Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

[Cartoon Corpse]

well i haven't given it a fair shake yet (not enough time), but in that first 'scene' i am thoroughly UNIMPRESSED with the camera/control options.

why is it so hard to offer a standard 3rd/1st person camera/control setup? i tried (i think) all the "options" configurations. NONE of them was standard even though "normal" was mentioned.

anyone else?

 

[Skinner]

well i haven't given it a fair shake yet (not enough time), but in that first 'scene' i am thoroughly UNIMPRESSED with the camera/control options.

why is it so hard to offer a standard 3rd/1st person camera/control setup? i tried (i think) all the "options" configurations. NONE of them was standard even though "normal" was mentioned.

anyone else?

ItsI don't know, it happens al the time, Max Payne and Heavy FAKK did it right.

 

[Eliot]

anyone else?

The X and Y are both inverted by default. You can correct that in the options screen. You'll still find selecting hotspots a bit cludgly though. The focus effect doesn't work too well with a mouse.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

yeah but good control games, IMO, let your steer with the mouse. 'a' and 'd' are SIDE step NOT turn right, turn left. AND the camera follows you like an obedient puppy.

is that too hard to do? or do they actually think the way they have it is superior in some way?

is it a matter of taste?

HL's, GTA's, Max Paynes....along those lines.

 

[John Reynolds]

And I just ordered Tomb Raider: Legends ($35) and Battle for Middle-Earth 2 (import collector's edition all on DVD for $40) from Gogamer. . .wish I would've remembered to throw this into the basket since the $7 shipping covers 3 games.

 

[Snyder]

yeah but good control games, IMO, let your steer with the mouse. 'a' and 'd' are SIDE step NOT turn right, turn left. AND the camera follows you like an obedient puppy.

is that too hard to do? or do they actually think the way they have it is superior in some way?

is it a matter of taste?

HL's, GTA's, Max Paynes....along those lines.

Christ (or in this case, Xt)...it's an adventure, not an FPS! Is it really so hard for some people to adapt?
Although...now that I think about it, a proper adventure should have point'n'click, of course.

 

[Gnerma]

Well, I don't know about the idea that control is bad or wrong because you're not used to it. The FPS control setup isn't always best for every game. With that said, I'm using a gamepad

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

Christ (or in this case, Xt)...it's an adventure, not an FPS! Is it really so hard for some people to adapt?
Although...now that I think about it, a proper adventure should have point'n'click, of course.

is that a nostalgia thing? point and click? i haven't finised 1 point and click game.

and i usually don't finish games with awkward 3rd/1st person. but i keep hearing about the beauty of the game, so i plan on giving it some more time.

why does an adventure game have to have this sort of interface? how is it better? does it get fluid (even though seemingly non intuitive at first)?

 

[JBark]

What, where have I been? I didn't even know they were making a sequel, let alone that it was out already. I loved the first one, there's no excuse for me not knowing about this game. I'll have to stop by the store on the way home.

 

[Eliot]

What, where have I been? I didn't even know they were making a sequel, let alone that it was out already. I loved the first one, there's no excuse for me not knowing about this game. I'll have to stop by the store on the way home.

It has the addition of action oriented minigames but its still very much the TLJ. You'll enjoy it :smile:

 

[Dresden]

This looks phenomenal. I can't wait to pick it up. Mixed reviews though, but that never stopped me.

 

[Eliot]

This looks phenomenal.

Its stunning, the art direction is really superb. The downsides are the controls and the simple combat (its just badly done). The ending doesn't resolve everything, much is left for the final game in the trilogy. Overall its fantastic.

 

[Zaphod]

Mixed reviews though

I browsed through several, and actually they seem to be pretty much in agreement (substantially). The scores vary wildly, but that is caused by reviewers varying in their (subjective) evaluation as to whether overall vision, art direction, and story can make up for clumsy gameplay issues.

