The Longest Journey

The Good
When Longest Journey appeared on the stage, it generated a small sensation among adventure fans. Made by a Norwegian developer hitherto focused on console games, it was quickly proclaimed a modern masterpiece, and was frequently mentioned in speeches as argumentation against those who have condemned the genre to death. So, is it really that good? And, more importantly, can it save the adventure genre?

My opinion is that it is a nice game, but certainly not one that can compete with the classic offerings of Legend, Sierra, or LucasArts.

The game is firmly rooted in the existing traditions of adventure-making, most notably echoing the tendency of merging old-school inventory-based gameplay with serious settings and strong, emotionally charged plots rich in lore and characters. As everyone know, Gabriel Knight truly started that trend, and is rightly regarded as a milestone for that. Longest Journey was clearly influenced by that game, as well as perhaps the more recent Grim Fandango, which it resembles in overall structure and aspirations.

The journey is indeed long. The game has a linear story with rather frequent changes of locations; but each area is appropriately large, usually consisting of at least several interconnected screens you can explore. Longest Journey takes you to many interesting places, and it keeps up a good pacing, neither precipitating events and rushing towards the end, nor sticking too much to the same location. The game world is generously designed: there is a variety of indoor and outdoor locations, and most of them are interesting to visit. There are a dozen or so chapters, each focusing on a particular event or task needed to fulfill in either of the two worlds the game is set in. The considerable length of the plot reflects the game's premise of an epic adventure.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the game is the new world it creates. The central idea of the story - the conflict between science and magic - may not be very original, but it is executed with love and attention to detail. The concept of allowing a normal, ordinary girl to catch a glimpse of a world she had no idea about, making her gradually unravel the truth about it and herself, works here just like it should. Like April Ryan, you discover a new world, surprised by everything you see. The larger part of the game is set in that "other" world, and the feeling of magical, wondrous exploration of the unknown is captured very well.

The developers weren't stingy with material: the game contains loads of information about the world, its history, its characters and concepts, and so on. It's true that the dialogues can get too dry and overly informative; but it is admirable that the designers wanted to cram as much lore as they could into them. In that way, Longest Journey is similar to role-playing games: its star is the universe itself rather than its characters or even concrete events constituting the game's story.

Longest Journey is a beautiful game. Most backgrounds are exquisitely detailed and ooze atmosphere. The Norse love of vast, majestic landscapes serving as potential battlegrounds for an upcoming confrontation between forces beyond our imagination is strongly manifested in this game. It is interesting to note that, although the nature in the game can hardly be called lush or exotic, some of the backgrounds convey an almost mystical, appropriately otherworldy feeling, mesmerizing in their somewhat cold beauty, reminding of pure and transcendental things lost to the futuristic world of soulless skyscrapers and high-speed transportation.

The Bad
The gameplay of Longest Journey is archaic. What's worse, it doesn't really fit the game's ambiance and story. Most puzzles are taken directly from classic comedy adventures of the past (most notably LucasArts' works) and are out of place in this seriously-minded and only mildly and very sporadically humorous game. Predominantly unrealistic and artificial, the game's puzzles involve sterile and awkward inventory item manipulations. They may not be as offensive as their infamous contemporary cat mustache, but they aren't as amusing as that one, either. Besides, this game doesn't have investigations, computer research, or other challenging activities besides inventory combinations and a few isolated logic puzzles.

Some of the inappropriately nonsensical, contrived tasks are at odds not only with the tone of the game, but also with the situations it puts the player in. For example, infiltrating a police station by means of a ridiculously labored concoction ruins the tension of the moment and the seriousness of the event. The game also has a few scenes where the heroine is in mortal danger; yet the ubiquitous "no death" policy turns them into unbecomingly serene affairs. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think that LucasArtian device was the ultimate cure to the problems of adventure games. I believe that Sierra was on the right track creating potentially dangerous situations for the player instead of holding his hand all the time. This game, in particular, would have benefited from that design philosophy.

Much of the time here is spent on conversations with other characters. Unfortunately, they tend to drag quite a bit. Serving mostly as containers of background information necessary to understand the game's complex story, these dialogues can get very long-winded, often slowing down the game's tempo to a crawl. There are no close-ups on character faces during conversations, so you'll have to just read and occasionally click on a line to trigger the next batch, without having the feeling of really participating. The writing is good, but lacks personality and that extra treatment that made the classics of the past so inimitable.

