First of all : This is not a walkthrough where I tell you what to do, say and where to walk in every scene of the game. If you need help to complete any mission or quest in the actual game, you should check out this page. I don’t really feel that this game needs a walkthrough though. The game is so straight forward and extremely easy that a walkthrough would make things more complicated in my opinion. Compared to old heroes and favourites of mine like Monkey Island and Sam & Max, this game was of course alot better graphically and sound-wise, but the game experience itself. Sheesh.

The reason why you do not need a walkthrough for this game, is that the game is a walkthought in itself. To complete this game all you basically need to do is walk through it. I bought this game together with my girlfriend on saturday, and by sunday afternoon we had finished it. We only got stuck with puzzles two times during the whole game. Of course there were certain other challenges when you had to walk without being detected or had to fight someone to get passed them, but these are not what I like to look at as brain teasing adventure game challenges.

The most challenging thing was when I had to come up with a code put together of 4 sounds in the right order. I had 3 sounds to choose from originally, and I guessed that all 3 sounds would have to be included in the code, so that left me with 30 possible options. After 2 minutes of testing, I found the right one. That was actually the hardest part of the whole game. The code is 1213 for those of you who wondered. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which note is number 1, 2 and 3.

Comparing Dreamfall to for example Myst, or even the above mentioned old favourites like Monkey Island or Sam & Max, is basically like comparing Ludo to Chess. In Dreamfall you never have the freedom of walking where you want and your path is always laid out for you. All doors but the right one are locked, and you can’t talk to any people but the right people. Of course most adventure games limit you to certain scenes at a time so that you don’t have to walk across continents to find the pieces you need for your puzzle, but in Dreamfall you’re limited to operating on a square inch of land. There are few people and items in the game to communicate or interact with, and when you weed out all the easily spotted people that are just there as scenery, you are left with only the really obvious stuff.

In most adventure games a boat will take you across the sea, the book salesman will have the book you need, and a card will be needed to get past a door with a card reader lock. The difference between Dreemfall and other adventure games is that in Dreamfall, the boat you need is the only boat, the book you need is the first thing you get from the book salesman, and the card you need for the door is convenietly pointed out to you in a movie clip 10 seconds before you have to start looking for it.

It says on the box that this game is recommended for 16-year olds and above, but I dubt the game would be challenging enough for even an 8-year old. Needless to say, but a bit satisfactory after all: I’m very disappointed.

And don’t get me started on how they decided to end this game. I don’t care if you think I’m spoiling your fun, I am going to tell you anyways: There is no real ending, just a brief pause in the story to get you ready for Dreamfall 2.

If you are still interested in this game, you can give me a hollar and I will sell you my barely used copy for a sum next to nothing. I might even pay for the shipping and handling.

[tags]PC-games,games,adventure games,Dreamfall,FunCom,walkthrough[/tags]