A Verbose Vacation
September 5th, 2007I finally got around to finishing The Longest Journey, a very popular classic adventure game from about eight years ago that people have been exhorting me to play for ages, because, y’know, it’s a storytelling marvel and stuff. Last month or so, I saw it bundled with a special-edition copy of Dreamfall in my local game shop, and thought that was just as good an excuse as any to get around to it. Here’s an amalgam of my thoughts:
At the beginning, I was far from impressed. Graphically, everything that was supposed to impress me back in 1999 has long ago started to show its age; unlike Grim Fandango, which was released a year previously, TLJ opted for making its 3D models look as real as was possible using the technology of the time, rather than designing its characters in an iconic fashion that served the dual purpose of masking current technological limitations. The cutscenes were nice, owing to Ragnar Tørnquist’s cinematography background, but then, I have a bit of a grudge against cinematic cutscenes in general, both because the player can’t interact with them and because they’re hard for little indies like myself to make.
The prerendered backgrounds were probably the only things that managed to stay remotely impressive, and I suppose did a sufficient job of creating appropriate atmosphere. My brother walked into the room as I was playing and couldn’t believe that the game was made eight years ago, so I suppose that must count for something.
Now, enough about graphics and on to the more important bits. For a game with such a supposedly great story, I found the dialogue to be irritatingly on-the-nose. I wonder whether this is an English as a second language-type thing, as the game was written by Norwegians; still, considering that most of the characters were voiced with American accents, it gave me the impression of poor writing more than anything else. Also perhaps having to do with ESL issues was the game’s attempts at humour; there were so many lines that were supposed to sound sarcastic and edgy for comic relief, but I personally found them forgettable at best and completely unfunny at worst. [1]
This highlights my general wariness of European games being set in America. [2] For one thing, the cultures are very different, and even more different are the many subcultures present in both areas. I always feel that if one wishes to create a story set in contemporary times, then it should take place in an area that the author has actually lived in for an extended period of time rather than only watched in movies and the like. I suppose TLJ gets away with more in this regard, taking place in the 23rd century where cultures can potentially merge and influence one another. Still, it seems to me as though the game is a bit confused, as there are a few jarring pop culture references from the late 1990’s throughout (which already date themselves), and it doesn’t seem to me as though the world as a whole was meant to change very much in two hundred years, save for in technological terms. [3]
One of the complaints I hear most often about TLJ and Ragnar’s work in general is that the characters spend an awful lot of time talking. I actually don’t mind this very much, but what I do mind is when voice actors speak their lines far more slowly than I can read them. Hence, in this particular game, I skipped through a lot of the text. To do this, I had to continuously press the Esc key, which ended up cramping my left hand after awhile; it would have been far nicer if I could have used one of the mouse buttons to do so. Also, I’ve come to generally consider it good practice to keep dialogue lines short if you’re going to use voice actors, and to leave them longer if you aren’t. Things that are entertaining to read have a tendency to drag on for too long when spoken, especially when characters are just standing there and not doing anything special in the meantime. [4]
April Ryan, as a character, mostly irritates me. I mean, I do feel sympathetic about her dealing with her problems by running away from them (which I tend to do quite a bit), but she really isn’t as deep or intelligent as a lot of people make her out to be. I’d definitely take Maureen Corley or early-nineties Elaine Marley over her any day. Then again, maybe I’m just bitter because April’s primarily responsible for starting that whole generic-skinny-Euro-brunette-chick-as-adventure-game-protagonist trend that’s still going on to this day.
Gameplay, for me, was very hit-or-miss. There were times when things felt so intuitive for me that I forgot that I was playing an adventure game, and there were other times in which I felt I was being slapped in the face by such a fact. Some have said that Ragnar writes awesome stories, but tacks on gameplay like an afterthought, as a “let’s see, how can we make this lovely linear story into a game” kind of mechanism. This, I felt, definitely showed in many of the earlier puzzles, as well as a few towards the end. Nevertheless, there were also many areas in which the gameplay actually felt like I was uncovering the story, and these parts mostly involved — surprise, surprise — talking to characters. This is the sort of thing that made the game enjoyable for me, and drove me to finish it rather than quit entirely.
