dreamfall review part one
Okay! So I started playing Dreamfall and I thought I'd do a review-type thing of it, chapter by chapter. I just finished the prologue and chapter one, so here goes!
Oh yeah and this is going to be full of spoilers yaaaay!
The game opens with a man-Brian Westhouse-writing a journal entry reflecting on the path he's taking through life (?!). He talks about how he's at a crossroads, one path is clear and the other is in shadow, etc. etc. He says that while a sane man would return to what he knows, he is going to take the uncertain path, and he's writing the journal entry as a map of sorts for anyone who may follow him.
When he finishes writing the entry, he is escorted by a lama (apparently he is in some equivalent of Shangri-La) to a prayer room type area where several other lamas are all praying in a circle. A bit of exploration, and the lama-the same one who escorted him-comes up and tells you to get on the dais, they're ready for the ceremony.
There's some weird light swirly bits with flower petals (yeah idk either) and then Brian is magically transported to this strange icy landscape with a singular tree and a funny-looking man tending a fire. The guy gets all O____o, and is like "HOW DID YOU GET HERE OMG GO BACK!" Brian, of course, can't go back, so the guy is like "Oh nooooes ;__; what have you done!"
After a fairly ambiguous statement ("It's here-the Undreaming!"), a weird black tentacle-y blob appears in the sky and reaches down for Brian, but the screen fades to black before you can see his fate. All the player gets is a few resounding "No! No... Noooo!"s
In the next scene, the screen cuts open on a view of a sleeping girl-or at least you think she's sleeping, until her internal narration tells you she's in a coma. Her name is Zoe Castillo, and she will be your protagonist for the next... rest of the game!
Basically, Zoe's life is like this: She quit school, broke up with her boyfriend, and moved back home to Casablanca (from Cape Town, South Africa). She's been feeling depressed and apathetic lately, has trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and doesn't feel any real passion or interest in anything that used to fascinate her. Basically, her life has become boring and monotonous, so all she does is sleep, drink, have people over, and wander around (with occasional trips to the gym).
Lately, though, she's been seeing this weird "viral video" (her words, not mine) that depicts a winter landscape with a gravity-defying black house, and a little ghostly girl who repeats variants of the phrase "Find April, save April." Zoe essentially thinks it's just a viral video, doesn't really place too much weight on it.
(Though Zoe doesn't know it yet, reading the game brochure will tell you-the player-that April Ryan was an 18-year-old art student who saved the world from utter destruction ten years ago. Presumably this is who the ghost girl is referring to.)
So. Gameplay really starts with Zoe laying in bed watching the news (this is the first instance of her seeing the video). She gets a message from her trainer that says she's late for the gym, so she bolts downstairs, only to be quickly distracted by the fact that her father is taking a business trip to Bombay-apparently something that he discussed with Zoe only two days previous. The business trip seems a bit shady, as her father refuses to give any details and refers to his meetings as "Oh, just work... stuff." However, Zoe is rather unconcerned-she asks him about having a party while he's gone, he says sure, she gets all "Aww thanks daddy!" and then bolts off to the gym.
Or, rather, she attempts to go to the gym, because in fact she ends up getting distracted again, this time by her friend Olivia, who runs the "Alien the Kitty" tech shop down the street from Zoe's house. A conversation with Olivia will inform Zoe that she has access to a software that can turn off the Syndicate's access to her mobile, essentially making her invisible, and that Olivia will hook Zoe up with the software when she returns post-workout.
(Another point that the player will know but Zoe doesn't-the Syndicate is the omniscient corporation that monitors essentially all mobile activity in the world.)
At the gym, you (the player) learn how to work the combat system, which is actually incredibly easy-"k" for heavy attacks, "l" for light attacks, and the space bar to block. I practiced this about five times, only three of which I won.
Upon leaving the gym, Zoe receives a phone call from Reza, her ex-boyfriend, asking her to meet him at Moca Loco-a coffee shop not far from Zoe's gym. Of course she agrees, having nothing better to do, and when they meet, Reza requests that Zoe run an errand for him-to go downtown and pick up a package from a woman named Helena Chang, who works for a company called Jiva. He refuses to specify what is in the package or what he needs it for, only telling Zoe that it's imperative that he has it.