The Bottom Line
Longest Journey is neither the savior of adventures, nor the innovative, groundbreaking game it so wanted to be. In fact, as an adventure game, it's just above average, falling short of the past greatness it passionately strives to imitate. It can't resurrect the ailing genre, though it does make its agony less painful.

The Good
Likeable main character, nice art and backgrounds, plenty of interesting dialogue and immersive gameplay. The puzzles border on the simplicistic but are consistent with the setting and don't feel forced. The plot is nothing new but moves along smoothly despite being unoriginal. Streamlined and unobtrusive interface that rarely gets in the way. Great Introduction and first part, with very high production values.

The Bad
3D characters lack polygons and don't look very great against the 2D backgrounds, especially in close-ups and cutscenes (that are few, blocky and poorly done). Some of the characters share the same voice actor (that does a poor job of trying to alter his voice) and some sections seem rushed (especially towards the end) with too few locations/things to do. The final part and ending seem hastily done (like the publishers wanted to get the game out of the door asap).

The Bottom Line
A great addition to the adventure games genre and a very engrossing experience.

The Good
I liked the puzzles. They made sense and were just my difficulty level. I played at the same time as a friend so we both did about half the solving. The graphics are cool. I have never played a game like this.

The Bad
Sometimes the puzzles are extra hard. I had to turn off the speakers sometimes so Mom didn't hear the swears (long story). Some things were picked up and never used. I'm sure you know how that can be. That's about it.

The Bottom Line
A long adventure. Nice story. Hard,but fun. If you haven't played it, It's a classic of the genre. If you have, it's a great thing to give to a friend: or play it again in five years.

The Good
This is one of those rare games that can be described as a work of art. Visually stunning, emotionally involving, well-acted and well scored with great dialogue. Wildly imaginative, at times hysterically funny and at times bordering on the profound.

The Bad
The dialogue is terrific but there's a bit too much of it. How long can you stare at a static screen listening to very long conversations? And it has the amnesia problem common to many adventure games as the main character asks people she's known for months the sort of questions you ask people when you first meet. Oh, and the folk tales in it are all dull.

The Bottom Line
This game is like a novel, completely immersive and involving. You never want it to end.

The Good
The Longest Journey has beautiful visuals, a good soundtrack, and a decent plot. It's a good solid point-and-click adventure and one of the only good 3D adventure games out there.

The Bad
The game is dated. The character models are very pixelated when blown up on my widescreen 22'' monitor. The dialog can get very long and tedious. The puzzles can be frustratingly random and hard. April Ryan, the main character, is a sarcastic whiny teenager.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend this game to others if they enjoy adventure, but would hope that this game gets remade to the standards of it's sequel Dreamfall.

The Good
Well, everything: the plot, the music, the atmosphere, the puzzles, the voice acting (at least on the original, Norwegian version which I played) - it's all done so well that its downstraight impossible for me to complain!

The Bad
No complaints, sire!

The Bottom Line
After that you have played the game, you are left with the feeling of wanting more; not becouse of dissatisfaction, but becouse it was such a great adventure it seemed more of an experience then a game - which I wish it was.

This is not a game - but a rare interactive artwork. If you are an adventure gaming as myself: this game is your cup of tea.

"The Longest Journey" has pushed the envelope of adventure gaming further, and is one of those rare and unique games that will leave a lasting impression.

In my book: this is the best adventure game ever made, and I heartly recomend it if you are an adventure gamer looking for a game with splendid plot, excellent atmosphere and top-notch everything.

The Good
Gee, where to start? The Longest Journey is a great game, its overflowing with creativity and originality, its got a great epic storyline and it's got tremendous production values. Graphically speaking the game is stunning, even on a 16-bit video card the game looks amazing, with some gorgeously drawn backgrounds with very well blended polygonal characters on top. Great sound and music complement the artwork, and the fmv cut scenes are no slouches either (tough the character animation there is somewhat awkward).

Technically the game is great, but it's the creative side of things that make it a winner. The story is great, rivaling the "epicness" of the Final Fantasy games, and without the need to add cheap melodramas. But the characters are outstanding, the entire cast is excellently developed and backed by a superb voice acting , especially April. And speaking of April, she has got to be the best female character ever to grace a videogame, bar none. She's neither the kick-ass babe/femme fatale type that is so popular nowadays on PC games (Tanya, Lara, etc.) nor the "Touching" type so popular in console games (Square, hello??). She's a complex yet down to earth and genuinely interesting character, with a very cynical personality. In fact, she's almost like a more humbler, less-stereotyped version of Daria, and I found myself laughing and smirking at April's sarcastic and often feminist remarks and observations. A feat I am unable to perform when watching MTV's snobbish/ stereotyped female star.

