The Last Express

Moby ID: 1172
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Description official descriptions

The Orient Express is about to depart from Paris to Constantinople. As the train slowly begins to move away from the station, a young, courageously looking man jumps on it from his motorcycle and makes his way inside. This man is an American doctor named Robert Cath, escaping from authorities as a suspect in the murder of a policeman. In the train, he finds the dead body of the person he was supposed to meet. Now he has to act quickly. The only way not to arise the suspicions of the police is to disguise himself as the murdered man. A very dangerous investigation begins, and the hero soon finds himself involved in a deep net of personal intrigues and political conspiracies.

The Last Express is a real-time adventure game set in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the World War, in a concrete historical and geographical environment. The game uses a simple point-and-click interface for interacting with people and objects, and navigating the character from a first-person perspective through pre-rendered backgrounds. From the moment the player gains control of Robert Cath, time begins to flow. If the player fails to solve a part of the mystery until the train arrives at the next station, certain events the player was supposed to prevent will occur, ending the game prematurely. It is impossible to permanently die in the game, as the player has the ability to rewind the clock in order to replay a specific period of time.

The player is for the most part free to explore the train, and the story progression has a certain degree of non-linearity. Characters follow their own schedules, frequently moving between locations, talking to each other, and generally acting independently of the player's input. The player can decide to interrupt conversations, remain unnoticed, or openly follow characters and witness their activities. For example, at a certain moment in the game's timeline two characters will perform a classical sonata for violin and piano; the player can opt for staying and listening to the performance, or use the time to explore other locations. Along with detective work and a few inventory-based and logical puzzles, the player's main task in the game is to eavesdrop on people's conversations, talk to characters, and solve the mystery by finding out more information about the bizarre case. There are also several timing-oriented fighting sequences in the game.

The game's visuals resemble "art nouveau" style that was prominent in the historical time period described in it. The similarity to the style is achieved by using rotoscoping technique. Actors wearing distinctive make-up and costumes were filmed against a bluescreen, digitized, turned into black-and-white frames and colored by hand. The game is also notable for including authentic dialogue recorded by native speakers of several languages (French, German, Russian and others), with English subtitles displayed.

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Credits (DOS version)

353 People (280 developers, 73 thanks) · View all

Game Designer/Director
Written By
Technical Director/Director of Software Development
Art Director
3D Art Director
Producer
Programming and Technical Design (Lead)
Programming and Technical Design
Executive Producers
Assistant Art Director
Technical Production Supervisor
Background Illustrations
Rotoscope Designer
Supervising Sound Editor/Mixer
Music Composed By
Principal 3D Artist
Windows Programming
Macintosh Programming
Additional Programming
NIS Manager
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 32 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 125 ratings with 8 reviews)

An artistical masterpiece... unfortunately, not much of a game.

The Good
If there’s a rare compliment in the gaming business, it’s this one: this game has style. Last Express has deserved it in many ways. To film footage of live actors, then turn it into beautiful Art Nouveau graphics – that’s style. To make the locations, the wardrobes, the conversational topics historically accurate – that’s style. To let the multicultural passengers of a train talk in their native tongues and use subtitles – that’s style. Jordan Mechner and his crew manage to create characters that are not only credible, but also interesting; and that’s the foundation of the whole game. Slowly uncovering the background and motive of every passenger on board of the Orient Express proves to be considerably more exciting than one expects at first. I know very few games in which the actors, locations and places have been picked with that much care. Unfortunately, I know many an example in which the actual gameplay doesn’t live up to the look.

The Bad
Beneath its artistic veil, Last Express is a disappointingly simple game. You can count the puzzles on one hand, and they are not the “think”-type, but the “search” one. Not “How do I distract the conductor to search the rooms undisturbed?”, but “When is he going to leave at last, dammit?” Even worse, the puzzles obstruct the plot; you want to progress, but can’t, as something has to be done first. I wouldn’t have needed puzzles in this game. I would have enjoyed it as much, probably even more, as interactive movie. Yes, I know this term is dreaded. Rightfully so due to bad experience, but not because the concept wouldn’t work. Last Express is the best hint we’ve received so far that it would work, and be astonishingly thrilling. Because it is fluent like a movie, yet involves you like a game; it’s not the actors of a film that unravel the mystery – it’s you! Last Express has learnt from the movies how to fill persons with life, how to create atmosphere, how to tell a story. All it would have needed to learn from games is the freedom of choice, nothing else. Forget about puzzles; trust in man’s strongest drive, curiosity. Discovery means satisfaction; give him things to discover! Why annoy him with stupid action sequences when an exciting animated fight alone would be reward enough? A truly excellent interactive movie does not need to force challenges; it should be a challenge in itself.

