Into Oblivion and The Journey into Dreamfall

Oblivion

After much contemplation, I eventually bought The Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion. Due to the fact that it's predecessor Morrowwind give me motion sickness when played it over a period of time.

However, when I play Oblivion it does not happen once. I guess it's because of my better than average video card GF6600. The experince is quite similar to Morrowwind although I felt less *lost* than in MW.

As it seems to be a tradition in Elderscrolls games, you will began your journey as a prisoner before being release into the world where you can make yourself into whatever you wants to be. It is one of the more hardcore RPG game style than let's say Final Fantasy series. In ES series you can ignore the main quest and just roaming the world as you please.

The graphic in this game is phenomenal. The forest is so lush and green, add that to the Distance land feature (which allow you to see the land far away when the weather permits) the world looks alive and fresh. You will get all that only if you have good graphic card, I guess mine is quite decent and that's help with the motion sickness as well.

The real strenght of this game is the free roaming in the beautiful terrain, doubling that with the vast mod community that churn out thousands of mods to date. This game will have longer play time than most games. I enjoy visiting the ever robust Oblivion Mod forum on the official site. I must have downloaded close to 1Gb content from custom weapons, armors, quests, buildings, including graphic tweaks. One guy has made Cloud's sword from the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent children into the game and another guy apply Dwarven texture on it. The result is one very cool looking bastard sword ever :)

Dreamfall

I have been waiting for this game eversince I heard the news of it. It finally arrive one day after I found that it is available to be download on eMule (of which I would not do since it's the size of one DVD!) as my regular game shop ring me up to tell me that it will be available tomorrow (from the dya that they call) which would be my day off as well, Yippie!!

After a quick trip to MBK mall where the game shop is, well not so quick since a friend of mine, Musicman, told me he would be in that area around the time that I go to the mall so we agreed to meet and catch up. But when I call him as I arrive at MBK, he SMS to tell me that he still in his apartment and will arrive later by one and half hour... Anyway this is about Dreamfall: The Longest Journey so I will quickly going into that :)

DF is a sort of sequal to the classic, one of the best adventure game ever made, The Longest Journey. The story take place 10 years after the first game, you will be playing as Zoë a young colleage dropout in South Africa who has a comfortable, yet without the drive to keep her going. Soon you (as Zoë) will stumble upon something that will forever change your life and had you travel Japan, US, Russia and to another world entirely in Arcadia where you will be in Marcuria, the Dark people city and a lot more.

The graphic looks great, although it seems static in some scene but overall it looks fantastic. The control take some getting used to as it is the case with most games that has been design for multiple platforms. Luckily I do own a gamepad and I ended up play the game with it the entire game. However, at first when I begin playing the game the graphic was all jumble up but the game still running. A quick search leads me to the official forum and found out that other people have the same problem as I do which came from the use of GF6600 card with the newest driver. After loading the older version of the driver and the game works fine.

The audio aspect of Dreamfall is top notch. The voice acting in particular is probably one of the best ever. Zoë speaks with distinct British accent while April spoke with her own American accent. While one male character in particular cause a slight stir in my groin with his handsome sultry voice in Irish accent ^^ To get a taste of his voice click here to download the guy's voice sample (not from the game)

The story touch on a lot of issues, it is mainly about faith which leads to many other issues up till the end. The playtime is quite short as I finish it in 3 days, probably spend about 15 hours or less. However, the ending is... it just leave things hanging loose in many levels but after I read some post on the official forum, I realize that Dreamfall meant to be just part one of the second part of the story. Hopefully, evetually part two will come out and tide up all the loose endS in this one. The writer/director of TLJ series Ragnar Tornquist has said in his blog that he will complete the story no matter what, whether through game or, god forbid, in case making the sequal is not an option he will do it by other means as he did owned it to us the fan to complete the story.

So to help making the sequal to Dreamfall (my I love that word) came as fast as possible please buy the game. Also to spread the words http://spreaddreamfall.ducaet.be/ please add this link to your site too :)