Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

The experience of playing Dreamfall is so pleasant and user-friendly that I think it has the potential to be a "gateway" game, a game like Myst or The Sims, which brings new players to computer and video games.

An incredibly crafted fusion of amazing graphics, intricate character interaction and mesmerizing music has made Dreamfall: TLJ a truly rare experience.

It's an interactive story in the truest sense and as such the gameplay is secondary - although there is enough to do between cut scenes, with the usual puzzle solving, exploration, sneaking, mini-games and even a bit of combat.

The controls are very well done. The combat system takes a little getting used to, but the movement and interaction controls are easy to use.

It's filled with enough nuance, emotion, and charm to be an instance classic-and with better, more difficult puzzles, could have surpassed the original from every angle.

Dreamfall is a masterpiece of storytelling, and almost lives up to its illustrious predecessor.

Where Dreamfall excels is in telling a story. The imaginative characters and locations are truly memorable and create a unique experience that makes the ride more enjoyable than the destination.

The team at Funcom can tell one helluva story, but they still need to work on putting gameplay into the game.

A full-on tongue sarnie to the lips of a genre that needs the kiss of life. Marry us, Zoe! [July 2006, p.66]

Overall, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey features an excellent story with a large cast of unique and great characters.

Regardless off all the brilliant work that has gone into it, Dreamfall remains cursed by the simple fact that it does feature long stretches of dialog, less action than most games, a mature and well-thought out plot, intelligent characters and, and here's the clincher, is an adventure game.

Anchored by a wonderful cast of characters, the very well-crafted sci-fi story in Dreamfall will leave you anxiously wanting more.

Sure it has a few faults like a lousy fighting mechanic and not being all that challenging, but it more than makes up for that by delivering an engaging story that not a lot of other games can match.

Adventure games are all about story. This sequel has a great story and good pacing to back it up. [Jun 2006, p.112]

You need this game. Trust me on this; it'll be one of the best adventure games you can get.

This style of game lends itself to character development, which is something rarely seen in games today. We literally learned more about Zoë during the first fifteen minutes of booting up Dreamfall than we typically do by beating most games through to the end.

All in all Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is an adventure that everyone should definitely look into just because of how amazingly well done the characters and the story are.

Dreamfall is relatively short, about ten hours, but chances are you'll play through it a second time to get some of the references you missed. Quite simply, if you like an excellent story in your games, go out and pick up a copy of Dreamfall for the PC or Xbox.

Perhaps the 'true' longest journey is the journey to find the unique narrative voice of video games. Tornquist, in this regard, fails to merge interactivity with narrative, to unite the partners in the dance, but he sure knows how to weave a tale and develop characters.

A classic old-school adventure whose story and characters are strong enough to overcome the terrible action parts. [July 2006, p.68]

While Dreamfall attempts to incorporate action elements, it just doesn't work. The stealth and battle systems are woefully underdeveloped. This wouldn't have been a big deal if there was still an enjoyable array of puzzles, but those too were drastically simplified.

Overall the game is an enjoyable experience, and while the ending left me wanting for the next game in the series to see how things wind up for Zoe, April and 'The Prophet' (the 3rd playable character who begins to undergo a life altering change in beliefs right as the game ends), I just don't know if I'm willing to spend another 20 hours playing a game that I might feel angry about when I finished.

With gameplay totaling in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 hours, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is not exactly epic in length, but its intriguing and well-crafted story and setting will probably make it a favorite of science fiction fans.