The Bottom Line
The Last Express is weak as a game. That said, it is a milestone of computer gaming, as it marks an attempt at style in a business that’s uniform, at development in a business that doesn’t get ahead. As close to a truly thrilling interactive movie as anything, it fails only because it tries to be too much game, when it should have been more movie.

Windows · by -Chris (7762) · 2000

Catch the Last Express

The Good
How innovative can an adventure game be? We had it all, hadn't we: Point 'n Click, real actors, 1st perspective. And yet the Last Express is so very much different from other games, that it is no wonder it didn't get very good reviews. One needs some time to realize the depth of the game.

This adventure is the one and only real time adventure I have encountered so far. Not like Blade Runner, where the label reads real time, but the story development still focuses on your progress. The train offers the designers a closed area, where the time really runs through your fingers. The other passengers lead a live of their own, walk through the coaches, talk to each other, eat and sleep. I played through the game four times and still I encountered some new stuff.

The graphics are interesting, too. Real actors have been caught in stills, repainted and integrated in the game as "cartoon" characters. This works much better than the usual blue boxed personnel in front of a rendered background. Last Express looks very different from other adventure games. This is of course also due to the first person perspective.

The Bad
The main character is, well, no one you would go out on a beer with. He is a terrorist, a killer and his arrogance adds into the picture. This makes it kind of difficult to identify yourself with Robert Cath. Unless you're a terrorist yourself, I guess.

Unfortunately has the graphics style also a big minus on the other side. While adding to a great atmosphere, the pictures are stop-motion. Meaning that the game blends over from one still picture to the next one. Much like movement in the ZORK graphic adventures. Only important scenes are completely animated. I guess this is due to the high amount of data. The Last Express already eats up three CDs. But boy would I be happy about a DVD Rerelease - with smooth animation all over. ( I know this is less than probable)

The Bottom Line
The Last Express is a great adventure with an impressive, luring story. You'll need some time though, to get into the plot and to become familiar with the strange stop motion first perspective view. Try to buy the game with the packaging. At least the German release had a great double cover with some beautiful pictures and printing on the inside.

DOS · by Isdaron (715) · 2001

Ultra-stylish, classy real-time adventure

The Good
Last Express invites you to experience a unique adventure: a well-researched, convincing historical detective drama with exceptional presentation and far-reaching gameplay ideas.

The first thing that strikes the player is the game's innovative time concept. Unlike many games claiming the same, Last Express truly runs in real time. It doesn't have a faster-paced internal clock like many RPGs; nor does it have time zones triggered by the player's actions. Its time flows just like in real life: each second that passes does so not only for you, but also for everyone else on board the train where the game takes place.

The characters in Last Express act according to their own schedules. Nobody will wait for you in a certain place, because nobody is "supposed" to be there until you find a way to solve a puzzle or just want to take a break. There can be no breaks taken in the game - just like in real life. This seemingly simple concept needed a good execution, and the game delivers it. The behavior of the characters is strikingly realistic: they walk around, talk to each other, react to your presence, etc. The train is never the same: things keep happening. Much of the gameplay is dedicated to exploration, and the dynamism of the game ensures that you'll always encounter something of interest and be surprised more than once.

Last Express is therefore a significantly more flexible, open-ended game than the vast majority of adventures. Completing an objective relies on what you, the player, have achieved during a specific time segment, rather than figuring out what the designer wanted you to do. Instead of formal logic conceded to the pre-established rules of the game, you follow common sense that wouldn't have been out of place in the real world. If you fail, it will be due to realistic reasons pertaining to the situation your protagonist finds himself in - not because the developers have erected a puzzle on your way and nothing will budge until you solve it. It is needless to say that this concept could have worked wonders and revolutionize adventure game design if it gathered enough attention.

Last Express has outstanding sense of style and presentation. It is set in 1914, shortly before World War I broke out, and the atmosphere of the time is perfectly recreated in the game. The designers did a fantastic job researching this concrete historical epoch and making it as believable as possible through fitting characters and environment. The game's visual design is quite unique: real actors were filmed and then modified with hand-drawn style to match the lush backgrounds, avoiding the usual artificial look that comes as a result of actors moving over still pictures.

The story of Last Express is suspenseful and deals with serious topics such as the political situation of the time. Simultaneously, it never forgets its job as a background for a criminal investigation, nodding to popular Agatha Christie detective tropes with its closed setting, a list of multi-national suspects, mysterious wealthy exotic foreigners and equally mysterious attractive women with an unclear past, etc. The complex main plot involves many characters, each playing a certain role in the mystery, and is accompanied by some very interesting sub-plots regarding various less important figures. It is interesting to learn more about every character in the game, even though it may be irrelevant to the story. For example, you can discover the diary of a young girl written in excellent stylized language, with surprisingly mature and even controversial themes - but you may also miss it, as well as a lot of other material, during your first playthrough. Thus the structure of the plot contributes to the replay value of the game.

