Who, imagine that, is terrible at combat sequences. And stealth sequences. That’s right. It was really, really useful for the 40-year old not-usually-the-gamer-types.

An ongoing series without theorizing is like sex without foreplay.

To be honest, the implementation of Dreamfall took me completely by surprise, as I expected a game functionally and structurally similar to TLJ. Dreamfall also lacked the depth of exposition in TLJ, and while a few sequences in TLJ were admittedly a bit long (the storyteller sequence), they also added to the depth of the game world. In summary, I think the design of Dreamfall was conflicted in that the story was written for a mature audience but the gameplay was designed for children. Oh, and did I mention that it was incredibly short?

It’s not an end. It doesn’t close the game, it ends it. “And that’s how she got into a coma”, while being quite literally the question the story answers, does not actually resolve the story, especially because after everything you did your character has still failed.

It’s an opposite to the Longest Journey ending, where you solved the world’s problems without ever actually solving your own story. In this you close your own story, but the world’s problems continue apace. After tLJ, I wanted another game to continue with what April did next. And now, with the possibility of half a decade more unsatisfying cliffhangers, it looks annoying.

This doesn’t mean I won’t buy the games like the whining little fanboy I undoubtedly am, but still.

Er. Something.

So, okay Ragnar….the undreaming has been released, when do we get to do something about it!?

I disagree. I felt it told several stories that it didn’t finish, and hurriedly pulled another one out at the last minute, pretending that’s what it had been about all along.

Not that it really makes up for the lack of good point-and-click adventure games for PC.

That moment for me, justified entirely the shortcomings in the combat sections and the TBC ending. So rare is it that a game will actually make you cry and generate any emotion beyond a sort of vague tension that I can’t help but include Dreamfall as one of my favourite games ever. Its in my heart.

It seems that there exists a not insignificant community of players (or is it just RPS’ers?) who hanker after the kind of, don’t make ‘em like they used to, story based games. The tendency now seems to be on less text, less dialogue, less story. Deus Ex seemd to me more textual and packed with a developed background world than the recent Bioshock. Dreamfall has less story and less text than The Longest Journey, Mask of The Betrayer has (I understand) less involved dialogue than Planescape. I wish that things were moving the other way, games *should* be boasting that they have more dialogue than Planescape, more developed backgrounds than Deus Ex and The Longest Journey.

Of course I’m being selfish and I understand that the money men in suits have looked at the bar charts and concluded that nothing original ever sells any copies, proper adventure games takes too long to make and nothing not made by nintendo will ever sell on the Wii. If something original ever does sell well then everyone suddenly piles in behind with endless me too games which miss the point of why the original thing sold in the first place.

It sold, despite the low key marketing, *because* it was fresh and new.

It didn’t sell because all along people had lusted for games to hamfistedly shove cheesy pop tunes and repetitive button mashing/wii-mote waggling together (I’m looking at you ‘Boogie’). It didn’t sell because all along people had really wanted their FPS games set in and around water (I’m guessing some of next years announced FPS titles could have a bit more Bioshockiness about them)

Anyway, I’m confident that eventually peoples greed for more and more money will ensure that every niche of gaming desire is covered. I await the future with optomism than an epically story driven PC adventure game will sell so any copies EA have to set up a point and click adventure division next to their Sims one. There are only so many copies of Fifa you can sell. Surely.