The interface too is refined with a nice pop-up menu for actions and a feature that makes your pointer blink whenever the action you want to perform (with an item) is possible, saving you the hassle of going through those annoying "can't do this" messages.

A great story and characters coupled with tremendous production values! You couldn't possibly go wrong here, could you?? well...

The Bad
I have a series of gripes with this game, first of all it's buggy, something which I cannot understand given the "on-tracks" linear nature of adventure games, seriously, I suffered it all on this game, even the dreaded Police Station bug (tough thankfully there's a patch for this one).

Second and more important: dialogue. Oh god the dialogue! it's so good, and so well acted....yet it's made sooooo utterly looong and booooring. You watch the characters talk and talk from the same static faaaaaar view every single time. Why was this made so? couldn't they at least make some close-ups pop up with a generic background? I'm not expecting a cinematic treatment like in Gabriel Knight 3, since there is no 3D environment here, but c'mon! Plus it's made more boring by the lack of interaction, Planescape: Torment is a game with at least twice as much dialogue as this one (and not voiced-over mind you) but it's never made boring because the dialogue is selected by YOU, even if to just say ok, or a-ha. On TLJ you select your dialogue too, but just the starting subject/query, so you click on an option and Wham! 1-2 minutes of conversation go by without any involvement of your part at all.

This has a bigger impact on game play than you think, since a lot of the puzzles in the game are simply talked trough. That's right, you'll find as you advance the game that the ratio of item/logic-puzzles vs. talking "puzzles" goes down, and hits an all time low on say...the Alatien village. Picture this: you have to prove to a guard that you are the "Windbringer" and to do so you must prove your knowledge of 4 ancient stories. What do you do? you embark on a quest to find the stories? you face a deduction puzzle were you have to make up the stories? nope. You just go around the village and ask the villagers to tell you the stories. yup. And yes, they are LOOOOOOOOONG, and you must listen through 5 minutes each (at least, tough they seem like 30-40 minutes each actually) just so you get the right options to answer when you are questioned by the guard.

This also brings me to another thing: the game's too easy. Period. The few puzzles around are rather easy to figure and most of the time involve Fed-Ex puzzles, and as you can see from the example above much of the game's bulk is made of knowing when to talk to the right person.

The Bottom Line
Essentially The Longest Journey is a tremendous gaming experience, but not a memorable adventure game. When I think of TLJ in terms of the story and characters, I think of it as a masterpiece of creativity, but when I think of it as a game all I can think of is of an easy adventure which required a LOT of stamina to endure.

The Good
(In order to illustrate critical points, this review contains some spoilers for portions of The Longest Journey. You have been warned.)

The Longest Journey is an innovative approach to a genre that desperately needs a breath of fresh air. It's a story about storytelling itself, and more specifically about the very genre of adventure, with a clever device (April's diary) that allows the game to get away with using most of the old adventure cliches (saving the world, collecting a set of jewels, always running errands for everyone), while simultaneously poking good-natured fun at them.

From an audiovisual standpoint, TLJ is a beautiful piece of software. The story is rich, detailed, and LONG, with many conversations spanning as much twenty or thirty minutes. Opinions on this vary, and it will definitely bore players who hate conversation-driven games (not to mention looking at the same screen for any length of time), but I personally felt the extra time and attention to detail in April's world, and the people she knows, created emotional involvement that paid off big-time in the game's second half. The fantasy landscapes are gorgeous to look at, and give something to take in as you're listening to the characters talking. Also, all the conversation delivers a long play time, without forcing players to spend it all solving puzzles and constantly getting stuck.

As an adventure protagonist, April shines. She's extremely easy to like, funny and friendly, and pleasant to listen to (a absolute must since she carries the bulk of the game's dialogue). Not to mention she's a lot more... how I say?... realistically proportioned than, for instance, Lara Croft.

The game is easy to get running, even on older machines. There are no big system-limitation problems, no 64MB AGP accelerators required, and you have the ability to turn off the fancier features and still be able to enjoy the game. (I definitely recommend doing the full 1GB install, though, if you can afford the space.)

The Bad
(LAST CHANCE to avoid the spoilers!)