Of course, Zoe agrees, and off we run to downtown Casablanca, where Zoe goes up to Jiva only to encounter a surly, purple-haired receptionist who is clearly up to no good (as is evidenced when the plasma screen behind her cuts to a feed of a woman struggling desperately to escape from a holding cell). Zoe, sensing accurately that this receptionist is bad news, distracts her and attempts to check out the computer, only to be caught by the receptionist, who we then have to fight in hand-to-hand combat.
The receptionist is remarkably easy to knock out, and soon enough Zoe can use the computer console to unlock the doors and head through into the laboratory, where she witnesses a man using an EMP to take out the circuitry on the holding cell in which the woman is being held, rendering the doors unable to open. Some quick thinking and a bit of climbing later, Zoe manually forces the doors open and frees the woman, who turns out to be Helena Chang herself.
Though Helena refuses (much in the same way that Reza did) to give Zoe any information about the package or about Reza's project-incidentally, the entire conversation refers to Reza as "Jericho", an unexplained code name by which both women know him-Zoe accepts the package and returns to her neighborhood to deliver it to Reza.
However, all does not go as planned. Upon heading up to Reza/Jericho's apartment, Zoe discovers a strange cat and a dead woman, and is subsequently (in fact, nearly immediately) cornered and arrested by men in combat suits with large guns who Zoe refers to as "EYE commandos", a term which goes unexplained. They knock her out and take her back to interrogation, where she proceeds to give everything up (and at which point the player learns that Reza's last name is Tamiz, which does nothing to explain the name "Jericho"). After instructing Zoe to call EYE immediately if Reza contacts her, they request that she tell the entire story again, at which point the screen fades to black and chapter one ends.
What I think so far: Well, the graphics are impressive enough, though admittedly I think I'd be pretty easy to please since the last PC game I played was Riven in like 2002. I'm not particularly far in the game, but I can tell you this: Thus far, this game has been about 1/3 actual gameplay and 2/3 cinematics and internal monologue/conversation between characters. While cinematics and between-character conversation is skippable, it's still a bit tedious, and I'm kind of basically just waiting for the game to actually start.
This is probably not interesting to anyone but me, but oh well!
Oh yeah and this is going to be full of spoilers yaaaay!
The game opens with a man-Brian Westhouse-writing a journal entry reflecting on the path he's taking through life (?!). He talks about how he's at a crossroads, one path is clear and the other is in shadow, etc. etc. He says that while a sane man would return to what he knows, he is going to take the uncertain path, and he's writing the journal entry as a map of sorts for anyone who may follow him.
When he finishes writing the entry, he is escorted by a lama (apparently he is in some equivalent of Shangri-La) to a prayer room type area where several other lamas are all praying in a circle. A bit of exploration, and the lama-the same one who escorted him-comes up and tells you to get on the dais, they're ready for the ceremony.
There's some weird light swirly bits with flower petals (yeah idk either) and then Brian is magically transported to this strange icy landscape with a singular tree and a funny-looking man tending a fire. The guy gets all O____o, and is like "HOW DID YOU GET HERE OMG GO BACK!" Brian, of course, can't go back, so the guy is like "Oh nooooes ;__; what have you done!"
After a fairly ambiguous statement ("It's here-the Undreaming!"), a weird black tentacle-y blob appears in the sky and reaches down for Brian, but the screen fades to black before you can see his fate. All the player gets is a few resounding "No! No... Noooo!"s
In the next scene, the screen cuts open on a view of a sleeping girl-or at least you think she's sleeping, until her internal narration tells you she's in a coma. Her name is Zoe Castillo, and she will be your protagonist for the next... rest of the game!
Basically, Zoe's life is like this: She quit school, broke up with her boyfriend, and moved back home to Casablanca (from Cape Town, South Africa). She's been feeling depressed and apathetic lately, has trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and doesn't feel any real passion or interest in anything that used to fascinate her. Basically, her life has become boring and monotonous, so all she does is sleep, drink, have people over, and wander around (with occasional trips to the gym).
Lately, though, she's been seeing this weird "viral video" (her words, not mine) that depicts a winter landscape with a gravity-defying black house, and a little ghostly girl who repeats variants of the phrase "Find April, save April." Zoe essentially thinks it's just a viral video, doesn't really place too much weight on it.
