Summary
It's a film noir with dwarves and trolls. Any more questions?
The Good
I never read any books by Terry Pratchett, and I didn't expect much from this game. I played the two previous
Discworld games, and while they were both graphically pleasing, I found them boring both gameplay- and story-wise. I was pleasantly surprised when I encountered the compelling story, great atmosphere, and interesting gameplay system of "Discworld Noir".
I wasn't impressed so much by the style of the first two Discworld games. They looked like typical medieval fantasy with magical creatures, a bright cartoony world populated by characters that tried to be funny and were not. "Discworld Noir" takes the typical fantasy setting, with dwarves, trolls, and magic, and mixes it with a film noir. I love stylish experiments, and this is definitely one of them. What's more, the setting is surprisingly organic and no aspect of it feels out of place. The result is a very interesting detective/mystery, complete with a heart-broken, ironic, bitter PI, mysterious femme fatales, suspicious organizations, and all the other ingredients of the genre, which are thrown into a fantasy world where everything can happen.
"Discworld Noir" is very stylish, and its style penetrates the whole game; it has this typically cozy atmosphere of film noir, which envelops the player right from the beginning. You really want to play this game in the evening, sitting alone in your office somewhere amidst a dark, gothic city, with rain pouring down, perhaps with a cup of coffee in front of you. You think about your past and your present with the usual melancholic irony, when suddenly the door opens and... a beautiful, mysterious woman enters your office.
This is how "Discworld Noir" begins, and from this moment on, you'll be invited to a real detective story, with investigations, questioning of the suspects, "whoddunit" mystery, glimpses into the past, and so on, all with supernatural undertones. Magical creatures will visit a typical piano bar, and your hat-wearing, dark-suited detective will visit a temple which is home to a cult of a really existing deity.
"Discworld Noir" has great atmosphere. An exquisite, fine melancholy accompanies the player from the beginning to the end. There is a feeling of loneliness and despair, but there is also soft sadness. The humor of the game is sophisticated and subtle, sometimes almost grotesque, with a lot of bitterness and irony. The graphics are kept mostly in dark colors, and the music is appropriately jazz-like. There are some really weird tunes to be heard in the game, almost as sophisticated as its dialogues.
The first two Discworld had silly stories that were there mostly because there was a need to tie the puzzles together somehow. "Discworld Noir", on the other hand, is a true story-driven game, and has much more in common with
Gabriel Knight than with its own predecessors. It opts for a decidedly darker, even tragic tone, but its story line is strong regardless of the style and the atmosphere supporting it. There is a clear investigation line which stays in focus from the beginning to the end. You won't get your questions answered until very late in the game. The story develops like a really good detective/mystery plot, and has a couple of plot twists that are unexpected, yet quite logical at the same time.
The characters of the game are not just a collection of bizarre figures, as one would expect. The lonely PI Lewton is one of the more appealing protagonists around. He has his own moral code, and the player can certainly sympathize with him. You'll discover more about your protagonist as you advance in the game; he is anything but a static figure, he develops with you, changes his vision of the world, learns new things. You'll learn about his past, his relationships with various people and the society. Particularly interesting is the love line; there are interesting female characters in the game, and you'll follow Lewton's complex relationships with them.
The gameplay is also very interesting. Instead of the usual inventory-based puzzles, the main focus of the gameplay is clue-gathering and conversations. The instances where you will need to use inventory items are few and far between, nearly non-existent. Interrogating suspects will open ways to new locations and bring new clues, so conversations become an integral aspect of the gameplay instead of a mere decoration. The clues you gather are the main gameplay tool in "Discworld Noir". You'll need to "use" the clues written in your notebook on something you notice in the game. Basically, it works almost like thinking aloud. You are trying to solve a detective mystery, so you'll have to think logically about the clues you get. Using the clues with locations, people, or objects will let you unravel another layer of the mystery. This is much more natural and realistic (and, most importantly, fits the game much more) than figuring out some impossible item combinations and then using them in the least probable places.
At the same time, "Discworld Noir" can get very challenging. You begin with only a few clues, but during your investigation you'll gather more and more of them. The net of interrogations, people, organizations, locations, and clues you've gathered becomes bigger, more and more complex, so in the end you'll have to think a lot and will need a good memory in order to advance in the game. Some of the clues are quite subtle and anything but obvious. "Discworld Noir" is hard and rewarding, and is best suited for experienced adventure gamers.
At one point, you'll be able to control a wolf in the game. You will see everything the way a real wolf would - your vision is blurred, but you can obviously smell things much better, and will have to use that to your advantage and to solve puzzles that were impossible in human form. This was a really cool gameplay addition.
The Bad
Not much to say here. The humor of the game is not everybody's cup of tea; some people might find it too sophisticated. Lack of simplicity in dialogues is another aspect of the game that can get potentially annoying. You'll still need some patience to read all those conversations, and sometimes you'd maybe wish those characters were speaking more plainly. Almost all the characters here try to sound smart and often use peculiar words and sentences which don't always fit the situation at hand.
I liked the gameplay system very much, but in the later parts of the game you'll have accumulated so many clues that you'll probably have to resort to a desperate "use every clue with every object" style of playing. While I've rarely seen an adventure game that doesn't become cumbersome in its later stages, I wish they would simplify the process in this one, as it was the case in
Blade Runner.
The Bottom Line
+ Very stylish
+ Strong story line
+ Has its own sense of humor
+ Interesting "clue-based" gameplay system
+ Lots of atmosphere
- The dialogues are sometimes a bit too sophisticated
"Discworld Noir" is a pleasant surprise, no matter how you look at it. If you had some prejudices against it because you disliked the shallow stories and the confusing gameplay of its predecessors, you were wrong. Because "Discworld Noir" has a serious, dark, bitterly ironic story; it also has a much more original and well-implemented gameplay system, which is perfectly suitable for its detective/mystery genre. I highly recommend "Discworld Noir" to any fan of adventure games.