The rest of the voice acting is good overall, never stiff, but sometimes the game's situations give the canned responses an awkward feel. For instance, when Emily gets shot and April escapes the clutches of the Vanguard, she doesn't know whether her best friend is dead or alive. It should be a very emotional moment, but have April examine her clothes at this point and she points out how, "ARRRRRR, matey!" she looks like a real sailor. Also you still get the "identical voice" effect from having a small cast playing a large number of characters, to the extent that some of them sound very much alike. (Toward the end, with each new character that was introduced, I was able to easily identify the other voices played by the same actor.)

Some of the puzzles and situations are thoroughly contrived, and this doesn't mesh well at all with a story that tries so hard to be original and serious. Take the police station in Stark, for instance: April manages to get into a restricted area because the electronic doors JUST HAPPEN to be broken that day. Then she's able to bypass the retinal scanner because one of the cops on the force JUST HAPPENS to have an artificial eye. Then she's able to get his password because she finds out it's based on his wife's birthday, and she's able to bring up the subject because it JUST HAPPENS to be the very next day. Yrrrrghhh...

The interface itself is occasionally inconsistent. Sometimes you get all the info you need when you examine something the first time, and sometimes it takes you two looks before you see what's really important. To give an item to a character, sometimes you click the item then click it on them, and sometimes you have to talk to the character and choose the line of dialogue that indicates you have the item. In the case of Crow, you click on HIM, then click him on the object you want to use him with. It wouldn't have been so hard to implement multiple methods of achieving the same end. There are also a couple of Myst-ish puzzles, Ancient Mysterious Objects (TM) that must be manipulated in the right way to accomplish something. I've never enjoyed this sort of puzzle, personally.

Inevitably, as with all adventure games, there are points where you run out of options, get stuck, and resort to the "click everything on everything else" method to find the one thing that works that you somehow missed. And this means not understanding the solution until after you've arrived at it. Case in point: I tied the clothesline to the clamp and attached the inflatable duck with no idea why I was doing it, except that the game was letting me. It's only after I noticed the key in the subway that I suddenly had a use for the previously purposeless contraption I'd constructed.

Worst of all, TLJ still suffers from the adventure gaming "broken record": You can talk to characters as many times as you want, and if you've exhausted all conversational possibilities you'll still continue to get the same "Hi"-"Bye" exchange. If you don't get a timing-related puzzle right on the first try, the game makes the event occur over and over until you do. The biggest offenses here are in the case of Officer Minelli dropping and picking up his synthetic eye before you can grab it, and, even worse, "escaping" the Gribbler in the forest. The Gribbler "attacks" April initially, but never chases her beyond that. She can hide behind the table as long as you let her, and the Gribbler never tries to run around and grab her. Once you realize this, any hope of tension is POOF, gone, and the game's urgent music becomes ludicrous. (On the other hand, I do realize that "dying" in an adventure is politically incorrect these days, that people hate "save-and-restore" puzzles. I have yet to see a game that walks this thin line successfully.)

And, once you're completely finished, the game doesn't have much replay value. While the lengthy dialogues weren't hard to sit and listen for me, I currently have no desire to back through any of it, and probably won't for a very long time.

The Bottom Line
Hmm, reading back through the above, it seems to give the impression that I didn't like The Longest Journey. On the contrary, I found it stylish, compelling, and a definite must-play for any adventure fan, though still flawed. Though its story is a solid piece of fiction, I felt it was lacking a few things that would have made a truly great GAME. While certainly the best commercial adventure game in recent years (since Grim Fandango), The Longest Journey still doesn't do much game-wise that's truly innovative, or to revive the fading genre of pure adventure as a whole. But it should give adventure holdouts faith to keep waiting for the next great game (possibly the just-announced sequel), and maybe that one will succeed.

The Good
The Longest Journey (1999) was released during an era where many companies were either giving up on graphic adventure gaming entirely or attempting, with mixed results, to resemble the more action based play mechanics of Tomb Raider or Resident Evil. This is why everything about this game is not only amazing, but, for many older gamers, a retro ride down memory lane. The game features incredible animation, graphics, sound and music. The point n' click interface is easy to use and other user-friendly touches are added, like the ability to replay video sequences or toggle between text and or voice. The look and feel of the game shows influences of Blade Runner and Final Fantasy while adding its own creative perspective. Not many other graphic adventure games have been able to smoothly blend science fiction and fantasy as this game does. Nor do many games feature a strong female hero or positive depictions of gay and lesbian people. The game does feature some adult content, but it's used to help further the storyline and not simply to cover up the game's flaws or to push people's buttons.