(Though Zoe doesn't know it yet, reading the game brochure will tell you-the player-that April Ryan was an 18-year-old art student who saved the world from utter destruction ten years ago. Presumably this is who the ghost girl is referring to.)
So. Gameplay really starts with Zoe laying in bed watching the news (this is the first instance of her seeing the video). She gets a message from her trainer that says she's late for the gym, so she bolts downstairs, only to be quickly distracted by the fact that her father is taking a business trip to Bombay-apparently something that he discussed with Zoe only two days previous. The business trip seems a bit shady, as her father refuses to give any details and refers to his meetings as "Oh, just work... stuff." However, Zoe is rather unconcerned-she asks him about having a party while he's gone, he says sure, she gets all "Aww thanks daddy!" and then bolts off to the gym.
Or, rather, she attempts to go to the gym, because in fact she ends up getting distracted again, this time by her friend Olivia, who runs the "Alien the Kitty" tech shop down the street from Zoe's house. A conversation with Olivia will inform Zoe that she has access to a software that can turn off the Syndicate's access to her mobile, essentially making her invisible, and that Olivia will hook Zoe up with the software when she returns post-workout.
(Another point that the player will know but Zoe doesn't-the Syndicate is the omniscient corporation that monitors essentially all mobile activity in the world.)
At the gym, you (the player) learn how to work the combat system, which is actually incredibly easy-"k" for heavy attacks, "l" for light attacks, and the space bar to block. I practiced this about five times, only three of which I won.
Upon leaving the gym, Zoe receives a phone call from Reza, her ex-boyfriend, asking her to meet him at Moca Loco-a coffee shop not far from Zoe's gym. Of course she agrees, having nothing better to do, and when they meet, Reza requests that Zoe run an errand for him-to go downtown and pick up a package from a woman named Helena Chang, who works for a company called Jiva. He refuses to specify what is in the package or what he needs it for, only telling Zoe that it's imperative that he has it.
Of course, Zoe agrees, and off we run to downtown Casablanca, where Zoe goes up to Jiva only to encounter a surly, purple-haired receptionist who is clearly up to no good (as is evidenced when the plasma screen behind her cuts to a feed of a woman struggling desperately to escape from a holding cell). Zoe, sensing accurately that this receptionist is bad news, distracts her and attempts to check out the computer, only to be caught by the receptionist, who we then have to fight in hand-to-hand combat.
The receptionist is remarkably easy to knock out, and soon enough Zoe can use the computer console to unlock the doors and head through into the laboratory, where she witnesses a man using an EMP to take out the circuitry on the holding cell in which the woman is being held, rendering the doors unable to open. Some quick thinking and a bit of climbing later, Zoe manually forces the doors open and frees the woman, who turns out to be Helena Chang herself.
Though Helena refuses (much in the same way that Reza did) to give Zoe any information about the package or about Reza's project-incidentally, the entire conversation refers to Reza as "Jericho", an unexplained code name by which both women know him-Zoe accepts the package and returns to her neighborhood to deliver it to Reza.
However, all does not go as planned. Upon heading up to Reza/Jericho's apartment, Zoe discovers a strange cat and a dead woman, and is subsequently (in fact, nearly immediately) cornered and arrested by men in combat suits with large guns who Zoe refers to as "EYE commandos", a term which goes unexplained. They knock her out and take her back to interrogation, where she proceeds to give everything up (and at which point the player learns that Reza's last name is Tamiz, which does nothing to explain the name "Jericho"). After instructing Zoe to call EYE immediately if Reza contacts her, they request that she tell the entire story again, at which point the screen fades to black and chapter one ends.
What I think so far: Well, the graphics are impressive enough, though admittedly I think I'd be pretty easy to please since the last PC game I played was Riven in like 2002. I'm not particularly far in the game, but I can tell you this: Thus far, this game has been about 1/3 actual gameplay and 2/3 cinematics and internal monologue/conversation between characters. While cinematics and between-character conversation is skippable, it's still a bit tedious, and I'm kind of basically just waiting for the game to actually start.
This is probably not interesting to anyone but me, but oh well!