I'll be honest, I tried this game because of the title. How many games out there do you get to play as the crazy cat lady? I was on another adventure game binge and found this game with positive reviews. It was a horror adventure game that featured a cat lady as the main character. It sounded interesting and I gave it a try. Basically the game begins with you, Susan Ashworth, a woman in her late 30's. You are staring at your cats as you eat sleeping pills to commit suicide. About 2 minutes into the game you die. You however, instead of dying wake up in the world between life and death. There you meet the mysterious old lady called Queen of Maggots. She gives you a gift (or in your case a curse) where you will never die. Every time you die you will wake up alive again no matter how horrific the death is. You never asked for this but you have no choice. However, you can get rid of this "gift" if you do what she says. You must kill the parasites. Once you do you are free.
The parasites are rapists, murderers, arsonists, the true monsters of society. You're not actively going out in search of them, no they come for you. They're here to hurt you and all you want to do is to be left alone to wallow in your own misery. In order to leave the halfway world you must give a gift of blood, and a gift of soul. By blowing out a candle you sacrifice a piece of your own soul in exchange for the life of a parasite. A soul for a soul. Once you blown out all the candles, you die. A gift of blood is by drawing out some blood. So after blowing out the candle you must stick your arm into a hole to push the button when you do that your arm gets chopped off and you start running around holding your wound as blood gushes everywhere as the credits start rolling in. Thats your gift of blood. This game has excessive amounts of blood, gore and violence.
The game then wakes you up at a hospital for suicide victims. You cannot leave until they are convinced you won't kill yourself again. The psychiatrist will ask you questions. How you answer and what you ask will affect the game. The game isn't like the usual point and click adventure game. Its a 2d side scrolling one where you only need the left and right keyboard buttons and walk until something pops up. The up button to interact and the down button for inventory. Its a little confusing at first but after playing it for awhile its not too hard to get used to. Some puzzles are a little obscure but its not hard enough that you should feel any frustration while playing.
The horror amount for the game is not very high though. If you're looking for scares its not really there. Its more disturbing and focuses more on the horrors of humanity. For example the first parasite you meet is none other than your very own psychiatrist. He preys on weak women, charms them, brings them to his home where he tortures them to hear them scream. Then he kills them and use their bodies as art to mimic masterpieces such as, the Mona Lisa, Venus, the girl with pearl earrings. You knew too much when a nurse shared information to you before she committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the hospital. You told the psychiatrist about her and he stabbed you to death. Waking up from the body bag you find your way out of the "prison" basement and create a weapon from random items and breaking open his skull. This whole time screams in the background as he slowly prods and pokes a woman tied to a chair with a sharp object.
While you are out getting killed by parasites, you are also on a emotional journey of self discovery. Coming to terms with your past, the reasons for your suicide, and the people you meet along the way is the real story of the game. Its about loss, tragedy, and the bittersweet moments of being alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx6j2I8v2Z0
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
Dreamfall - There is no plot, no ending, and no fun
I have to start off saying I love The Longest Journey. Its an point and click adventure game like Deponia, Monkey Island and the rest of them. Its witty, the characters are interesting, and the world is well thought out and explained. What Dreamfall is, isn't really a sequel its more of a spinoff but they throw in as much of the original characters as possible. Instead of reading through text and asking questions and such it became a movie of some sorts. And I hate movie games. I want to read text.
Basically the game takes place 10 years after the events of April Ryan in TLJ. However this time you are controlling a new person. Some 20 year old whiny college dropout called Zoe. Basically you sleep in all day and complain about your day then you go find your friends, whatever is left of them, and then suddenly your ex-boyfriend gets in trouble and you go out of your way to find him. This whole time you aren't talking to other people, you aren't finding items, and you aren't solving puzzles. All you are doing is walking from point a to point b looking at cut scenes. It wouldn't be so bad if the plot made sense. This just cannot be written by the same person who wrote TLJ. It just cannot be the same person. They brought back the same characters, as much as they possibly can, and then completely butchered them. You meet April Ryan again and this time she is a mopey whiny 30 year old who can't let go of the fact that she wasn't needed anymore. After saving the world her mind snapped and she went insane. Then there are the others like Crow who started breaking the fourth wall and being really annoying as shit.