That’s right, despite my complaints, I actually did like TLJ enough to stick with it until the end. The story in and of itself [5] was very well-told and engrossing; I’ve always loved the idea of a world that involved both science fiction and fantasy. In fact, the experience as a whole reminded me very much of epic fantasy novels, which, I recall, took me a weeks to get through the lengthy introduction and setup, but became easily devoured within a handful of days once I really got into the plot and characters. This was the case with TLJ, which I ended up playing the bulk of over a three-day period, [6] despite owning the game for almost a month.
So, does TLJ deserve the classic status it’s gained in the adventure gaming community? Sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Is it really one of the greatest examples of interactive storytelling? In some ways, yes, in other ways, not really. In any case, I’ll definitely be taking the aspects I liked and using them to inspire my own work.
Next time around, I’ll be checking out what all that silly Dreamfall fuss is about.
- The fact that there was also a Monkey Island in-joke or two also bothered me; yes, such allusions are quite appropriate in primarily comedic games, particularly those made by LucasArts itself, and goodness knows I used to make many of them myself, but in a sci-fi/fantasy game with epic overtones, they feel more than a little out of place. ↩
- And by “America”, I mean the United States, because no one ever makes games set in Mexico, or South America, or even Canada, for that matter. Well, except if there are pirates involved. ↩
- This is perfectly fine in things like Futurama, which is meant to poke fun at both current events and unrealistic 1950’s ideas about “the future”, but TLJ takes itself far too seriously for it to work in this case. ↩
- It is for this reason that I’m strongly considering not using voice actors for Chivalry is Not Dead. ↩
- Yes, in this case, “story” is definitely a different beast from “writing”. ↩
- I used hints for the more illogical puzzles, yes, but I felt justified doing so, as it did more good than harm to my playing experience. In my view, anyway, but then, that’s the only view that really matters. ↩
September 5th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
TLJ is very interesting… I don’t have as much bad things to say about the dialog writing (or voice acting for that matter), but I personally can add the complaint that TLJ is probably the longest prologue I’ve ever seen. The story is great fun, but in the end it adds up to one big exposition of a world and its inhabitants. The dialogs towards the end are just as expository in nature as those in the beginning. It’s something that personally irked me when I reached the end of the game.
Anyway, Dreamfall is a much better game. It throws in some action elements that I didn’t quite care for, but all of my complaints (and it looks like most of yours) were fixed in Dreamfall. Dreamfall is exactly what you would expect from Chapter 1 of the real game. It drops a lot of the expository feel. It fixes some of the “lost in translation” problems of TLJ, actually giving some feel to the game that it wasn’t set entirely in an American backlot somewhere, with a stronger feel of actual international locations (including a return to some of TLJ’s locations that work much better atmospherically in Dreamfall) and the English voice actors have a wider range of accents and feel. Dreamfall really is superior to TLJ. I’ve met people that can’t stand TLJ, much less could finish it, but gobbled up Dreamfall.
The biggest problem with Dreamfall is that it is just Chapter 1. There is still entirely too much of a sense that there is much more to the overall story that needs telling and not enough certainty that Tornquist will have the chance to tell it. If he continues to evolve as a storyteller I think there is a lot of hope for some amazing follow up Dreamfall Chapters… if they get the chance to happen.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I think I’m starting to get more critical about dialogue these days because I’ve been writing quite a lot of it myself and am trying to learn as much as I can to perfect my craft in that regard. That usually tends to happen. If I’d played TLJ years ago, I don’t think I’d have noticed or cared.
