I've played adventure games back in the day, when you had King's Quest, Monkey Island and other puzzling games featuring pixelated characters walking from one pixelated place to the next. Some games you want to end, such as King's Quest in my humble opinion, and some games you wish were longer, such as the Monkey Island series, for any matter, any Lucasarts game.

Now years after the emergence of the genre, adventure games have sort of had a silent death, sleeper hits like Grim Fandango completely ignored.

The Longest Journey was one of those darned sleeper hits.

I did not know this game existed for quite some time because it was never publicized. Longest Journey was originally only a European game, which by popularity had managed to get translated and shipped over to the States. Even now it's difficult/near-impossible to get. However those looking for it, I would suggest dragon.ca where you can get it shipped for $35.00 with free shipping and handling. (You won't get the game box however). I got the game in 2 weeks from this Canadian company and I think it's a pretty good deal compared to the other places on the web, including buying it from Funcom directly (the game publisher).

Well, now that the history has been talked about, let's talk about....

The GOOD

Graphics -

The graphics are marvelous. Sometimes its still a bit pixelated but compared to most other adventure games, its a notch up. Computer generated lush environments await in two worlds, one of them the cyberpunk future of Stark and the another, the fantasy, dreamy world of Arcadia. The main character, April Ryan is polygon generated and overall looks pretty good, except she has no textures on her to give her realism. That's alright though, since this game is over a year and a half old.

Gameplay -

Plenty of items and puzzles. Very very good interface. You can press ESC to skip frames and speech at any time making it easy to avoid listening to some of the game's long tedious conversations and the tons of walking around. You can easily cycle through items in the inventory using A and S keys making access to items easy. There is also a diary that records most of the dialogue in the game in case you abuse the ESC key too much and end up skipping dialogue.

Story -

Nice event based plot here. You start off really simply, with just the basics of April's life, who she likes, her conversations with her landlord, her job, etc. It moves on as weird events begin happening in her life and she finds herself unusually teleported to a fantasy world known as Arcadia. She encounters Cortez who tells her she's a Shifter, one who can travel between these two worlds. All together a very intriguing plot that keeps the game moving.

Now, let's just get on to the chase. It has all the qualities of a good adventure game...but-

THE UGLY

Puzzles -

Okay big problem here. When you pick the right item and put it over the corresponding item, it flashes. That means you can literally put the mouse over an item and keep pressing A (cycling through items) until the right one flashes. This means you can cheat. What's the point of an adventure game when its this easy to cheat???

Another problem are the puzzles themselves. Some of them require that you LOOK around more than they require you to think. One of them has you remove a obscure shard of glass from the corner of a mirror without providing any clues at all. However, with all the obscurity aside, most of these puzzles aren't difficult, unlike Grim Fandango and other Lucasarts game. This game should be a breeze for experienced adventurers.

Plot -

It's a good plot, but there are some problems with the dialogue. While the dialogue is good in its realism, characters will curse, have accents and be snobby and obnoxious, the main character is pretty much a bore. Don't expect any snappy banter, that you'd get from Guybrush Threepwood. You won't find that here. Instead you'll get some slight tinges of sarcasm and overall tons of skepticism. "I don't understand, tell me more" type of dialogue that makes you insane. Not to mention the fact that there is an insane amount of dialogue. If there wasn't an ESC key shortcut this game would be horrible. There are also some parts where the game is just too wordy, and they prattle on and on about "The Balance" and other strange concepts that in the end don't relate much to the game.


Bottom Line -

This game has it right in all the wrong areas. Graphics, plot, settings are all marvelous. These give the adventure aspect to the adventure game genre. However it's missing some of what makes games good, and that is a puzzle engine that doesn't allow you to cheat, and dialogue to keep you interested. What drives you through this game is the eyecandy if anything and the fact that you're interested in what those wacky FunCom people have in their heads.

I give it a 8.8/10. One of the best adventure games of this year, but one of the only good adventure games of this year. Compare it to Monkey Island 2 or something and this game doesn't stand. However it does give a good effort in creating another King's Quest, one that is 30 hrs long.

Notes -

4 cd game, 20 hrs of gameplay if you play it fast. If you want to unlock the "making of Longest Journey" section, simply plant the artificial leaf you get into the garden where the treehouse is in Arcadia. This unlocks a special feature in the main menu where you can listen to sound clips and look at art used to make the game.





Recommended: Yes