However the biggest part of this is how they introduce a bunch of new things, never explain anything, and then end the game before anything happens. What the fuck? The whole game everyone is talking about "The Collapse" that happened shortly after April Ryan saved the world. Yet it is never explained what exactly it is. There are a new race of people in Arcadia called the Azadi, who are these all black humans (somehow a different race from humans and are called non human? Why not make them look different then?) Who are super religious and murders everyone and anyone who doesn't believe in their Goddess or uses magic which is banned by the Goddess. So April Ryan is fighting them, you on the other hand is looking for your ex-boyfriend and then hooks up with some random guy you met like 2 hours ago and makes out in his apartment then suddenly, April Ryan dies! What? Then you find out you have a sister and your mom kills you and the game ends. I'm not joking. Thats how the game ends. Why are the Azadi here? What was their plans with the tower? What happened to the Dreamcore? What is The Collapse? What about the people I met at the start of the game where are they? What the fuck happened?
You don't just make a game where less than 1% of the plot is explained. None of it would make sense then, and none of it would matter. What was different from the first game was that they threw away the adventure game format and made it into an "action game" format. You have to punch people and stealth and other stuff. The stealth parts are the worst parts in the game. You move so slow and its so long and tedious. Its not even hard at all you just move at really slow speeds. Guards don't turn around, stuff doesn't pop out and you don't need to avoid anything. All you have to do is walk at 1/3rd of your normal speed for the next 5 minutes. God forbid you let go of the stealth button you'll automatically get caught killed and have to reload at your last save. Combat however is different its not tedious its just buggy. Enemies will stand there and hold block 90% of the time and you can just use heavy hit, which is unblockable. And just keep using the heavy hit and they die without any work. This isn't fun, this is tedious. Who decided it was a good idea to put combat and stealth into an adventure game?
Even if you want to add combat and stealth, it can be done correctly. Most of the time you can never die in adventure games. Some you can die in, thats ok I don't mind dying. But when you accidentally let go of your stealth key and then some spiderbot shoots lasers in your face and you die. That is pretty stupid. Look how combat in Monkey Island in done. You have insult sword fighting. That was hilarious, that was charming. And to this day it is still remembered by many. Adventure games are mostly about talking to people, choosing your responses, asking questions, finding items, combining items, solving puzzles, all while having fun. Dreamfall is none of that. You never talk to people if you can avoid it. Getting anywhere is a pain and talking to people just gives an automatic response so theres no point in talking. Asking anything is pointless because all you can ask is who they are from the first game. Its for people who never played TLJ and can ask to find out more about that character, and by more I mean summarize the person in one sentence which does shit for anything. You don't even get to choose a response everything is played out for you. There isn't even enough items in this game and somehow they keep magically disappearing from your inventory when you change zones. Hell you don't even need to travel in this game you just magically plop somewhere and you never go back ever. Puzzles in this game doesn't even require thinking its just something stupidly cryptic like "turn up the volume of your game to listen to the humming of the wind then push the buttons in the order of the hums." What the fuck? Or some are so easy you just spin 4 circles until they match. Its like calling the hacking minigames in Mass Effect 2 a puzzle.
Last but not least, its not fun. Thats what it all comes down to. Its not fun. You don't feel involved in the game at all. All you feel like you're doing is watching a movie play out but your friends pull you away after you just get started and you don't even know how it ends or what the rest of the movie is about. Thats what it did. It teased you with the illusion that there might be a story, there might be plot. But they spent too much time trying to bring back characters just so TLJ fans can feel happy about themselves when they sleep at night. What happened was a complete mess of a game with no one you can really relate to, no game play at all except the tedious sneaking and combat, and worst of all, an unsatisfying plot with no ending. How this can be called a game is beyond me. TLJ was an amazing game, yet Dreamfall is nothing but a stain on its reputation. Dreamfall Chapters, the sequel is being developed and maybe it will do better. Who knows what can happen.
Basically the game takes place 10 years after the events of April Ryan in TLJ. However this time you are controlling a new person. Some 20 year old whiny college dropout called Zoe. Basically you sleep in all day and complain about your day then you go find your friends, whatever is left of them, and then suddenly your ex-boyfriend gets in trouble and you go out of your way to find him. This whole time you aren't talking to other people, you aren't finding items, and you aren't solving puzzles. All you are doing is walking from point a to point b looking at cut scenes. It wouldn't be so bad if the plot made sense. This just cannot be written by the same person who wrote TLJ. It just cannot be the same person. They brought back the same characters, as much as they possibly can, and then completely butchered them. You meet April Ryan again and this time she is a mopey whiny 30 year old who can't let go of the fact that she wasn't needed anymore. After saving the world her mind snapped and she went insane. Then there are the others like Crow who started breaking the fourth wall and being really annoying as shit.