 

[Gnerma]

Well I finished the game. It's understandable that opinions will vary widely concerning this one, because it doesn't really fit with what video games have always been. In fact, I think calling it an interactive story would be more appropriate than calling it a game. Every step of the way what to do next is given to you, or strongly hinted at. There are very few puzzles, and very little of the real time combat. Most of your interaction consists of running around the sets, usually to a known destination. The game I'd most compare it to is probably Indigo Prophecy, although I dare say that Dreamfall is even less interactive and challenging.

Dreamfall is so polarizing because some people will be able to accept it for what it is, and when you can do that its pretty enjoyable. If, however, you expect it to give you the things you've always gotten from adventure games, or games in general you are probably going to be disappointed. The 1UP review says, "Edited down to a tight package this could probably make a pretty good machinima feature (or Sci-Fi original motion picture for that matter). But as a game, it fails.". I don't disagree that Dreamfall isn't the best game. But then again, I'm not a particularly good Catholic Priest. Not because I tried and failed, but because it was never my goal in the first place.

 

[L233]

I just finished the game and, man, what a disappointment.

I probably made a mistake when I played through TLJ again before starting with Dreamfall because I could directly compare the games. My biggest problem is that Dreamfall is a pretty shitty sequel to a game that is has one of the most beautifully written stories in the history of gaming.

Ok, I am disappointed that the puzzles are so ultra-simplicistic. I think that they actually had some good ideas how to carefully evolve the graphics adventure genre. I think the dodging guards / sneaking stuff works rather well. It added an additional dimension to puzzle solving. If they had put more effort into it, they could have created something great. Especially puzzle density is lacking.

Combat is completely useless, they might have as well done without. The controls are shit but I think the Focus Field is actually a pretty good mechanic for dealing with the "find the pixel" problem that kinda made most graphic adventures a chore.

The artwork is beautiful, both, graphics and audio. Sure there are some minor complaints but they don't really matter to me. I think they did a splendid job at migrating the world of TLJ into 3D and they sucessfully tried to remain faithful to the look and feel of the predecessor.

As has been pointed out, Dreamfall isn't very good as a game.TLJ was a solid adventure but there were far better ones in terms of puzzles. TLJ had some incredibly stupid and illogical puzzles but at least there was actual gameplay, things you had to figure out. Dreamfall on the other hand simply doesn't really have anything resembling gameplay. It's almost exclusively "take keycard - use with keycard reader" stuff. No depth, no complexity, everything is 100% straightforward. An 8-year old could solve it the puzzles.

All that I can forgive because I've waited for years to see how the story continues. But I feel completely let down. Dreamfall's storytelling has almost none of the qualities that made TLJ so great. And that I cannot forgive.

TLJ has an epic story. The fate of two worlds is at stake. The story slowly builds up as more and more details and information is revealed. Dreamfall on the other hand feels like it's on fast-forward and the story feels incredibly disjointed. TLJ had a wealth of secondary characters that were reaosnably well fleshed out, Dreamfall has maybe one.

The protagonist in TLJ goes through an internally consistent character developement and the game does a great job at building a believable personality. It's one of the few games that ever managed to get me emotionally involved with the story. April has an endearing personality. She's funny and half the fun is reading her often hilarious diary entries and listening to her comments when inspecting the various objects in the game world. There's this benign sarcasm that just makes everything entertaining.

There is some great humor in TLJ. The game somehow managed to keep me smiling most of the time. The friendly banter between April and Crow, Flipper Burns, Ben Bandu, the Stickmen, the misogynist captain, the unionized maintenance workers at the police station and countless more. TLJ tells a serious story and manages to interweave it with humor that never seems out of place. It is just great story telling. Longwinded but great.

Dreamfall has nothing like that. Dreamfall tells a somewhat intersting story and that's it. The game is utterly devoid of humor. Ok, almost. Crow has a good line or two and that's it pretty much. The characters remain shallow. At no point did I give a shit about Zoe. Directionless university dropout, that's all we get in terms of background information. Kian is even more one-dimensional. The game is short as it is and it's sure as fuck too short to build up three protagonists. I would have been more interested in what happened to April during the past ten years and why she turned out the way she did. All we get is like two lines on that topic.

