The Longest Journey

Remember seeing The Longest Journey in a game stand when I was a kid, always wanted to play it but never did. Runs almost perfectly in a modern pc! The story is a joy to unravel.

The Longest Journey is set in a futuristic world, but the world remains pretty familiar, with the exception of the odd flying car. A student called April Ryan begins to have what first appear to be strange dreams, but eventually it is revealed to her that she is passing into a parallel world. The world we know is called Stark, and the more magical counter-part is known as Arcadia.

During the first set of chapters, you gain an insight to April's current life-style in Stark, and later on as the story progresses; you spend more time in Arcadia. The game is a point-and-click adventure with a heavy focus on narration. This is definitely the games' strong point, and the dialogue, story and characters are all interesting, well written and perfectly acted.

I felt the puzzles were a bit of a let down for being too easy or a bit obscure. One puzzle I didn't enjoy was placing a top hat on a large pile of rubbish then using a speaking wind-up monkey to trick someone a detective is nearby - using the shadow of the rubbish and voice of the toy. Normally in point-and-click adventures, using the wrong item on an object produces some sort of comment but in this game, your action is simply ignored.

You can cycle quickly through your items on the keyboard and the item flashes if it can be used. So if you have the feeling you need to use an item, you can check within a few seconds by using this method rather than actually thinking about the solution.

As the complex story develops, the game does become more fun and interesting, especially since Arcadia is a much better place to explore than Stark, and your time spent with Crow is full of humour. One thing that definitely annoyed me about the game is that despite being able to make April run, many areas were unnecessarily large and you have to wait several seconds just to traverse the screen. It's a particular problem when visiting Burns Flipper when you have to go up the stairs, then across three large screens just to talk to one guy, then backtrack all the way to the subway!

Being an old game, graphically it is showing it's age and I seemed to only play it using a small window which was slightly annoying. Overall, as an 'interactive story' it is highly recommended but some people may want less dialogue and more challenging puzzles.