A whole chapter should be dedicated to the game's unusually high educational (or, should I say, cultural) value. It is not an educational game that throws facts at you and demands you to remember them, in the sense of Gabriel Knight games. Last Express doesn't require you to learn anything, it simply contains a cultural lesson as part of its environment. Allow me to illustrate this with a few examples. All the passengers on the train speak their native languages when talking to each other, with English subtitles appearing on the screen. How many games you know even bothered to create a truly multilingual society? How many movies you know actually bothered to research the languages and invite foreigners to record authentic phrases instead of using broken English with funny accents?..

Now think of the game's characters. They are not only interesting and convincing: they are detailed up to the point of reflecting the typical mentality traits of their nationalities, without resorting to stupid and cheap stereotypes. Take the young Russian revolutionary as an example. He is a passionate young man, obsessed by his political ideas and the contrast between their cruelty and his own vulnerable, romantic nature. This is a whole type through which we learn a lot about Russian culture, society, and political situation before World War I. Imagine a game full of those characters, and we get a story wrapped in an authentic historical report that gives it so much additional weight and credibility.

As a final example, I must mentioned the live performance of Cesar Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano in Kronos' department. You can stay to listen to the music, or leave at any time, and then come back. In any case, Anna and Kronos will continue performing the entire sonata (four large movements - about forty-five minutes altogether). I don't know any other game that contains an entire classical masterpiece seamlessly integrated into its story and gameplay at once. Listening to this music was decidedly one of the most unforgettable gaming moments ever for me.

The Bad
The interface of Last Express is similar to that of graphical Zork games: you jump between screens in first person and click on whatever can be interacted with. You never have a full view of a room and have to turn around quite a lot, sometimes in a rather awkward fashion, in order to notice something lying on the floor or hanging down from the ceiling. A real 3D engine - or at least full camera rotation - would have been more appropriate in a game that aims for realism and dynamic exploration rather than focusing on exotic imagery. Somewhat choppy animation and inconvenient angles diminish the game's dramatic impact.

The main weakness of Last Express, however, is its puzzle design. It offers a paltry amount of inventory-based tasks, and no real logic puzzles. The real-time investigation is exciting, but after a while you begin to crave for more solid adventuring. There aren't enough spots available for real interaction, and the game is confined to just one location - the train itself. Admittedly large, it still consists of similar-looking areas, and the absence of a strong puzzle system with varied options leads to eventual repetitiveness of gameplay. There is much to discover here, but not really that much to do besides wandering around and eavesdropping on conversations. These flaws, inexcusable in most other games, are countered by the sheer uniqueness of Last Express; but the game doesn't really excel at following the established canons of adventure-making.

The Bottom Line
Last Express is one of the most original adventure games around, and probably also the only one that actually keeps the promise of true real-time gameplay. Puzzles aren't the game's forte; but its great concept, strong writing, and wonderful artistry make up for the lack of traditional challenges.

DOS · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2018

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Hopelessly stuck... vedder (70685) Apr 28, 2011
Paul Verhoeven! Depeche Mike (17455) Apr 15, 2010
Revisiting An Unsung Classic St. Martyne (3648) Nov 29, 2008
Why couldn't there be more games like this? Unicorn Lynx (181780) May 21, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PC version of The Last Express appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cameo

Designer Jordan Mechner makes a cameo appearance, as one of the porters loading August Schmidt's merchandise crate onto the train at the Munich station.

Inspiration

In Marc A. Saltzman's Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (BradyGames 1999), Mechner points out several sources of inspiration for The Last Express: * The Alfred Hitchcock movie The Lady Vanishes (1938) provided the idea to use a train as the setting * The plot was modeled after spy novels such as John Buchan’s The 39 Steps and stories by John Le Carré * European comic artists François Schuiten and Enki Bilal inspired Mechner to use stylized drawings instead of real-life actors * Characters were drawn in the style of the Art Nouveau period * The game is set during World War I because “the Second World War as a scenario is overstressed, in games as well as in movies”

Music

The soundtrack of the game is available on audio CD. Its composer, Elia Cmiral says the following about the score:

The Last Express was my first composition for a computer game, as well as my first serious assignment after moving to Los Angeles. It was a large project that took three months to complete. Before I could begin, however, I had to learn the requirements of writing for this new medium, and plan how to write such a large number of short cues. Director Jordan Mechner was a great help and a good teacher to help me navigate both the game and the new genre. The story has many unique characters of different ethnicities, exotic environments and a wide range of moods including suspense, drama and love. I developed groups of cues and assigned them themes or orchestral colors. Each group expresses a certain feeling and is tied thematically to the others in the group. This reduced the number of themes and kept me focused on the characters’ emotions. The main theme evokes a touch of sadness, romanticism, and tension on the eve of the First World War. The score relies on a small ensemble of strings with violin solo, some hand percussion, and extensive use of synthesizers for color and texture.