Dreamfall also suffers from the fact that there are almost no objects in the world that can be examined. TLJ used that as a tool to give the protagonist more depth. April's comments went a long way in fleshing out her character, plus they were almost always entertaining.

I could go on but I think I made my point. Dreamfall isn't a good game, I could live with that, but Dreamfall also fails as a storyteller and that makes it the most disappointing game sequel I've ever played. I loved TLJ and I am incredibly pissed that Dreamfall doesn't even begin to live up to its heritage.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

i've given this game a couple more hours over the weekend.

i got used to the controls mostly (little issues) inverting the x,y mouse axis helped alot (didn't think to try that at first try)

the art/sound is very very good.

but there are Waaay too many cutscenes for my tastes. i prefer to develop the story through interaction, not long winded speeches.

is that standard for this type of game? (i don't play point and clicks...so this is probably my first 'adventure' type game)

anyway, the combat system (what i've seen so far) is lacking. i can't get response all the time...not sure why (i press block, light, heavy attack...sometimes she just stands there..30%? of the time)

 

[Dresden]

Arg, not only is my computer still down, even when I look to buy this it's soldout EVERYWHERE.

 

[Zaphod]

Amazon sales rank: The X-Box version is #2,459 while the PC version is #30 among all Computer & Video Games.

I guess that says something about the growing difference between the PC and console gaming demographics.

 

[Gerry]

Amazon sales rank: The X-Box version is #2,459 while the PC version is #30 among all Computer & Video Games.

I guess that says something about the growing difference between the PC and console gaming demographics.

Thread resurrection ahoy!

The Xbox crowd got it right. Just played through this, and L233 is right, as a game it's lacking in almost every department. It's relatively engaging as a story (which is what kept me playing) but there's so little actual gameplay in there it's actually quite insulting. The ending involves sitting through half an hour of cut scenes with virtually no user interaction except for moving around a bit and clicking to continue.

Graphically it's OK although it has some terrible moments even there (shadows through walls, terrible models etc). The story is fine but just doesn't bother tying up any of the plot at the end. But the lack of gameplay is the killer. 1 hr of actually doing something worthwhile out of 8 hours of watching cut scenes and walk around the place does not a good game make.

 

[PeterT]

Fun to see this thread again now, I just finished Dreamfall yesterday. It was one of the most enchanting (I wrote "gaming" here before, but that's not completely appropriate) experiences I ever had. The last 3 hours had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, and at the very end I got quite emotional.

I don't think I've felt this connected to game's story ever since Planescape: Torment. This is by far the best PC "game" I've "played" this year so far, and Gamespy shot up quite a bit in my estimation with the 5/5 they gave it. I feel for anyone who cannot see past its few flaws to appreciate the grand and unique experience it provides.

By the way, Dreamfall also recieved a honorable mention in todays Gamasutra article (Quantum Leap Awards - Storytelling)

I really hope they sold enough copies to make the third part of the trilogy. If you haven't bought this game, you're part of the problem. Interestingly I also played the original TLJ right before this game, and while the battle parts in Dreamfall were somewhat unnecessary, they were not hard at all and probably take up less than 1% of the game. I don't understand L233's dissatisfaction at all. In my mind, TLJ and its successor stand tall together as 2 of the finest games I ever played. Or rather experienced, as the gameplay is the least part of it.

[Edit]
Reading that post again, there are a few points of L233 that I have to partly agree with: The characterization in Dreamfall is clearly inferior to TLJ. That still makes it better than most games out there of course, but it's true. However, this was ameliorated for me by the fact that I still "knew" April and some of the minor characters from the first game, so I had at least some connection from the beginning.

The other thing is the humor: while I think it's just plain wrong to say that Dreamfall is devoid of humour except for "a few lines" - many of the dialogs are hilarious -, there are some lengthy sequences that are quite serious throughout. However, I believe that's necessary for the story. In TLJ, April also didn't make any qips in the realm of the guardian during the second test, did she?