the game to be set, as it does suggest a certain party life style, sunshine and promiscuousness that suits the story. I have no idea whether any of the locations in the game have any basis in reality so I can’t comment on that, but apart from making me wish I spent some teenage years in Brazil, I can’t say Emmanuelle will be used in any tourism marketing campaigns any time soon.
Rating: 1

 

A most fitting ending to the story indeed!

Sound and Graphics
There really isn’t much to say about sound in Emmanuelle, because basically there isn’t any. As I mentioned in one of my posts, someone is listed as having created the music for the game in the credits, but reviews on the net (even from back in the day) suggest it never made the PC version. The graphics are not disastrous, but they are pretty low quality. Some of the women do look mildly attractive and the surroundings are reasonably enticing, so I guess it has that going for it, but if I compare Emmanuelle to anything made by Sierra or LucasArts, there’s simply no competition. There’s also very little in the way of animation, meaning most of the game is entirely static, and when it does pop up it’s really quite awful (swimming, fighting etc.). I don’t think it deserves a 1, despite having no sound, but I can’t go with more than 2.
Rating: 2

 

No, this is not one of the "mildly attractive" women I was talking about!

Environment and Atmosphere
I really can’t say the game has much atmosphere at all. It’s all so ridiculous that the only emotional responses I could have towards it were irritation and disbelief. It’s one of those instances where any success that you have makes you jump up and down and feel pretty good about yourself, but that’s only because of the contrived difficulty level and nothing to do with clever puzzles. The lack of music certainly doesn’t help things either, and I simply had to fill the silence with my own musical tastes (which aren’t completely conducive to sexual endeavours). I’m a bit perplexed as to what to give this category, since even Psycho received a 2. That game actually had a haunted house and goal that needed to be achieved by daybreak, so I can’t give Emmanuelle more than that.
Rating: 2

 

You can't argue with the setting!

Dialogue and Acting
As with all the French games I’ve played so far, the translation surely plays a role in how terrible the dialogue is here. That being said, I simply can’t see how any of this could possibly be good, even in its native language. In particular, the pickup lines are truly hysterical and would never work in the real world. This is not just a matter of clunky dialogue though, as choosing from three equally terrible pickup lines to seduce a woman is no easy task, so it has an effect on gameplay. Even the three rules, which the game is based entirely around, are bafflingly Engrish, and don’t mean much in any case. To summarise, even when the dialogue makes sense grammatically, it rarely makes much sense anyway!
Rating: 2

 

Huh?

That’s 15 for Emmanuelle, which is 5 points better than the genre bottoming Psycho. However, since Psycho only wasted 2 hours of my time (plus posting time), Emmanuelle wasted a lot more. I’m deducting another point for the lack of a save game, as that really pissed me off. 14 it is!!!

So who is the winner of the the Lars-Erik sponsored game? Pacpix chose 15, so he was the closest! That's the first time someone hasn't guessed the exact number, but given he chose the unaltered final rating, he's a worthy winner. Congratulations Pacpix! Send an email to theadventuregamer@gmail.com and I'll forward you your prize.

Bring on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!!!!!!! Surely LucasArts can help wash away the filth and grime. Who's joining me?

60 CAPs for Ilmari
• Legend Award (aka Sucker for Punishment Award) – 20 CAPs - For playing through and completing Emmanuelle
• New Year’s Resolution Award – 10 CAPs – For working towards a better future
• Technical Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For helping me with the game’s speed issues
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For helping me understand the game’s counters
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining the ridiculous use of the toucan
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining that the judo master is Old Silvhino
• RTFM Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining the obvious which I clearly missed

35 CAPs for TBD
• Women in Games Appreciation Award – 20 CAPs – For cracking the Nancy Drew riddle
• Technical Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For helping me with the game’s speed issues
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on Steam

20 CAPs for Lars-Erik
• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games

10 CAPs for Alex
• Newbie Award – 10 CAPs – For commenting on a plethora of posts with insightful knowledge

10 CAPs for Splitting Image
• Lucky Number Award – 10 CAPs – For letting me know about the lucky number option in the casino

10 CAPs for Pacpix
• Clairvoyant Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

5 CAPs for Zenic Reverie
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG

5 CAPs for Draconius
• Christmas Present Award – 5 CAPs – For giving me the best Xmas present ever. The option to stop playing Emmanuelle!

-45 CAPs for Canageek
• Borderline Addition Award - -50 CAPs – For adding Emmanuelle to the game list
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG