First off, for an "adventure game" Dreamfall lacks any worthwhile adventure game elements. Almost all the "puzzles" in the game are very spoon fed "go where the camera points" affairs. The controls are terrible for a PC game, as are the tiny tiny levels. Said tiny levels are also almost completely devoid of anything to do except pick up the one item you've been sent for or talk to the lone interesting NPC. "Combat" consists of waiting for your opponent to block then pressing heavy attack until they fall down. But most importantly, all these things could stand aside in the face of a good story. Which of course isn't present in this game. While it definitely has its moments for the most part the story slowly goes nowhere, takes a few contrived twists, and finally to top it all off all the good guys die and evil wins the day. Despite one character's claims to the contrary, by the end it seems like everything would have worked out the same if you had just stayed in bed. Except maybe fewer people would have died.… Expand

it gets a 2 because it is pretty to look at Lame puzzles, which pop up very very rarely. Absolutely a waste of time. The game is linear, which you expect from a shooter like Max Pain, but this is a sequel to a brain wrecking puzzle adventure. This lame game plays like a movie. Except you have to use a controller or keyboard to move the actors. And it's a lousy anime movie with HORRIBLE action (they actually try to make action game sequences inthis). There is no way to zip across areas, so often you have to walk the maze back and forth to do the only one thing that you possibly can do. THere is no challenge to this game. You know those errand running quests you are put up to at the beginning of RPG's to level up quickly? Well that's all you ever do in this AWFULLY BORING game. Run here, run there. The interface is unintelligent and boring. The action (fighting if you can believe that!) not rewarding. Swordfights are for melee games. What kind of game is this? Playing this game, I felt like I was wasting time, but maybe it would get better. It did not. It gets a 2 only because it was pretty and didn't crash.… Expand

I just can't believe the sequel to one of the best adventure games ever, The Longest Journey, would be so disapointing. It felt more like like watching a movie than playing a game. Although the narrative structure is very good, it seems to contradivt the story unfolded in TLJ on a few occasions. The puzzles are way too simple, the action sequences are repetitive, but worst of all, the game is so linear that you are actually told what to do in a step by step walkthrough throughout the whole game. And the ending... well, it's obvious they planned a Dreamfall 2. But with the complete lack of effort the development team put in the creation of Dreamfall, I almost hope we'll never see the sequel. All in all, a decent movie, an awful game. If you REALLy want to play it, my advice is to borrow it. Even the price of a rental is too much for the enjoyment you'll get.… Expand

A real genre-destroyer. Well over 60% of 'play' time was cut scenes. What a complete waste of time. Yawn. 'Combat'? There is no combat to speak of - a total of perhaps 5 'battles' which involve clicking until you win (or fail and immediately restart the battle). No adventure at all - 100% linear. 1 point for marketing - fool me once, shame on you Funcom.

The original was far superior. This is just a choose your own adventure story with nice graphics, and only one choice of adventure. Even if they do ask 1000 times what you want to do next, the only choice is 'a: Follow the only storyline." Don't waste your time. This creator sold out and is cashing in on the cult following of the original. Its not even a well told story.

A painful experience off set by a good story. A story I can't help feel has been destroyed by poorly executed game development. Don't expect anything remotely good from the graphics. Cheesy, cheap, limp, poorly choreographed 3D animations, its appearances such as these that make the old 2D sprite games look beautiful. This game brings all the worst features from console gaming to the computer. As with other obviously console ported games, dreamfall suffers from maddeningly clumsy controls. Sound and story are good, however overall this game has the feel of a beta. Not to be to repetitive, but its horrible to look at and has worse game play. Save your money, buy the original "the longest journey" it is far superior and in my opinion has better graphics in spite of its dated appearance. I dearly hope that the developers correct these issues before dreamfall chapters.… Expand

A truly awful game that will leave you disappointed if you manage to sit through it. The controls are terrible and the camera makes for a frustrating experience. But you don't have to worry about that very much as you won't find yourself actually playing the game all that often anyway. The game is comprised almost entirely of cut-scenes. In fact, you do little else but fetch items in order to trigger another cut-scene. In the game there are three primary characters you watch babble. These are: Zoe (who looks eerily like a Bratz doll), April (who is extremely amusing in the first game but is-alas!-no longer. Instead her character is very macabre in a contrived way, having allegedly "lost" her Shifter powers along with, I suspect, her sense of humor) and Kian (a man who offers no surprises for the player nor, as is seen, for his enemies). You play briefly as the heroic Brian Westhouse in a Tibetan monastery during the beginning, which I thought would turn into a wholly welcome tutorial but that ultimately resulted in the game's first cut-scene (probably foreshadowing; if only I had seen it sooner). After you're done with Brian you never play as him again and although he appears later on in the game he seems as artificial and droll as the other NPCs. That was really too bad, too, as Brian's segment was the most enjoyable time I had during the game though even then it was only because Brian is an intriguing drunkard in Dreamfall's predecessor. When you do find yourself playing the game (an oversight on the director's part, I'm sure) you'll either have to solve insultingly simplistic puzzles (there are a grand total of 10 puzzles throughout the game, I think. None are memorable.), fight with a clumsy battle mechanic or sneak past a guard. Failing to sneak by in one of the sneak sequences normally results in a fight or instant death. The story is said to be the game's redeeming feature, but even this comes off as uninspired from the start. Almost immediately we are greeted by A Mysterious Girl (who is mysteriously alike to Samara, better known as The Ring Girl, or the girl from the Ring) who has a message for Zoe and attempts to convey it in a ghostly fashion via a Screen (Dreamfall's version of a television) amid static. However it would be unfair to judge the game solely on that one cliched character. The story does become rich and expands admirably. So rich and so admirably expansive does it become that it ends on a cliff hanger. Really try to avoid buying this game.… Expand