But yeah. My impressions on Dreamfall will probably show up here once I’ve, you know, actually played it. I think I might like it, but who knows? I’m not really looking forward to the unresolved ending (TLJ seemed resolved enough for me, but I hear it gets worse), but hey, I guess that’s how it goes when you’re trying to create an epic and you need to spend tons of money on resources to make it happen. Perhaps this is why so many people write novels…
September 5th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Personally I think TLJ’s ending is less resolved that Dreamfall’s, but I think more people do feel the opposite. I think it just depends on what parts of the story you want resolved and which ones you expect to be resolved from the start of the game. But I could also just be speaking from my story building frustrations from the first game that I never felt it really left the exposition part of a plot line…
September 5th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
I played (but didn’t finish) TLJ2 and I largely have the same complaints. It seems to me like a really cool ‘idea’ was crafted, and then totally dulled down in execution. Honestly, the most exciting moments of that game were the intro. Then I found myself not ‘immersed’ in the game, but having to click through god-awful dialogue and hammy/boring voice acting. I found April annoying and didn’t particularly enjoy talking to the characters. If they’re interesting, they can talk forever. How long did I stand around waiting for Stan to give me every sales pitch he had in each Monkey Island? I also felt the puzzles were really not integrated into the game and just a hinderance to the overall story, which was fairly interesting.
I think the european doing america thing is a valid point, but not in all cases. Spellbound makes the desperado series of games set in the wild west(a real time strategy sort of game). The stories, dialogue and acting are better than in most american made games in this genre. I think stilted dialogue an over-extending your audiences patience are universal irritants!
September 6th, 2007 at 7:34 am
The thing with dialogues is, besides in LucasArts’ (and Double Fine’s, and Telltale’s S&M), personally I can’t say I’ve seen any good in any games (funny how that sentence sounds totally weird).
Deirdra, critical as you are, please be that one person on this planet to agree with me that the dialogue in Broken Sword 3 was awful (not to mention the voice acting)!
September 6th, 2007 at 9:06 am
I wouldn’t know; I haven’t played Broken Sword 3 (and don’t have any particular motivation to).
And I’ve seen quite a bit of good game writing/dialogue, particularly in IF games and in Dave Gilbert’s work.
September 10th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I would like to comment on some of your footnotes, first. I love your footnotes, and there are a lot of them here!
# 2 - Indeed. As a citizen/resident of the US, I try to refer to the country as “United States”, “US” or “the States” and the continents as North, South, or Central America, rather than using the word “America” to describe the loudest country therein. My only question is–How do I refer to myself? As a Statesian?
# 4 - I’ve enjoyed your written diaog, and I don’t think voice acting adds all that much, while, I imagine, does add greatly to the expense. I will certainly play ‘Chivalry’ either way.
# 5 - Yes!
# 6 - I’m one of those who use hints when the puzzles start to get in the way of the story for me. Even used a couple in yours–like in that disco dance contest!
I’d been wondering whether to play TLJ, since it has been compared favorably–and endlessly–to one of my favorites, Syberia [skinny-Statesian-chick-in-Europe--oh well]. In spite of Kate’s preposterous clothing and whiny friends, I really liked the concept and gameplay. After your review, I’ll give TLJ a try. Cheers
September 10th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
TLJ is set in America? I never noticed. I just thought it’s three million (OK, maybe slightly less) years in the future, the world doesn’t need to correspond to the way the world is today. Perhaps during the n>100 years European culture imperialism took over America!
“To do this, I had to continuously press the Esc key, which ended up cramping my left hand after awhile; it would have been far nicer if I could have used one of the mouse buttons to do so.” Right-clicking the dialogue area did the trick - in the version I played, at least.
I though the best part of the game, and the thing that got me hooked on it, was April’s diary which was sort of addictive and a great way of rewarding the player, and the easy but fun puzzles. Besides, the fairytale-esque world of Arcadia and the gritty realism of Stark were captivating and created an interesting atmosphere. (Did I get them right…) Yeah, I liked it, though the dialogue was sometimes annoying. The first time I plyed it through, the game didn’t support my PC’s sound card and it suffered from stuttering audio.
September 13th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I thoroughly enjoyed the game when it came out but when I replayed it years later I found I didn’t enjoy it quite as much. I still loved the story but sitting through the dialog was at times a chore, the first time through it wasn’t so noticeable as I was discovering the story, this time sifting through a lot of the filler to get to the meat of the story could be irritating. Still I love the game even know and think it is a memorable tale. Dreamfall has a great story but some awful and frustrating action type elements that I hated. I also felt ripped off by the “to be continued” ending.