The Bad
If I had a complaint about the adult content, it would probably be the suggestion that, as a child, April was abused by her drunken father. While it is handled well and helps define April, it is rebuked near the end of the game. Some of the attempts at comedy, seem a bit odd. For example, it does not really make sense that, in the distant future, rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur is hanging out in police station or that one of the most popular television shows is MacGyver 2200. The game also has a few, mostly fixable, bugs.

The Bottom Line
The Longest Journey is one of the last, great point n' click graphic adventure games. It combines some of the best science fiction and fantasy themes with its own original ideas. Its graphics, music, sound, voice talents, control and comedy are all praise worthy. The game deals with some interesting and thought provoking concepts related to art, philosophy, time, history, personal identity, cultural diversity, social class, sexism, sexual orientation, coming of age, child abuse, drug addiction, and human right. It's not a game for kids or adults who are uncomfortable dealing with these sorts of concepts in a game.

The Good
Adventure game fans rejoice! The genre isn't dead!

The Longest Journey certain is the "longest" journey I've played. badum-chink! Ahem.

The game is played through a point-and-click method with a pre-rendered background. Similar to Grim Fandango, in many ways, as well as a number of other adventure games dating back to Sierra's golden age in the early 90s, there's nothing so new to the interface that will leave anyone confused.

The graphics are beautiful, especially the pre-rendered backgrounds. There is amazing scenery throughout the game, from the beautiful areas in the near-future Venice to the colorful island with the snoring giant, to outer space, every part of the game you visit is eye candy. The character models aren't that bad, either.

The story I didn't care for - I'll explain why in the "bad" part - but the setting of the human world I love. It's a solid setting. It's in the near-future, with flying cars and other cliche'd sci-fi elements, but it's not so overly done to the point where it's not at all believable.

You'll fall in love with the characters in this game. My favorite part about the "adventure" game genre is that it's less of a game and more of an interactive movie. The characters in this game are all great, with great voice-acting and unique personalities. April, the talking crow, the sailor, the guy at the cafe, each character, those that had a large part and those that didn't, have a place in the story and I'll miss'em.

The game is four discs long, and it is a loooooong journey. Depending how much you like the game, you'll be spending a long time with it. The puzzles are pretty hard, and can take some work to solve.

The game is filled with lots of humor, and after you beat it you can access outtakes and other extras. THAT is a great thing, and more games should do that.

The Bad
Allright, the story is just dumb. The premise of the story - girl dreams of a world, finds out the world is real, goes and saves the universe - has been done before, but it's still a nice idea. Unfortunately, like far too many games of every genre, you can't progress anywhere in the story until you finish running errands for EVERYBODY. It's not the case in every part of the game. In fact, most of the things you do in the game have to do with the story - like placing the monkey in the garbage to fool the guard so you can sneak into the building or something - but there are way too many times when you have to get help from a certain character, but they won't help you until you do them a favor, which leads to another, and another, and another, and another until you've almost forgotten why you needed the guy's help in the first place.

Some of the puzzles aren't very practical at all. Also like most adventure games, every puzzle has but one sollution and there's no other way around it. It's up to you to solve the puzzle, but you can't do it in a practical way. Like, say, you have to fix a broken electrical wire in the subway. Call a technician? No, you have to use a rubber duck (this is actually a part of the game, though I can't remember exactly how it went about). How do you get the rubber duck? You throw gum out the window...maybe in the end, the idea works (use the rubber to ground the electricity or something), but who would ever think to do the things that get it done in the first place?!

At one point of the game, you have to hear a bunch of stories. Allright, now I'm fine with playing a long game that has a lot of different stories to be told, but I'm not up for sitting down and waiting for an hour while a bunch of bird-people tell me about their history. It's a vital part of the story to hear these stories, too.

The entire story of the game, while executed poorly, was good enough to get you by until the very end. Toward the end, the story just went "kaplooey" and left me pretty damned confused.

April is too ditsy to really be taken seriously. Ever. I wouldn't trust her to take care of my cat, let alone two universes.

The FMV cinematics are awful. The in-game characters looked more realistic than April did. In the cinematics, she looks like she has two black eyes and just got beat up. The animation doesn't seem as good as the in-game animation, either, which is pretty dumb. The FMV is there for dramatic effect, but with a little less effect and better animation, it could have been done in-game and produce the same thing.

There's a race in the game that doesn't live on the same "plane of time". Oh shut up. If it could tell the future, it would have been useful to tell me how I end up solving the damned puzzles.

