Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (PC, 2006)

This game could have gotten an excellent, but the controls issue made that impossible. Lip-syncing concerns add to the problems. Choices made by the game maker seriously compromised the game.

First the positives:
It is a good third person adventure game. It is much shorter than the first game "The Longest Journey." You control the characters and control one of 4 characters. You are forced to control the chacracters in turn and are not allowed to choose a character. The game just changes the character as the story progesses. I would have liked to control April Ryan the major character of TLJ.
The graphics are great and well done. You can turn down the fancy video options and the game will run great on a lower end computer.
The story is good and there are alot of conversations just like in TLJ.

The negatives:
Unfortunately the game maker made some poor choices because of their decision to add a fighting system. This forced the game maker to drop the traditional point and click interface to accommadate the ability to fight other characters. This choice also forced them to create an interface that is clumsy to use. This adds frustration to the game
Part of the fun of the original TLJ game had the point and click interface which made it easy to control the character. You now have to use both the keyboard and mouse to move the character. Turning too far and having to adjust all the time just to walk drew me out of the game.
The first game was praised for not having fighting and focused on the characters and their interactions. Drawing the person into the game. Not so with Dreamfall. You worry more about getting the character to go where it needs to go than about having fun and solving puzzles.
The lip-syncing is off just a little bit which makes the characters seem more like dummies than real. Thus drawing one more out of the game.

Conclusion:
It could have been a contender. But the game maker got it into their heads to add a fighting system, thus forcing them to remove the greatest asset, the Point and click interface. The original TLJ was known for the great character development and conversations, long and fun game play.
Maybe it is not the game makers fault. For a number of years, game makers have been making first persom shooters and have virtually ignored the adventure game. I guess this point of view would lead a game maker to try to make an adventure game more like a shooter.
It is a shame the game was hurt by bad interface choices. TLJ made and is still making alot of money. Maybe if they had kept the point and click interface and focused on character and game play it could have been another monster hit.
If you read the forums for the game, every one was telling the game maker that, but they were ignored. What a shame.

Dreamfall - The long anticipated sequel to The Longest Journey - has perhaps the most spectacular graphics and soundtrack of any modern day adventure game. Brilliant locations scenery, excellent visual effects, some of the best graphics of the game characters ever seen - this game is a should-do for anyone enjoying a traditional adventure romp.
Although it is not necessary, I would recommend you get a copy of The Longest Journey and play that one first if you have not already done so. For those who have already played The Longest Journey you will meet up with some "old friends" once again in Dreamfall - April Ryan, Brian Westhouse, Crow, and others enhancing the enjoyability of this game.
For gamers who enjoy action and timed sequences you will find several excellent challenges in Dreamfall - most notably in Chapters 5 and 6. Although one action sequence can be conquered with a standard keyboard, I found it a bit easier using a game pad. While I didn't find a game pad necessary for The Longest Journey, I did find it quite helpful in Dreamfall.
The downside of Dreamfall is that while the first 6 chapters moved along at a challenging yet interesting pace, the final 7 chapters moved along quite briskly without many difficult challenges but with a lot of dialogue. But no need for writing down a lot of notes as the game takes care of that for you. The saved items interface is quite easy to access and use, as is the save game feature with plenty of slots for saving your game which comes in very handy.
As with most adventure games this one leaves you hanging a bit at the end with some loose ends and relationships unresolved, but there is the promise of more to come in the future - whenever that may be. It took approximately 6 years for the producers to release Dreamfall after The Longest Journey ended.
All in all a really terrific game with some of the best scenery imaginable in a PC game, along with colorful and interesting characters - most especially our heroine Zoe - nice outfits and rather skimpy in some scenes - earning the game a M Mature 17+ rating.
No bugs or patches were necessary as the game played smoothly with Win XP, and if you go looking for a copy of the original Longest Journey I highly suggest you get the update version that is now (finally) compatible with Win XP. Both Journeys are well worth the trip - and back!

This game is incredible, not to mention the protagonist is hot... one of the protagonists that is. This game is unique, in as much as it allows the player to not merely be one player seeing the world from one perspective, it allows you to completely immerse yourself in the storyline. And this game has one hell of a storyline. Spanning from two-hundred years in the future, to another world... a world of the past, a world of magic. <p>

The graphics are incredible! Especially if you have an ATi graphics card (Which I do) but even if you are from the Nvidia camp, the graphics are really, really good. <p>

With over 30 hours of gameplay, this game is a tough nut to crack, a good game guide can come in handy for some of the trickier puzzles. <p>

Over all, I rate this game a 9

If you love character development and storyline, an immersive world and emotional involvement, dreamfall is one of the best. I ended up really caring about the characters (especially Zoe) and their fate. But this game goes beyond the simplistic good guys bad guys dichotomy, forcing you at one point to play as one of the "enemy," giving insight into the moral questions involved in a clash of civilizations. This narrative complexity contributes a level of anguish which derives not from the usual time pressure of trying to stay alive, but from caring about the fate of a people whose lands have been invaded, whose values are rejected by the self righteous religion of their invaders, and whose way of life is being changed against their will.

This game really swallowed me up. I rate it less than excellent mainly because I was a tad disappointed by the ending of the story, but there ws nothing in the rendering at fault. it was fun, not as tedious as some Adventure games can be, and engrossing.