September 13th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Consider this a footnote: One of the best scenes in Dreamfall has you controlling both sides of a conversation between two characters completely antagonistic towards each other and it was brilliantly conceived and one of the highlights of the game for me. (I made them both be utterly honest in their statements to each other and was very satisfied with the results)
September 15th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
When I played TLJ I felt a relief that they were still making good adventure games. I liked it a lot better than Syberia, which left me with a bitter taste in the mouth. No characters in Syberia were of my liking. I am especially irked by the protagonist who can be kind or rude in equal measure.
As for April Ryan, I thought it was great that she was an aspiring artist having trouble finding her art/self. And the setting of her apartment near school definitely had me hooked. But then I was disappointed by the repetitiveness of the protagonist’s motivation. Again we see a girl bored of a life that seems to be full of opportunity (to meet interesting people or learn interesting things) but just isn’t motivated to take advantage of it. And instead of her journey being a consequence of her looking for something that will fulfill her, the journey finds her, and effectively wraps around her subjecting her to a destiny she has not sought.
Why is she suddenly so eager to follow these bread crumbs? Why is it more interesting to wander about trying to enter a forbidden building or to understand the gibberish some old stranger spoke? The premise that the only thing that fulfills her is going with the flow and not really understanding why…that premise has been bothering me a lot about protagonists in recent adventure games. Kate Walker, April Ryan, Zoë Castillo, Ann Smith… All women that find themselves so lost it’s good enough for them to follow someone else’s journey.
I think that as a player, one can empathize with a character’s journey if it is the character herself that chooses to take that journey. We have plenty of examples of protagonists who seek their own journey. Manuel Calavera does not care about his job but is so frustrated with it that goes out of his way to change his situation, and by doing so, gets involved with revolutionaries and mafias. Even while he is being pushed to this world of good vs bad, his personal motivation remains: guilt and worry for Meche. When he gets to be one of the hot-shots in Rubacava and then again in the ship, always starting at the floor and earning his way up, you can just feel how Manuel lives to be outstanding and how he was really miserable in that travel agency at the beginning and breaking away from all of that was exactly what he would have done.
I can go on with Guybrush Threepwood, whose personal motivation is to be a mighty pirate and earn to love of Elaine Marley. Indiana Jones who we all love for his sassy, shameless, adventurous and flirty nature, has the motivation of finding overly protected relics because he’s an archaeologist and loves danger. Sam&Max invent the profession of freelance police and love to solve quirky mysteries in their own quirky way, if only to pass the time.
Playing as a woman who has no personal goals or motivation and suddenly is found by a journey that she takes on without having shown any reason to do so really turns me off. If on top of that, this girl’s only charms are half-witted sarcasm, a fit body and a cute accent, well… I guess I would sympathize with her if she chose a journey of being a gym’s spokesperson, or if she was the new girl in town and wanted to fit in, or if she was trying to become a comedian and was quite amateurish. If her journey enabled her to achieve these goals or maybe modify them, then those traits would be immensely relevant and I would not complain.
I would really love to see a female character that inspires me with her way of taking on life. I think oriental RPGs do a better job in this regard.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I think I personally was taken in by the grandeur of the story. it covered so much terrain that by the end, I was breathless. We played through it in about a week or so, having got ten into the habit of playing it for a handful of hours, I playing and Dawn beside me watching and enjoying the show. We actually enjoyed the sarcastic remarks, and felt it added tot eh world in a credible way for this fairly self-absorbed teen adventurer.
Ultimately, I don’t think it revolutionized anything. It more recapitulated all of the things that had made adventure games great up to that point. What it lacked was the freedom of movement that Dreamfall teases you with. But TLJ is so broad and covers so much ground, you feel like you got to explore everything, especially because of those witty observations.
TLJ may not have reinvented the wheel, but it was a really fun ride for Dawn and I, and it hooked my mother too. I hope Dreamfall shows you things that you like too. It ws a strange game to play so soon after TLJ.
October 4th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Sigh… I want to play TLJ but am held back-
1: I am told it has too ****** many ing swear words. $@%# it!
2: It hates Vista.
Fine, but I can’t play Dreamfall either. Because it throws blood into the mix.
Why do adventure games DO this?