Dreamfall

So, a couple months ago, I had some extra cash in my pocket and was feeling like a video game. Turns out, CompUSA had a two-in-one deal: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, along with its predecessor The Longest Journey and CD of the soundtrack to Dreamfall. I played them in order and really enjoyed The Longest Journey. As far as it goes, it’s a pretty typical “adventure” game circa 1999, with static settings, confusing puzzles, and a pretty intriguing storyline to hang it all on. Like Myst, only with more… humans.

Dreamfall, which I only just finished, was a pretty awesome sequel. Apparently, and I do not pay attention to these things, it won some awards here and there for best adventure game. The gameplay itself is quite a bit more robust, and the story is incredible… But I had a few quibbles. One is that, about halfway through the game, with spots of exception here and there, the “gameplay” consists of you running one of the three main characters up to another character, or a door, and then you’re rewarded with fifteen minutes of cut scene.

One of the things I liked best about the first game was that it was nothing but puzzles, even if some of them were a bit contrived, and the solutions occasionally quite random. But I also liked that the cut scenes were animated quite differently than the game itself. In Dreamfall, there were way more cut scenes that were just machinima–your same game avatar that you’d been playing, interacting with another, with the same background business going on that would have been going on had you been more in control. And by the second half of the game, the cut scenes have all but taken over.

What saves it, I think, is the story. Great story, something I wouldn’t mind reading, or reading more of. The only small problem is that some of the story (or, rather, the story of the inevitable sequel to Dreamfall) is spoiled in the final scene of the first game–which I probably only noticed because I played them back-to-back.

The only other complaint is that Dreamfall is clearly intended to lead into a rather robust sequel, which became clear to me as I moved through entire chapters (there’s 13 in each game) devoted to a cut scene or two and very little actual gameplay. What was interesting to me was that more story was developing in the gameplay than in the cut scenes… the scenes would leave you with a couple morsels of information, but nothing like you’d get in one of the earlier chapters. And Dreamfall ends with TONS of story threads left unresolved.

Happily, Funcom, who publishes the game, has announced a sequel of sorts. (Also, from the game’s developer, Ragnar Tornquist, he of the awesome name.) The catch is, it will be in downloadable chapters. Which, I have to say, should be really cool.

Unless some of the chapters are just cut scenes. Then I’ll be mad.

Recommendation, Book; Recommendation, Movie (1 ea.)

First, Jason Stoddard is offering his novel, Winning Mars for free download. Having read it, I agree with him on the basic premise that pushing the book through the usual publishing channels would take long enough that much of it might be out of date by the time it saw print, if it saw print for just those reasons (though William Gibson seems to have done a pretty fair job of writing science fiction about the near past). The book does show the lack of a “many hands” approach to publishing, though, as it is presented rather basically (aside from the nice cover art). But that’s not necessarily so bad a thing; if an editor happens upon it, and likes it enough, Stoddard might find himself the lucky recipient of a publishing deal, in much the same way as John Scalzi.

As for the book itself, an executive at the last of the successful “linear” producers, in an age of overwhelmingly popular “interactives,” hatches a plan to resurrect the moribund reality show genre… on Mars. The book takes place in about the same time frame as the first third of Charlie Stross’s Accelerando, and may owe a bit to it given the ubiquitously networked nature of society, though Winning Mars probably benefits from coming after the rise of YouTube and what Stoddard calls “Found Media” (perhaps not originally, I dunno). The novel also reminded me a bit of Scalzi’s own debut, Agent to the Stars for the Insider-ish feel, with the difference being Winning Mars’s focus on television, versus movies in Agent to the Stars. Though, I think Stoddard’s story is rather more than just a mash-up of the two works noted. Worth reading, I think.

Also, yesterday I watched Hot Fuzz starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and from the same writers (including Pegg) and director that made the hilarious Shaun of the Dead. Fuzz is hilarious… and like Shaun of the Dead kind of oscillates between screwball comedy and serious, thoughtful “straight” story. It’s a movie that is made by people who love action movies, certainly, and pays homage to more than can be counted. Very good, very funny, with lots of great appearances by great actors. (Look for cameos by Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett.)

I’ll be buying that one sometime soon.