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Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Action and/or adventure

I’ve always enjoyed a good adventure game. From the slightly saucy days of Leisure Suit Larry to the point and click exploit’s of Sam and Max and the Day of the Tentacle crew. I’ve been dreadfully frustrated finding the key word to open my starship in Space Quest, explored one hundred side by side screens in Hero Quest, and fought pirates with insults in The Curse of Monkey Island series. Yes, I’ve been everywhere man…

Adventure games have always presented a certain challenge to the player. In earlier games it was just finding the right way to write ‘pick up small donkey’. Soon technology allowed for the point and click, so exploration and inventory item usage came to the fore. Now, as we yearn for worlds depicted lovingly in 3D, adventure games have a new challenge. How to keep the player engaged the same way first person shooters, RTS, and action games do? Do they need to? Can they at all?

As I meandered my way through Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, I began to ask myself these questions. This is Fun Com’s sequel to their brilliant, yet overlooked, The Longest Journey. A game, I will admit right now, I’ve never played. I hoped that I could still enjoy Dreamfall:TLJ, even without prior experience with the series and surely, to a degree, I did. There are references through out the game to the earlier story, and I’m sure they mean more if you’ve been there done that. But these references don’t detract from Dreamfall, in fact they mostly make you want to go back and play the older game. No, you definatly don’t need to have played The Longest Journey to still appreciate Dreamfall, but what you will need, is patience.

All good adventure games rely on their story. That’s everything in my opinion. If you don’t have fast paced action, or deep strategy, you definitely need story. This Dreamfall:TLJ delivers in abundance. The game takes place in the future, on an earth that has seen many changes. You play Zoe Castillo, a young girl who’s lost her motivation and her zest for life. She lives with her father in Casablanca, watching soapies, and eating chips in her underwear. That is, until she’s thrown into a chase across countries and dimensions to find her ex-boyfriend Rezza. The former hero of the series, April Ryan, is thrown into the mix plus a creepy girl who appears mysteriously on tv screens. But that’s all I can say. It may seem an exceedingly modest account of Dreamfall’s storyline, but trust me; you don’t want it ruined for you before you play the game. The characters and story are wonderful. Combined with beautiful visuals, high-quality voice acting and superb atmospheric music, it draws the player into the fantastic futuristic world of Dreamfall.

But you must have patience. A steady stream of patience. The sort that isn’t bucked by lack of action or dissuaded by little actual involvement in the game. Dreamfall:TLJ could have been a movie. To a certain degree it is, or is at least an interactive story where you take control of the character in third person. It looks a little like an action game, but in reality, the player does very little. You get a simple mini game here, a short fight there, and a lot of running in between. The combat system, which is used sparingly through the game, is meager and unsatisfying. A button for quick attacks that can be blocked, one for slower heavy attacks that can’t be blocked, and one to do the blocking is all there is to it. Even then, after the first training fight where you will be beaten many times getting the hang of the system, your opponents through the rest of the game behave unthinkingly. Some will just block till you beat them down, others will swing wildly in an attempt to rush you. It’s disappointing and as it’s the only action the game presents, does become an obstacle to enjoyment.

Dreamfall is also mostly easy…very easy. The puzzles are straight forward and the mini games are, on most accounts, simplistic. As I wandered through Dreamfall:TLJ thinking to myself ‘I’ll have this games beaten in hours’, I was shocked into humility when a rather difficult patch appeared. Sneaking is another ability our heroes’ have at their disposal, and although exceedingly slow, it’s useful for getting past guards. At this point in time the guards are scientists, and I need to get down a few stairways nearby. It was infuriating, challenging, and ultimately satisfying to complete. But honestly, this was one of maybe two or three times those emotions were produced. The rest of Dreamfall is railroaded to the point where puzzles are just running back and forward between characters in the game with only maybe two inventory items. Yes the vistas are grand, and the cities magnificent, but the feeling of being in a wide world is absent. There are doors, but only the ones integral to the story can be opened. There are other people inhabiting the world, but only the important ones have much to say. It just isn’t immersive enough.

The graphics, however, somewhat save the game’s face…literally. As you wander from cinematic to cinematic you can sit back with your cup of coffee and really enjoy looking at Dreamfall:TLJ. The world looks incredible and the characters rather good. Lip syncing with the excellent voice acting is adequate, and the faces of said characters are emotive and interesting. This is all very fortunate, as you’ll find the game is mostly cut scenes. Run to notable character X and watch the cut scene. Run back to significant character Y and watch another cut scene. I spent quite a lot of time with the controller out of my hands, leaning back in my chair like I was watching a movie.

Is this what we want as gamers? A game that spoils us with storyline, but takes away our influence over it? Dreamfall:TLJ has no replay value. Sometimes you can choose what sort of answer to give an individual, but really it’ll still take you to the same place. They’ll still sell you what you need, take you where you want or let you onto their amazing invisible schooner you’ve heard so much about. You don’t have any power in the game and that hurts its chances to be played more than once. In fact, that hurts the game the first time through. I want to feel like I can fail. I want to feel like I’m challenged. If I don’t get this, then I also don’t get to wear the “no game can stop this bad boy” grin and that’s all we ever want…isn’t it?

Overall, Dreamfall:TLJ does what it sets out to do. It tells a remarkable story and does it with beauty and grace other games dream about. But it is also disempowering for the player to not have choice and to not feel challenged by the game play. Dreamfall:TLJ is good but not great, interesting but not exciting, artful but not truly interactive. It would make a great movie, but does not make a brilliant game.

6/10