However the biggest part of this is how they introduce a bunch of new things, never explain anything, and then end the game before anything happens. What the fuck? The whole game everyone is talking about "The Collapse" that happened shortly after April Ryan saved the world. Yet it is never explained what exactly it is. There are a new race of people in Arcadia called the Azadi, who are these all black humans (somehow a different race from humans and are called non human? Why not make them look different then?) Who are super religious and murders everyone and anyone who doesn't believe in their Goddess or uses magic which is banned by the Goddess. So April Ryan is fighting them, you on the other hand is looking for your ex-boyfriend and then hooks up with some random guy you met like 2 hours ago and makes out in his apartment then suddenly, April Ryan dies! What? Then you find out you have a sister and your mom kills you and the game ends. I'm not joking. Thats how the game ends. Why are the Azadi here? What was their plans with the tower? What happened to the Dreamcore? What is The Collapse? What about the people I met at the start of the game where are they? What the fuck happened?
You don't just make a game where less than 1% of the plot is explained. None of it would make sense then, and none of it would matter. What was different from the first game was that they threw away the adventure game format and made it into an "action game" format. You have to punch people and stealth and other stuff. The stealth parts are the worst parts in the game. You move so slow and its so long and tedious. Its not even hard at all you just move at really slow speeds. Guards don't turn around, stuff doesn't pop out and you don't need to avoid anything. All you have to do is walk at 1/3rd of your normal speed for the next 5 minutes. God forbid you let go of the stealth button you'll automatically get caught killed and have to reload at your last save. Combat however is different its not tedious its just buggy. Enemies will stand there and hold block 90% of the time and you can just use heavy hit, which is unblockable. And just keep using the heavy hit and they die without any work. This isn't fun, this is tedious. Who decided it was a good idea to put combat and stealth into an adventure game?
Even if you want to add combat and stealth, it can be done correctly. Most of the time you can never die in adventure games. Some you can die in, thats ok I don't mind dying. But when you accidentally let go of your stealth key and then some spiderbot shoots lasers in your face and you die. That is pretty stupid. Look how combat in Monkey Island in done. You have insult sword fighting. That was hilarious, that was charming. And to this day it is still remembered by many. Adventure games are mostly about talking to people, choosing your responses, asking questions, finding items, combining items, solving puzzles, all while having fun. Dreamfall is none of that. You never talk to people if you can avoid it. Getting anywhere is a pain and talking to people just gives an automatic response so theres no point in talking. Asking anything is pointless because all you can ask is who they are from the first game. Its for people who never played TLJ and can ask to find out more about that character, and by more I mean summarize the person in one sentence which does shit for anything. You don't even get to choose a response everything is played out for you. There isn't even enough items in this game and somehow they keep magically disappearing from your inventory when you change zones. Hell you don't even need to travel in this game you just magically plop somewhere and you never go back ever. Puzzles in this game doesn't even require thinking its just something stupidly cryptic like "turn up the volume of your game to listen to the humming of the wind then push the buttons in the order of the hums." What the fuck? Or some are so easy you just spin 4 circles until they match. Its like calling the hacking minigames in Mass Effect 2 a puzzle.
Last but not least, its not fun. Thats what it all comes down to. Its not fun. You don't feel involved in the game at all. All you feel like you're doing is watching a movie play out but your friends pull you away after you just get started and you don't even know how it ends or what the rest of the movie is about. Thats what it did. It teased you with the illusion that there might be a story, there might be plot. But they spent too much time trying to bring back characters just so TLJ fans can feel happy about themselves when they sleep at night. What happened was a complete mess of a game with no one you can really relate to, no game play at all except the tedious sneaking and combat, and worst of all, an unsatisfying plot with no ending. How this can be called a game is beyond me. TLJ was an amazing game, yet Dreamfall is nothing but a stain on its reputation. Dreamfall Chapters, the sequel is being developed and maybe it will do better. Who knows what can happen.
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