The Bottom Line
Despite my ranting, as an adventure game it is fun. The story's kind of annoying, but the characters - especially the crow - are great. The graphics are wonderful and you'll spend hours and hours in this game. If you're an adventure fan, get it. If not, save yourself the aggrivation.

The Good
Really strong start, April soon starts having strange dreams which begin to manifest themselves in reality; the everyday life of an art student in 2209 Venice gets very strange. The story is good, there's two realms, Stark, a futuristic version of our own and Arcadia, a realm of magic and prophecy.

The game is pretty arty, the lead Character April Ryan is after all an art student, as a result there are detailed and often very beautiful backgrounds. The voice acting is pretty decent, good job for the lead character, and is often very funny. The game has a gritty atmosphere, especially in the futuristic setting, expect plenty of swearing, one character swears nearly every other word, but it's nearly always in character.

I won't go into the story too much, which I think is the games greatest strength, but The Balance, The Guardian, Shifting, Alltounge, the Vanguard and the Sentinels will all become very familiar. A fantastical story is delivered with a realistic edge. There's lots of dialogue, great storytelling, you'll learn about the history of the characters you’ll meet along the way. A few of the people you'll bump into - Brian Westhouse, the whiskey drinking and panama hat wearing chap you meet in Arcadia who's actually from your own world, there's Abnaxus, who exists in all times and places and has terrible trouble with his tenses, your best friends and fellow students from Venice, Charlie and Emma, and the three forest dwelling stick men.

Bar what seemed to be an incomprehensible solution near the beginning the puzzles mostly make good sense.

The Bad
Conversations can drag out a little too long on occasions.

Near the end of the game there's the odd encounter which is very easy to solve and doesn't really seem to fit with the game.

The Bottom Line
A very enjoyable experience, the story and world(s) really drew me in.

The Good
I love practically everything about The Longest Journey. The quest is one as engaging as those of JRR Tolkien. The characters are great, especially your unofficial sidekick/comic relief, Crow, and the chronologically-omnipresent Abnaxus, whose lack of time perception makes conversation interesting. "I will. I did. I invite you to my home...my home was in the Marcuria city green and you will find it in the morning...I am explaining everything and you understood"

The pre-rendered background scenes are beautiful. Arcadia looks like a Yes album cover, and Stark looks like something from Blade Runner. The 3D models of the characters react well to their environment, especially in terms of lighting. The inventory system is the mostly-standard "Big-box-o'-stuff" that most adventure games use, and when you pull an item from it and use it something, the icon of the selected item flashes as you move it over your target to verify that your attempt is valid. This ereases some of the tedium of trying to figure out what item you should be using, and eleminites entirely the annoying "I don't really want to do that." type dialogue that accompanies an incorrect item usage.

The Bad
Several people have said that the dialogue is too lengthy, but the story is one of the pillars on which this game relies, thus long dialogue is an asset. My only gripes are that the ending leaves you wanting more, and the language is a little coarse, with no option for filtering it. The former problem is fairly subjective, as a good story SHOULD make you want more, while the latter is problematic only in that it narrows the playing audience, making it inaccessible to those of more sensitive constitutions.

The Bottom Line
It's not all fantasy, it's not all futuristic, it's not all internal or external struggle, it's all of these things, and even a little more. There's no point at which you really have everything figured out, even if you think you do.

The Good
The biggest boon of The Longest Journey is its world and lore. The story is about two parallel worlds - Stark, the world of science, and Arcadia, the world of chaos - which in itself is not the most original story idea. However, Ragnar Tørnquist obviously spent a lot of time working out every little detail, which makes even the most long-winded exposition dump a delight to hear. I especially like Arcadia, which manages to avoid most usual Tolkien/D&D tropes and offers original races and aspects.

The dialogue writing is only serviceable - they are way too wordy and exposition-heavy - but the characters are still interesting and likeable (at least the ones which are supposed to be). The plot itself is also not especially innovative if you cut out the fluff, but thanks to the lore and characters it always stays fascinating until the surprisingly heart-warming ending. The protagonist April Ryan is not very interesting, but fortunately her excellent voice actor saves the day.

The Bad
The title The Longest Journey is well-chosen: even for 2000 standards, this is a very long adventure game. Unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. There are various endless long animations which have to be endured over and over again. For example, at one time the player needs to read multiple lore books in a library and the librarian takes almost a full minute to retrieve a book from the shelf. Many people speak very slowly and overemphasize every single sentence because they are supposed to be profound.
The game is full of useless screens which are only present to watch April walk through them frequently. Very slowly of course - and this refers to her running speed. This makes the game a chore to play, even when using the escape key to skip many animations (which has to be enabled in the game options and can skip important sequences if not used carefully).

