DreamWeb

The Good
The story was really intense. If there's one thing to love about the loosening of content in games, it's that it allows designers to come up with concepts that may draw the player deeper into the story. Here, a young man is charged with the task of saving the world by destroying seven powerful figures bent on world domination. What's really different is a total lack of glorification in the act of slaying them; the line between heroism and murder is completely blurred. What would otherwise be a Matrixy tale of a sci-fi Robin Hood gives way to a spectacle that at once fascinates and horrifies. This is gritty. This is necessary. This is storytelling from a really underappreciated angle. Also, the emphasis on adventure over action is good to my opinion. The designers obviously tried to make a living, breathing world akin to the Ultima series, and in certain areas they succeed brilliantly. The constant downpour, background noises, and extra newscasts you can pull up through the internet on this game are all atmospheric gold.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the same advantages are also pitfalls. For every innovation in atmosphere that works, there's something that falls flat. Too many objects can be picked up, ala Ultima. This wouldn't be bad if not for the fact that in Dreamweb, it's really hard to tell what will or will not come in handy later. Also, certain items could be used as substitutes in puzzles, but the game won't let you make these handy substitutions. The second major gripe is once again the adult content. It seems that once developers get the greenlight to use racy material in a game, they have a tendancy to overdo it. I really don't care what people put on the screen, but it does tend to cheapen the experience when something overly raunchy or sexy gets put in just for the shock effect. Point in case, on the way to the first murder you have to pry a door open with an axe. In the room beyond you come upon two guards, and with no time to draw your gun you must bury the axe in the first one's chest. Inventive. Cinematic. I fully accepted the resultant gore. Now, in the NEXT room you find your target doing an extremely pixellated version of the Virtual Nasty. Okay, the guy was already marked as a decadent rock star, we know already! Were these guys afraid they'd lose our attention if they didn't top off the axe thing? Here is a very good example of that fine line and how to leap over it with gusto. The final gripe; The ending. Sure, I was expecting something dark, but at least give us more of an explanation! There are several loose ends flapping about here, and without a sequel this just aggravates.

The Bottom Line
Here is a game of actual substance. Trust me, it's there. Just look past the "Hey ma, we got ADULT CONTENT!" typicality of the material.

The Good
DreamWeb is a game I only recently discovered while watching an episode of Pushinguproses (great Youtuber, definitely check her out, especially if you dig adventure games). Having found out this game was freeware, I was more than willing to give it a try. And I am very glad I did.

In DreamWeb, you play as Ryan, a regular Joe with little money, little ambition in life and overall, there is nothing special about him. Except for the fact that he suffers from nightmares wherein he finds himself in the DreamWeb. A mystical temple where a sinister, red hooded priest tells him that he has to kill seven people from various walks of life who are planning to destroy the world. In an attempt to stop these endless dreams, Ryan decides to hunt these people down and kill them all.

Storywise, this game is one of the morally ambiguous and disturbing I have ever played. The game really juggles with the question whether or not Ryan is really saving the world or if he is just an insane mass murderer. He only kills (or better said, murders) because his dreams compel him to and he does it without any sign of hesitation or remorse. I really like such kinds of ambiguous stories and this game's story had me hooked from the very beginning.

I also really enjoyed DreamWeb's atmosphere and overall visual style. It has a dark, cyberpunk style theme similar to the Matrix (hell, Ryan even looks similar to Keanu Reeves and also wears sunglasses and a long leather jacket all the time). Many shades of black and grey spiced up with neon lights give everything a film noir feel. The city itself is very industrial, polluted and overall just depressing. The music adds a ton to the atmosphere. It uses industrial music and synthesizer. Some tracks are very tense and threatening while other are brooding and strangely relaxing.

DreamWeb is very violent, not because of how many people die (about ten, I believe) but by the way how they die. You kill using guns, explosives and even a high speed subway train. And every death in the game is realistic and very graphic. When you get to shoot a naked guy (genitalia included) in the head and watch his brain matter spray everywhere and see the gaping hole of what used to be his face, you know that this is game is not for kids or the squeamish.

Finally, there is Dreamweb's unusual perspective. While typical adventure games use a 2D sidescrolling perspective, DreamWeb has a top-down view. Artistically, I really like this original design. It is like you are peeking through a box, watching the gruesome events that happen in the game. And there is also a unusual high amount of interactivity, every object you find can be either picked up, interacted with or both. And every person you meet can be talked to. While a lot of people you meet and objects you can pick up have no real purpose, it does add to the game's immersion.

The Bad
While I said that I found DreamWeb's top-down perspective very nice from an artistic level, it certainly is not handy gameplay-wise. It is sometimes very hard to see objects you need to interact with and I found it overall pretty clumsy to use.

The game is also very short. It took me about two or three hours to get through the game the first time. This is mainly due to the puzzles being a bit too easy for my taste because it is very obvious which item you have to use on what object to continue.

The Bottom Line
Overall, DreamWeb is a very enjoyable and memorable game particularly because of its film noir style, engaging story and its dark, adult-oriented content. The game is like a great book that you want to keep on reading just to see what will happen next.

The game is freely available online so certainly try this one out if you have the stomach for it.

The Good
I enjoyed so much this game. I love cyberpunk movies, novels and atmosphere in general: this game IS the core of cyberpunk. Violence, a dirty world, neverending rainy days, dark atmosphere and music are some of the good things I can mention about Dreamweb. Music is also very well composed and it fits exactly in a game like this. Do not play without a soundcard! As an adventure it has a good plot, never boring. You can pick up quite everything and operate many of the thing you see on you monitor. For example.. you can switch on and off the fan in your girlfriend's room, you can even light and smoke cigarettes.

The Bad
The worst thing about Dreamweb is its difficulty. As I said before, you can get many objects and you have a wide range of thing you can do... so... when you're stuck and you begin to try every combination object-object... ouch.. there's a plenty of choices...

The Bottom Line
Every cyberpunk lover must try this game. Try not to read the walkthoughs... if you're able!