The music Anna and Kronos play at the concert in Kronos' private car is Sonata for Violin and Piano by C. Franck, a Belgian/French composer of the end of the 19th century. It is one of the most famous violin sonatas of all times. It can be heard any time the player goes to Kronos' car.

Orient Express

Developer Smoking Car Productions went to great pains to digitally replicate the Orient Express accurately. When they tried to find an authentic train car from the period before World War I, they soon learned that there were two versions: Teakwood wagons that were in service just up to 1914, and the steel cars that replaced them since. Unfortunately, few of the fragile wooden cars had survived World War I, even less the chaos of WW II.

Through a network of train buffs, however, the production team was able to track down a sleeping car. A man in France gave the team the name of a man in Italy who knew of a car in Athens, Greece. It had lain there abandoned for some 50 years.

Lead 3D artist Donald Grahame and his crew took hundreds of photos of the car and complemented them with contemporary pictures. The design staff also rummaged through archives and dug out original blueprints, train schedules and logbooks, read pre-war newspapers and magazines, traveled and dined in trains, and watched any Orient Express movie they could lay their hands on – all this to ensure that they would be able to recreate the Orient Express and the atmosphere on board in detail.

Languages

Most characters in the game talk to each other in their native tongues, but strangely enough, the native German speakers Anna and Schmidt rarely use German when talking to each other. Also, unlike in most movies, the Russians (as well as the French and the Germans) of The Last Express are absolutely authentic. All the Russian characters speak Russian without a trace of an accent.

Sales

The project took nearly four years to complete and included a month-long blue-screen filmshoot and a round-the-clock staff of up to 50 animators, artists, asset wranglers, and programmers. The game only remained in stores for a few months. Broderbund's marketing department quit just weeks before the game was released, resulting in virtually no advertising for it. Softbank pulled out of the game market, dissolving its subsidiary GameBank and canceling several dozen titles in development, including the nearly finished PlayStation port of the game. The Last Express was out of print long before its first Christmas season and nearly a million units shy of breaking even. By dropping their support of an already completed game, Broderbund and Softbank most likely increased their losses.

Style

All the game’s characters are drawn in Art Nouveau style. Art Nouveau (French for "New Art") was a major movement in European arts, starting in the 1880s and declining with the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the time The Last Express is set in. Artists of all kinds (writers, sculptors, painters like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in France, architects like Gaudi in Spain) aimed for a unification of all arts and for an erasure of stylistic boundaries. Art Nouveau paintings are naturalistic, yet minimalist through the use of clear lines, strong colors and little to no shading. To modern eyes, this makes them sometimes look like cartoon drawings. The Last Express mimics this style.

Despite their ink-paint look, the passengers of The Last Express were not hand-drawn, but played by real-life actors. Smoking Car artists processed the blue-screen footage of the characters into thousands of black-and-white stills, which were then recolored in Art Nouveau fashion, rotoscoped (i.e. cut out) and finally projected into the 3D-rendered Orient Express backgrounds. To increase the cartoon look, the actors had to have distinctive features such as beards and hats and wore special costumes with marked lines and strong colors. Make-up artist also tortured them with colored streaks in the hair and a homogeneous facial make-up. Take a look at the behind-the-scenes movie here.

Awards

  • Buyers Guide
    • 1998 - Best Adventure and Role-Playing Game
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • One of the Top 10 Graphic Adventure Games of the 1990s
  • Family PC Top Rated Awards
    • 1997 - Best Adventure Game
  • Macworld Game Hall of Fame
    • 1998 - Best Role Playing Game
  • Washington Post
    • Golden Fez Award

Information also contributed by -Chris, CaptainCanuck, Isdaron, Unicorn Lynx and Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Shane k.

Blacknut added by Sciere. Android added by Kabushi. Macintosh added by Martin Smith. iPad, iPhone added by Isdaron.

Additional contributors: Eurythmic, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Zeppin, Dennis Ploeger, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, click here to win an iPhone9SSSS.

Game added March 27, 2000. Last modified February 28, 2024.