Preview: E3 2005: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey20th May 2005Ah, now this is a game that I've been waiting for for quite some time. Dreamfall is the sequel to Funcom's masterful The Longest Journey, and continues the story that players began as April Ryan. This time April is back, but not as the lead character. That honor goes to Zoe Castillo, a college drop-out who is looking for something in her life to jump-start her motivation. The game opens with Zoe laying on a bed, resting peacefully, and an internal monologue begins to catch players up to speed. It ends up that Zoe's in a coma, and we will get to play the previous few weeks of her life so that we can learn what happened to put her in such a state. Flashing backwards a few weeks, players encounter a much livelier Zoe sitting on her bed and watching the news until suddenly the image cuts out and she sees The Winter, the third world to appear in the series (the first two being the twin existences of technology-oriented Stark and magically-fueled Arcadia) on her television. A rather creepy looking girl appears in the middle of the image and tells Zoe to, "see her, find her." As Zoe starts to investigate the nature of these different realities, she finds her story interweaving with April and Kian, a religious fanatic who functions as a warrior and assassin. Each character represents a different style of gameplay: Zoe tends to be more social and brings forth puzzle-oriented gameplay, Kian is more action-intense, and April's style of play is based around stealth. No matter which character you find yourself playing as across the game's 13 chapters, though, the theme of the game is about faith. "Kian lives by faith, April has lost her faith, and Zoe is searching for it." Funcom has developed a new technology that they are hoping will revolutionize the adventure gaming genre: the Focus Field. The Focus Field will do away with the point-and-click orientation of classic adventure games; it is a beam of light that appears straight ahead of the character on the screen, highlighting anything that can be picked up/interacted with. This doesn't mean that using a mouse isn't possible... quite the opposite, in fact. There will be two different ways to play the game: via mouse/keyboard or solely with the mouse (the latter reduces combat a great deal in the game). The puzzles in the game are pretty logical, from what we've seen, up to and including the mini-games involved in Zoe's computer-hacking cellular phone. The one thing that had everyone curious and was never shown during the demo was the game's combat system. Let's just say that if the combat system is as innovative and well-done as everything else in the game, then Funcom won't have anything to worry about. |
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