I usually don't talk about graphics in my reviews, but boy is this game ugly. The backgrounds are pretty, but the characters look like they were directly taken from a grotesque horror movie. Especially the rendered cutscenes are bad, with questionable animations and horrible faces - April looks more like The Nameless One than a teenage girl.

The puzzle design is atrocious. I don't think I need to repeat the famous tale of the rubber duck which proudly even beats the cat mustache in infamy. However, this is only the most prominent example; the whole game is full of stupid puzzles. They make no sense, they don't fit the world and their only purpose is to slow down the game even more.

The Bottom Line
I loved The Longest Journey back in the day, I really did. I started my replay with the expectation to write a glowing review for one of my favorite adventures of all times. It is a shame it is held down by bad gameplay and its slowness, because the world, the lore and the characters are among the most interesting in adventure game history. Unfortunately I believe this is a game which is only digestible for people who enjoyed it close to its original release and those should probably not ruin their good memories by playing it again.

The Good
I just finished TLJ, so I'm writing this with a very vivid memory of the game. And the conclusion? The Longest Journey is one of the most beautiful, immersive, spectacular games I've ever played.

The thing that strikes most about TLJ is its unique story; I'll admit I haven't read all that many books in my day, but I've yet to meet a story that's quite as... esoteric as that of TLJ. Somewhat reminiscent of an old favorite of mine, a movie called Flight of Dragons, TLJ manages to beautifully combine a classic fantasy world and a dark, futuristic yet contemporary Earth. The beauty of TLJ is how the writers managed to handle the distinction: Stark and Arcadia, the world of Logic and the world of Magic. The game is absolutely immersive: the open landscape and auspicious landmarks of Arcadia, next to the dark, claustrophobic Stark. Where in Arcadia I felt enthralled and free, in Stark the atmosphere is dark, brooding - as if evil is rampant on every corner... not once did I nearly jump from my seat, not because something surprising happened on the screen, but because the creepy atmosphere made me so nervous a creak or footstep in the house would freak me out.

Add to this the astounding artwork, the variety of settings (futuristic post-industrial world, a fantastic town, underwater city, deserted island and middle-of-center-of-everywhere realm) that are so beautifully thought out and drawn you can almost feel like you're there, spectacular background stories and depth of the game universe, and terrific voice acting to boot - and you've got yourself one of the deepest, most immersive games I've played since Star Control 2.

If that's not enough, this game has what is quite possibly the single best soundtrack ever to be featured in a computer game, written and perfected by Bjorn Arve Lagim. The soundtrack alone is worth the purchase, take my word for it.

The Bad
Unfortunately TLJ is not without its flaws, two serious and one minor. To begin with, the game is plagued with bugs. On my machine (AMD Athlon 1GHz, A7V133 and GeForce2GTS) -- and, to my understanding, on most NVidia-based video cards -- the game crashes whenever I try to enter the police station through the front door. Luckily there's another way of doing this, but that's hardly an excuse. Moreover, the game refuses to run at 32 bits per pixel on my machine, resulting in very dithered animation, thereby detracting from the beautiful graphics. And, to top it off, whenever I switch tasks (using Win2k), the 3D textures and alpha become corrupt and I have to restart the game.

That isn't a big deal, but worse is the fact that at least three or four times throughout the game I got stuck because I failed my pixel-searching (specifically, I didn't locate the valve on the machine next to the Boarding House, the light switch in the police station toilettes and another something I can't remember offhand). Also, being a linear game (which, so long as not blatantly obvious a la Max Payne, is not necessarily a bad thing) it happened once or twice that I didn't realize I had to do something before another event occured (for example [spoiler alert]: giving the map to Flipper before the pizza appears in the trashcan). That is the only reason I had to use a walkthrough, and I hate using walkthroughs.

The third problem is the fact that towards the end of the game (starting from the sixth episode or so where it's not as apparent, becoming a much bigger issue towards the tenth episode) some puzzles get much, much easier; for example, killing the snapjaw and finding the talisman isn't even a puzzle; neither is getting rid of the Chaos Vortex and helping Adrian fend off Gordon. The fact that monsters like The Gribbler and the mutant at the end don't even give you a run for your money is both good and bad: good because it means you can't die and won't have to reload, bad because it emphasizes the linearity of the game (or rather shouts it out loud).

