I'm annoyed whenever I spend more on stuff than it turns out I have to. It happens sometimes with games. I bought Shadow of the Colossus
at full price, and before I got around to playing it, it was
re-released as a Greatest Hits title, so I essentially paid $20 for
non-hideous packaging. Does anyone think that red color looks good?
What happened with the Longest Journey games wasn't as bad but it was
still annoying. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
was put on Steam for $30 and I jumped on a 10% discount because I was
interested in it. A couple months later, my hopes to play the prequel
were made easier by its own release on Steam, but it was in a deal with
Dreamfall for $25 total, so I ended up paying much more than I had to
if I just waited a bit. Oh well, it happens some times.
Being a
point-and-click adventure game, The Longest Journey focuses on
storytelling over gameplay. There's a lot of running around,
discussions, and puzzle solving. As I gave an example of in an earlier
post, a lot of puzzles involve bizarre leaps of logic and item hunting,
but it's all fun when you figure it out. Usually the game is good about
letting you know what to do next, but sometimes it either doesn't make
it clear enough or just doesn't tell you, which can lead to confusion.
You know what your next goal is, but before it gets triggered you have
to go somewhere or do something else, and it can lead to wasted time
going back and forth.
The graphics are strange in their duality.
The backgrounds and environments are a mixture of photographs, hand
drawings, and pre-rendered computer images, and look generally very
nice. The real-time character models however, are terrible. They're
extremely low resolution, are usually poorly animated, and don't
interact with each other or the environment well. This is forgivable
for three reasons, though. The game was originally released seven years
ago, when most games looked bad; it's not an action game that requires
accurate interactions to work; and the art direction and visual design
are strong enough that you can appreciate it anyway.
The story
and writing are really very good. What's quickly noticeable is how
funny the game is. Dreamfall had a few wise-cracking characters (mostly
who were introduced here), but it was a mostly serious game that
focused on its dramatic story. April Ryan is a much more quirky and
light-hearted heroine than Zoe or her future, hardened self from
Dreamfall. Her grounded sense of humor permeates the whole game, and
the epic story doesn't seem worse for it. Speaking of the storyline,
it's quite interesting, telling the tale of a world with two opposite
halves, one a vision of earth in the future, the other a land of
fantasy. A new group has come to disrupt the delicate balance, and
April has to explore both worlds to find what she needs to stop them.
The pacing is generally very good - like Dreamfall did, it starts a bit
slow but can grab you and pull you forward until it ends before you
know it. I only had one problem. Near the end, the pace has been
accelerating for a while and you can feel it coming to a climax soon,
but you end up having to dawdle around on a space station for a while
before you get to the last area. Despite that and a few other hiccups,
The Longest Journey is one of the better experiences you'll have with
an engrossing story in a game. I'm looking forward to the episodic
conclusion to the whole saga that was announced in May.
