Puzzles

Brain candy

You'll spend the rest of the time solving the numerous puzzles that make up the game. The quality of the puzzles can make or break an adventure game, and Lucasarts is known for having some of the best in the business. EMI is no different. The puzzles are fantastic and you'll have a great time racking your brains trying to piece together solutions to some pretty strange problems.

Grog me, barkeep!

I hope he's not driving.

The puzzles in EMI are mostly quite difficult, but usually logical. Unfortunately, as in most adventure games, there a few puzzles that defy all logic and can only be solved by pure guesswork. It's no fun cycling through your inventory trying every object with every other one, and then repeating this with every character you meet in a desperate attempt to solve an arcane puzzle. It's perhaps a testament to the difficulty and obscurity of some of the puzzles that a complete walkthrough of the game is included in the box.

I admit that I did resort to the occasional peek to get through the game, but every time I did the puzzle ended up being impossible to solve by pure logic, so I didn't feel too bad.

Ignatius Cheese, I presume?

What's a pirate without a mighty ship?

Thinking is fun, kids

Luckily, there are very few unsolvable puzzles in the game. Most can be solved fairly easily just by thinking about them in a logical way, listening to clues in the dialogue, and thoroughly examining the items in your inventory.

The best thing about the puzzles is the fact that they are rarely solved by one action. Often I would be sure I had the final solution, only to find out that it was only part of a much larger, more complex solution. This was a lot of fun, especially since some puzzles were four or five solutions deep. Very cool.

This one looks nice.	Damn, no one told me Barbie was in town!
Busted.	Lucre Island. Rush Hour.