'Dreamfall - The Longest Journey' is a game based in the close future around a late-teen and motivation-lacking girl named Zoë (who looks identical to Zoey from Left 4 Dead but that's a topic for another time) *ahem*, who is investigating the mysterious dissapearence of her boyfriend 'Reza', a news reporter who supposedly knows of some dark secrets about the huge and world-leading-entertainment business 'WATI-Corp', but to avoid spoilers I won't go any farther into that as the more you know about the plot and story, the less interested you will be whilst playing.
This is actually the second game in the series, based 10 years after the first installment 'The Longest Journey'. There is no prior knowlege of the series necessary to be able to play Dreamfall. I also didn't play the first one and I assure you that you needn't read anything about or play the first one.
This game is quite a unique product amongst the gaming market for a number of reasons. The main one, is that it is strongly story-based. It is full of cutscenes that are incredibly important and if you skip even a short one, you'll be left utterly oblivious as to what is going on. There are those of you out there who lack the patience to care for games like this, and I have one thing to say to them which is that, I am one of you. Usually I would be spamming ESC at around 1,000,000 keys per second. This game however, is an exception as it's actually got an incredibly compelling story.
To play this game to its potential, a lot of the time, you have to abandon your usual expectations of a game in general and play it as if it's somewhat of a TV Program. It's sort of like a soap-opera gone mad in that a lot of cut-scenes involve day-to-day conversations as well as important sections to the plot. I'm warning you that you may end up sat by your monitor with a bucket of ice-cream and a towel wrapped around your hair. So although a lot of the game is based on a medieval-fantasy world, you can't forget that it is about a normal teenage girl's life.
There are three characters you take the role of during the course of this game which come in two different worlds, 'Stark' (close-future Earth), and 'Arcadia' (medieval fantasy world). Zoë is the main character, a late-teen girl trying to find her boyfriend who also has weird dreams about a creepy little girl. April, a woman living in Arcadia who leads a rebel standing against some new visitors (The Azadi) who bring advanced technology to the people but also try to force their religious beliefs on them. And lastly, Kian, an Azadi warrior.
The gameplay is comfortable in terms of movement although you will often find yourself running straight back into a room you just left on account of camera angles and movement keys. Other than that, everything you need is there and it's very easy to access your menu and inventory (which is also functioned by keyboard which is seriously very handy). The combat in this game is based on two different attacks, a weak and fast blow and a strong but slow blow (left+right mouse respectively) which, as it's not the main aspect of the game at all, is effective and fits the game well.
This game is also filled with a lot of puzzles including: using your initiative with your inventory to combine items for various purposes, translating small sections of alien languages and mini-game-esque lock-picking and hacking which are very fun things to do and it's a shame you only get to lock-pick like, three things in the entire game.
I would say this game is definitely a fun game to play. The stories and plots are very interesting, the entire concept and all the worlds are interesting and it's just an overall fun experience. The story is never repetative. There's always something new and unexpected happening. I wouldn't say it's full of twists, but it's mostly an unpredictable story (in a good way). It does do the whole 'Player finds out things before the character' technique which I'm personally not a fan of but it's really not that irritating in this game. One thing I would say about the story to finish off though, is that the ending SUCKS...
Oh yeah, and lastly:
Zoë and Zoey
This is actually the second game in the series, based 10 years after the first installment 'The Longest Journey'. There is no prior knowlege of the series necessary to be able to play Dreamfall. I also didn't play the first one and I assure you that you needn't read anything about or play the first one.
This game is quite a unique product amongst the gaming market for a number of reasons. The main one, is that it is strongly story-based. It is full of cutscenes that are incredibly important and if you skip even a short one, you'll be left utterly oblivious as to what is going on. There are those of you out there who lack the patience to care for games like this, and I have one thing to say to them which is that, I am one of you. Usually I would be spamming ESC at around 1,000,000 keys per second. This game however, is an exception as it's actually got an incredibly compelling story.
To play this game to its potential, a lot of the time, you have to abandon your usual expectations of a game in general and play it as if it's somewhat of a TV Program. It's sort of like a soap-opera gone mad in that a lot of cut-scenes involve day-to-day conversations as well as important sections to the plot. I'm warning you that you may end up sat by your monitor with a bucket of ice-cream and a towel wrapped around your hair. So although a lot of the game is based on a medieval-fantasy world, you can't forget that it is about a normal teenage girl's life.
There are three characters you take the role of during the course of this game which come in two different worlds, 'Stark' (close-future Earth), and 'Arcadia' (medieval fantasy world). Zoë is the main character, a late-teen girl trying to find her boyfriend who also has weird dreams about a creepy little girl. April, a woman living in Arcadia who leads a rebel standing against some new visitors (The Azadi) who bring advanced technology to the people but also try to force their religious beliefs on them. And lastly, Kian, an Azadi warrior.
The gameplay is comfortable in terms of movement although you will often find yourself running straight back into a room you just left on account of camera angles and movement keys. Other than that, everything you need is there and it's very easy to access your menu and inventory (which is also functioned by keyboard which is seriously very handy). The combat in this game is based on two different attacks, a weak and fast blow and a strong but slow blow (left+right mouse respectively) which, as it's not the main aspect of the game at all, is effective and fits the game well.
This game is also filled with a lot of puzzles including: using your initiative with your inventory to combine items for various purposes, translating small sections of alien languages and mini-game-esque lock-picking and hacking which are very fun things to do and it's a shame you only get to lock-pick like, three things in the entire game.
I would say this game is definitely a fun game to play. The stories and plots are very interesting, the entire concept and all the worlds are interesting and it's just an overall fun experience. The story is never repetative. There's always something new and unexpected happening. I wouldn't say it's full of twists, but it's mostly an unpredictable story (in a good way). It does do the whole 'Player finds out things before the character' technique which I'm personally not a fan of but it's really not that irritating in this game. One thing I would say about the story to finish off though, is that the ending SUCKS...
Oh yeah, and lastly:
Zoë and Zoey