Finally I'd just like to say that while the above detracts from the game, it by no means makes it unplayable -- just be prepared for an occasional grunting.

The Bottom Line
An incredible game with a deep storyline, great graphics and incredible music. Recommended for anyone who loves adventures.

The Good
| Prelude |
Like any other adventure fan, I rushed to get this game after I saw it's potential for releasing interesting vibes and graphical pleasure... although took me a few years longer than I expected. After a full installation of 2+ gigabytes of space and no need for CD-ROM drive, I ran this game to great amazement, I wonder what my face looked like when I saw what I was missing for so long by constantly postponing its getting. It started promising, very promising and very cunning in its own veil of mystery, but it didn't take me too long to realise just how they managed to make a simple wanna-be-epic story out of this game and thus turning the screws into the opposite direction of 'good.'

| And a big + goes to... |

The Good
The heroine is likable enough, if a bit simple, and the story tries to be epic and universal while also lingering on small human moments. Except for the characters, the graphics are great. There's also a lot of game here.

The Bad
The main things for a game of this sort are Story and Puzzles, and they both fail. The puzzles are mostly tedious affairs, almost without that magic moment of insight that a good puzzle's solution gives you. The story is clearly not written by a professional. If it followed other amateurly written adventures by adapting the form of a tongue in cheek game, it wouldn't suffer so much for it, but here the plot tries to achieve much more than the writers' skills allow for. It makes a caricature out of the depth and breadth of emotion that it tries to convey.

The Bottom Line
Most adventurers like this game, so go ahead and give it a whirl. It's large, beautiful and it tries hard. For me, the story was uninvolving and the puzzles just tired.

The Good
This game is regarded as a minor classic. It put its then-young designer on the map, and became one of the bestselling adventure titles of its era. It certainly has great production values, an epic story, plenty of conversation and plenty to do. Other reviewers do a great job heaping praise on it, so I'll just skip to the next part.

The Bad
The three basic elements that arguably make an adventure game tick are story, characters and atmosphere. So let's see a rundown.

Story: 'The Thirteenth Floor' and 'The Matrix', two films with a similar basic idea both came out about a year before the game was released, but the 'parallel universes' premise was already considered age-old in the 80's ('Labyrinth', 'Ultima 1-6' etc.). This game turns out to be yet another variation on the theme. Nothing groundbreaking.

Characters and Dialogs: this is a biggie. In terms of classic adventure games, it apparently takes a Ron Gilbert or a Jane Jensen to dream up memorable heroes and supporting players, and this game simply doesn't have what it takes. The characters and their dialogs are either lifeless or even worse. In fact, April Ryan of The Longest Journey may well be the single most irritating protagonist in a major adventure game ever. For me anyway. The author clearly made a grave mistake by turning her both 18 and a bland partygirl. Her incessant cries and whines of 'Duh!' or 'That is so... uncool.' along with her overemphasized hipster attitude were probably designed to appeal to, well, fellow hipsters I guess. Monkey Island 1-2 or Gabriel Knight did not resort to similar gimmicks and still drew in quite a fanbase. Guybrush Threepwood in particular was 19 without being annoying. Gabriel Knight was a brooding charmer. Zak McKracken was something of a lonely young bachelor. My point is that if you can't grow attached to the protagonist in an adventure game, your experience goes downhill quick. That's what happened to me here. April Ryan is the kind of vapid-girl-in-tight-pants that I wouldn't want as a steady girlfriend -- and even less so as a heroine in an epic adventure game I intend to play through to the end. She does write a diary throughout the story but the things she writes in it read like bits of throwaway chitchat from some high school party. The diary feature adds no layer of much-needed depth to the proceedings, because April has no layer of depth. In turn, none of her friends or associates are fleshed out either: we get two run-of-the-mill best friends who have nothing substantial to say or contribute at all.

Atmosphere: starts great, goes downhill once I realized the earlier points. In other words, the combined lack of a tight, original story and that of full-blooded, endearing characters result an inevitable lack of a strong atmosphere.

The Bottom Line
I wanted to like this game, as fans of elaborate and serious-minded old-school adventure games are not exactly spoiled since the late 80's to mid 90's boom of those great LucasArts, Sierra and Legend titles. I think The Longest Journey was a nice try, but I couldn't warm up to its semi-recycled story and especially to its blasé hipster heroine. So it's purely up to personal taste. Your mileage may vary, especially if you regard yourself a hipster, I suppose. Deck tassel, cronkite.