Doctor Who: City of the Daleks

Moby ID: 49217
Windows Specs

Description

Doctor Who: City of the Daleks is the first in the series of four Doctor Who short 3D adventure games made to accompany the 2010 series of the British TV show. It is an adventure game specifically tailored to the casual audience, so whilst there is a fair amount of puzzle solving and inventory use, it is designed with the target audience of a TV programme in mind, not a gamer. The game is mainly mouse-driven, though there are keyboard alternatives for all actions as you take direct control of either the Doctor or his companion (only one at a time depending on the situation).

In this episode you play as the Doctor and his companion Amy Pond as they visit London 1960s, only to discover that the newly regenerated Daleks have invaded and captured Earth. How is this possible? You must investigate and travel back to the Dalek home world of Skaro to prevent this catastrophe from occurring and once again save the world whilst keeping to the Doctor's doctrine of non-violence.

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74 People (73 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

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Critics

Average score: 62% (based on 8 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 4 ratings with 1 reviews)

A fun blast of the Doctor.

The Good
This is the first game released as part of the Doctor Who Adventure Games that accompany the fifth series of the new Doctor Who. They are structured to act as individual episodes and as such are short in length, taking only a couple of hours to play, so what's the opener like?

Well, it feels very much like an episode of the TV series, complete with the required amount of running around. The story opens with the Doctor and Amy arriving in London in 1963, only to find the city in ruins, it and the whole planet are under control of the Daleks. The Doctor and Amy must discover what has happened and stop it. This involves some time and space travel as they go to the Dalek home world of Skaro to stop the restoration of the Dalek Empire.

The game-play and graphical style feels fresh and clean, a lot has been done to make this game accessible for all. All interactions can be carried out with the mouse (though there are also undocumented keyboard controls) with clear instructions from pop-ups explaining what to do. You mainly control the Doctor, with occasional segments as Amy, as you explore the 3D environments. These have been carefully designed to look expansive whilst only allowing a small fairly linear path, not allowing you to stray too far from the plot.

The game sticks closely to the adventure game genre, presenting a series of puzzles to solve in order to progress the story. These vary from avoiding the Dalek patrols to more traditional slider puzzles, you are always instructed what you have to do before each segment. These provide a nice change and mix physical with mental action. All are pretty easy though, the Dalek A.I. is basic and the engine displays their line of sight, allowing the Doctor to stand three metres in front of a Dalek and still not be detected.

This also illustrates the clear intent of the developers to make the game easy for novices and also family friendly. Despite the relative ease of dying at Dalek hands, the game is still mild on violence. The controls are simple and the complexity low, which also helps keep up the pace of the game.

The Bad
The controls are a little oversimplified. For example there is no way to side step or reverse, which can make avoiding Dalek patrols often difficult as the Doctor's reactions are slow.

Other than that I can find little to complain about. The BBC have obviously tried to throw in an educational aspect (I suspect to lure funds from different departments) in the form of 'fact' hotspots which otherwise interrupt play. They've also sought to add some kind of replay value by scattering 'collector cards' through each level, another distraction.

The Bottom Line
City of the Daleks is a great, fast-paced adventure, much like an episode of the TV series. It converts the format of the show brilliantly including the interaction between the Doctor and Amy. Despite taking just over twice the length of a TV episode to play, it has the pacing and scale of a normal episode. I hope the rest of the games live up to this standard.

Windows · by RussS (807) · 2010

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Game added by RussS.

Game added November 27, 2010. Last modified February 13, 2023.