The Adventuress

Tuesday Treasure Trove: Numero V

by Amber on June 20th, 2006

Wow… can you guys actually believe that I’m Tuesday Treasure Trove Number 5? I know I can’t believe it. I can’t wait until I’m number 55. Can you IMAGINE all the games I’ll have played by then?! That’s right! FIFTY FIVE! That’s just insane. Is there actually that many adventure games out there? Well… of course there is! And if there isn’t, I’ll FIND one where no adventuress has found one before.

Am I babbling?

Of course I am! The adventuress always babbles!

Alright… fine… ON WITH THE REVIEW!

This weekend, I actually drug my butt to the local gaming store and bought meself a copy of Dreamfall - The Longest Journey by Funcom.

Dreamfall is a sequel to The Longest Journey. Now, I have never played The Longest Journey, but based upon reviews from such respected sources as Gamespot, who by the way gave The Longest Journey a 9.3, and based upon the fact that I LOVED Dreamfall, I’ll definitely have to order it.

By the way, if someone knows where I can buy The Longest Journey from a non-German site, I’d be grateful, because seriously. I can only read the English.

I AM A PIG HEADED AMERICAN, YOU KNOW!

So, you start the game off watching this dude named Brian Westhouse, whom is writing in his journal about finding the true path and how he’s not sure he’s on it or not. Now, like I said before, I don’t know if Brian was in The Longest Journey, but I’m assuming he was, otherwise, the beginning scene was relatively useless to the ENTIRE GAME.

But besides that, I thought the game was excellently done. It had a terrific science-fiction storyline which went as follows:

The main character you get to play, Zoe Castillo (who likes to run around in her underwear quite a bit), and I think she’s British or something. I know she’s from Casablanca, but she’s got a British accent. Do they have British accents in Casablanca? I don’t know how THAT works, but whatever. The year is 2219, 10 years after this big disturbance in their communications systems. Apparently there’s this stupid static that screws everything up and when the year is 2219, you just don’t expect static on your lines.

Zoe in a coma. Shhhh, she’s sleeping!

Here you see Zoe in her underwear… in front of her dad. WTF?

So, you begin to play Zoe. She’s watching tv and then there’s this weird bit of static. A girl pops up on the screen, with all this static dispersed in between and the girl says “Find April. Zoe… Find April.” Yeah, it’s kinda creepy, but this is the first sign that something is wrong…

Zoe figures it’s just the Static causing all the problems, so she’s blows it off. She then starts planning on putting together a little get together that night and with her dad heading on out of town, she’s excited. She talks to some friends, goes to the gym and then gets a phone call from her ex-boyfriend who asks her to meet him at a coffee hangout downtown. He sounds kinda paniced, so Zoe agrees.

Zoe gets over to see her ex, Reza, who asks her to go pick up an important document. He’s a reporter, you see, and doesn’t have time right now to pick up this document. So, Zoe, being the loyal ex that she is, agrees once again.

Wonkers - Zoe’s little buddy.

THIS is where the action starts. You get to the building Reza sends you to and are told that there is no package for you. The woman behind the counter seems a bit miffed and startled and really wants you to leave RIGHT NOW. Zoe is concerned that there’s something going on. You trick the woman behind the desk to go look for the package and while she’s gone, you walk to behind the computer to open a sealed door. She sees you and you have to start kicking some ass, before she brains you. See, this is an ACTION ADVENTURE game, so you get to fight and crap. The fight sequences are kinda lame, but I’m not really in these games to fight. I want to adventure, damnit!

Fight Sequences

After you find the woman who you’re suppose to get the package from… well, stuff happens. Reza goes missing, so Zoe goes to find him. She goes through this long process of tracking him down, but throughout the game, you keep seeing the same little girl on several tv screens telling you to find April… Find April Ryan. Save April Ryan.

OVER AND OVER. This girl is relentless.

Save April… Save April Ryan.

As you progress through the game, you eventually do find April Ryan, who lives in a different reality, which is far behind on the technology. Zoe enters a dream-like state, brought on by these two weird Japanese twins, which sends Zoe to the different reality. As you’re there, you find April and find out that April is in a battle of her own. April does not believe in much these days and is unsympathetic to Zoe’s problems. She basically tells Zoe it isn’t her problem and to get over it.

So, Zoe gets back to her world and you get to start playing April. In April’s world, there’s these weird, holier than thou, people roaming around, taking over cities. They sound like missionaries… you know the kind. “Your ways are heathenistic. Repent or DIE.” April doesn’t like these guys and sets up a resistance to push these guys out. Now these missionaries have taken all the magic users in her city and put them in this little ghetto, much to their dismay. So, you get to play a pissed off April who hates the world, doesn’t care if she gets killed, and who is trying to push out the missionaries.

THEN… get this… You get to play one of the actual missionaries. He’s a big, cool apostle. His bosses ask him to go find this “Scorpion” person, who is leading the resistance. So, you get to play both sides of the story in this alternate world. He’s a very faithful guy who is really into his Goddess and would do anything for his religion. It’s nice to see both sides of this story, quite frankly. You don’t get to do that very often in games, so it’s pretty refreshing.

I really enjoyed playing this game. I bought it on Saturday afternoon and finished it Sunday afternoon. I was constantly playing, except to sleep really quick and maybe eat. I don’t remember. I haven’t actually been into a game like that for a long time, so it HAD to have been good.

The graphics and the music for the game were done extremely well, too. I thought the music matched in perfectly with the rest of the game. The only thing I didn’t really like were the studid puzzles. Most of the puzzles in this game were really really easy to figure out, but some of them were just monotomous. RETARDED.

I know that wasn’t PC, but THAT’s how I feel!

Anyways, I give this game 5 out of 5 pirate hats, because it was this shizzle.

Still no video. I had to reformat my computer and there’s no video capturing software. Sucky. I’ll try for next weeks.

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POSTED IN: Reviews, Treasure Trove Tuesday