Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (PC)

Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Empire Interactive

For those of us, myself included, who think The Longest Journey is by far one of the best (if not THE best) adventure games of all time, Dreamfall has been a long-awaited and very longed-for sequel. Has the wait been worth it? Yes, definitely. But is it a patch on the original? Sadly, no. But then, very few (if any) sequels to great games are. BUT, it is still a very, very good ...
...original, this game is a must-have.

In this sequel, you play as a new heroine, Zoe Castillo. You also, however, play as various other characters at different points in the game as well, which is pretty strange and takes some getting used to. You in fact start out playing as Brian Westhouse, one of the characters from the previous game. Brian, who was a bitter and twisted drunk in the original game, is now clean and sober and undertaking ... more

Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Empire Interactive

For those of us, myself included, who think The Longest Journey is by far one of the best (if not THE best) adventure games of all time, Dreamfall has been a long-awaited and very longed-for sequel. Has the wait been worth it? Yes, definitely. But is it a patch on the original? Sadly, no. But then, very few (if any) sequels to great games are. BUT, it is still a very, very good game and if you were a huge fan of the original, this game is a must-have.

In this sequel, you play as a new heroine, Zoe Castillo. You also, however, play as various other characters at different points in the game as well, which is pretty strange and takes some getting used to. You in fact start out playing as Brian Westhouse, one of the characters from the previous game. Brian, who was a bitter and twisted drunk in the original game, is now clean and sober and undertaking personal growth as a more positive direction in life. He now inhabits what appears to be an Oriental monastery, from which he is sent off to 'shift' into a mysterious other world ('shifting' was a major feature of the original game, in which certain characters with the necessary talent are able to travel, or shift, between different worlds - all will become clear as you play).

The scene then jumps to a hospital bed, in which lies Zoe Castillo. She is in a coma, but by power of thought she introduces herself and begins to tell you her story.

You now begin to play as Zoe, pre-coma. The time is about 200 years from now and ten years after the events of the original game. Zoe lives a pretty mundane life as a somewhat spoilt, listless and bored University student. She feels pretty aimless until one day when she starts to find herself the target of strange messages that keep appearing on the ubiquitous news screens around the city. In the middle of normal programming, a mysterious little girl will suddenly crackle through and say 'Zoe, find April Ryan. Save her.' (April Ryan was the heroine of the original game, for those who have not played it.) This naturally freaks Zoe out and she doesn't know what to make of it, not knowing who April Ryan is nor why Zoe needs to save her. And then, more disturbing, Zoe's good friend Reza is kidnapped. Reza is a journalist known for exposing scandals, and it's thought he may have gone too far this time.

Zoe embarks on a journey to try to find Reza, which takes her first to Newport, April's hometown, where she meets up with April's old best friends Charlie and Emma. Neither of them know where April is now, and are surprised to hear of Zoe's strange messages re finding her. Then fate intervenes in the form of a pair of evil twins who attack and drug Zoe while she is trying to make a phone call in a private booth in Charlie's nightclub. In trance, Zoe finds herself in a strange and completely alien world. This is Arcadia, the alternate world that April shifted back and forth between in the original game. She is once again freaked out and desperately sets about trying to find out how to return. She ends up meeting April, who it turns out has been making her home in Arcadia for the past ten years. Zoe tells April of the messages imploring Zoe to save her, but April scoffs at this, saying she's fine and doesn't need to be saved, and helps Zoe return to her world. Zoe wakes up back in Charlie's nightclub, where he has been concernedly watching over her since finding her unconscious in the booth.

Zoe continues on her quest to find Reza, which takes her to Japan where she becomes involved in some serious and dangerous industrial espionage, and then back and forth between our world and Arcadia, where she again encounters April. Meanwhile, April has her own issues to deal with, and you spend some time playing as April as well, which I enjoyed as I'd liked April very much as the heroine of the original game, a wonderful strong, intelligent, wisecracking female hero whom we female games players could identify with for a change! And later still you also play as a new character, Kian, a military religious crusader who eventually crosses paths with April, and they then have their own issues to resolve between them. I'm trying not to give too much away here without sounding TOO vague or confusing, which is hard to do. This is a very complex game with a lot going on in a lot of different places and involving a lot of different people.

The game also introduces an odd new extra element for an adventure game, a combat mode - occasionally your character will have to fight someone, but this mode really doesn't enhance the game at all; in fact, I found it a pain. It consists of simply pushing your forward key and hitting your opponent over and over as quickly as you can until they fall down. It's probably the worst point of the game. The puzzles may also be a little too easy for some, and towards the end, the game begins to consist more of cutscenes than gameplay.

But the game has good points in droves. The story is very gripping, intelligent and complex with many memorable characters and will really draw you in. For fans of the original game, it's great to meet up with many of the original characters and see how they're faring ten years on - April of course, and Charlie, Emma, Brian Westhouse, the White Dragon (who April rescued when it was a baby in the original game and is now in human form as a very Goth-looking lady!), Roper Klacks (the baddie who April imprisoned in a calculator in the original game), Gordon the bad guy who reformed and became the Guardian, and even Crow, April's sarcastic talking bird sidekick. And if you let the credits at the end of the game finish running, you get a brief flashback of the mysterious Cortez from the orginal game as well. The graphics, as in the original game, are gorgeous, very artistic, with use of bright colour and elegant form - the artwork is like a series of beautiful paintings.

I had issues, at first, with Zoe as heroine. I found her rather limp and bimbo-ish, with a dreary, irritating voice, and was not at all confident that she was going to be credible heroine material. But as she goes on to have to deal with more and more dangerous situations, she becomes more resourceful and feisty. You see her begin to grow and develop which is very satisfying, and in the end she becomes a very admirable individual. So, if you feel the same irritation with Zoe that I did to start with, do persevere as it will be worth it.

This may be a puzzling game for those who haven't played the original, as so much of Dreamfall refers back to events from the first game. I would strongly recommend picking up a copy of The Longest Journey and playing it first, for maximum fulfilment. You can actually still buy The Longest Journey new from its manufacturer's online shop at http://www.longestjourney.com for $18.98 or 21.01 Euros (including tax), or alternatively, second-hand copies can sometimes be found on eBay.

Without wanting to chuck too much of a spoiler into the review, I will note that I found the ending a bit of a letdown - although some things were satisfyingly resolved, the final end was a bit abrupt and inconclusive, and also raised a few new questions. I wonder if this is because another sequel is in the works to tie it all up - I hope so! I was left really bereft when it suddenly ended, and now I don't know what to do with myself! Hmm, maybe I'll go back and play 'The Longest Journey' again...

You'll need a reasonably beefy PC to run this. Although it's 'only' an adventure game, I found I had to run it on 640x480 resolution in order for it not to run in total Jerk-O-Vision, though my PC is a Pentium IV 2.5GHz with 512MB RAM and 128MB GeForce 4 graphics card, and the requirements on the box are only for a Pentium IV 1.6 GHz with 256MB RAM and 64MB graphics card (high-end ATI or GeForce only). So be warned!

P.S. Also, please note this is not a game for children - there is quite a bit of swearing in it (though maybe marginally less than in the original game!) and some risque dialogue & themes, hence the rating of 16+! (The original game was rated 17+, so I suppose that's some improvement!) 

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