As an complete fan of the orginal, I looked forward to game. However, I didn't get stuck once, and you were told most of the time exactly what you had to do. The answer to a puzzle was always right in front of you, and required no real thought or effort. The plot, while capitivating, lead nowhere. The enviroment was looked wonderful, but I would of prefered more time was spent on the puzzles and having a story that went somewhere.… Expand

I own over 125 PC games and have been playing PC games since they came on floppy discs and ran on Dos with 640k memory. Having said that, I've played a lot of great games, and a lot of BAD games. Then there is the LONGEST Journey. I'm assuming it's titled that because playing this game seems that way when you are fighting with controls to move around in the game, and listening to continued talks between strangers and friends. This is not a GAME. It's a Cartoon Movie. Any potential game play was KILLED by extremely poor controls.… Expand

Dreamfall has a very engaging story until toward the end when the story just abruptly ends. Very confusing. Where are the Cliffs notes? Aside from a confusing ending, the graphics were great, hats off to the artists. The puzzles detracted from the story and had nothing to do with the storyline, which is probably typical for an adventure game. But this wasn't much of and adventure game anyway, just a story pretending to be an adventure game.… Expand

Was a huge disappointment after TLJ. Not to mention that the new characters sucked, they also ruined April and Crow. The gameplay was nothing special and the story was pointless. TLJ would have deserved a better sequel, or maybe the best idea would have been to leave it alone.

Dreamfall is what happens when an adventure game is developed for a game pad instead of a mouse. It can either be seen as a very wordy action/stealth game with hardly any action or a gimped adventure game with not enough adventuring and awful action and stealth parts. Like in many other games by trying to please too many people the developers have pleased no one and created a game consistent in its mediocrity.… Expand

The game is unplayable due to software bugs that cause frequent lockups and crashes. The concept is very good but this game was clearly not ready to be released (most beta test software is far more stable).

That was the first PC game I have played little to no fighting with 2 key pushing k and l. game play was little to none near end. everyone dies whats with that what happened to the other characters. am i going to have to wait till the next one comes out dont know about that. the only good thing was the (story) but then they killed all main characters just cant get over that pissed me off wtf think ill stick to my shoot em up games zoe was pretty hot though id go her lol back to counterstrike now maybe can make up for the lack of fighting… Expand

That was money down the drain purchasing this game. If I would have had the chance to try the game before purchasing it, I wouldn't have given a dime for it. It doesn't even worth the space it eats up from my HDD. The most boring game I have ever tried. Oh my, when I have to run up and fro through four scenes to get something just for bringing it back, and nothing happens during running! (Yes, you'll see eight "loading" just because you gotta run for something and bring it back!) I guess the developers thought this is fun, but in my opinion only for those who never played with good games. And the controlling method of the game! Oh boy! If I'd ever have a chance to ask a geek who thinks this is a good way, what he thought when developed it! Not to mention those very long and boring dialogs, and cut scenes... And the voice of characters? Most of them are like someone was wakened up from the deepest sleep and read it. Zero acting performance. My "favorite" is Na'ane. Anyone could act it's voice out better. And the mimics of characters? It would have been ok 5-6 years ago.… Expand

See the comments by 'Anonymous' to get a real feel for this game. He is dead on. This game is dreadful. Nice graphics for sure, (credit where credit is due) but that is the ONLY interesting thing about it, If I were a teenage girl, (which I'm neither of) with little hand-eye coordination, no friends to speak of, and little interest in reading, I might enjoy this 'game' just for it's unrelenting ability to waste one's time. One word of advice: before you play Dreamfall, buy yourself an extra spacebar. You'll be wearing the one you have now out skipping through the meaningless cut scenes and the teeth-grindingly long dialog sequences. Better yet, don't waste your time and money with this stinker period.… Expand

it has vary few puzzels those that aer their are boring. the dialogs are boring the combats the stealf, evrything is boring. all in all a pritty boring game!

I never played TLJ but I feel that allows me an unbaised opinion of Dreamfall. The ugly in Dreamfall: character modeling, the control response and the combat system. The bad, the unchallenging puzzle solving and linear world exploration. The good, the storyline line and character interactions. Dreamfall attempts to merge RPG, adventure and action genres but the overall effect falls flat. The game's primary redeeming quality is the storyline, which is intriguing, and it successfully motivates the gamer to care about Zoe and complete the game.… Expand

Just so you don't think I overlooked it, the graphics are pretty decent. Way to be on par with Half-Life 2...almost. Okay, with that out of the way, I'd like to say this is the WORST GAME EVER. After I finish writing this, I writing the developers to ask for my money back. This game consists of basically running errands, albeit through a pretty background, but this game is basically devoid of any puzzles, challenges, or action that would have made this game something more than just "pretty". Seriously, this is Sophia Coppola bad...like my uncle or dad greenlighted this miserable failure of a game kind of bad. It looked like some genius decided to market a game that women would get into, but I have a feeling even women gamers would find the glut of dialogue and shallow-end type of "challenges" in this game insultingly easy and vapid.… Expand

it could have been so much more than it was. basically, dreamfall was an amazing story with incidental gameplay. while the story was fantastic and sets up nicely for a third installment; actual gameplay was horridly abysmal. it didn't have to be TLJ to be successful. it just had to be good. sadly, as an adventure game, dreamfall missed its mark entirely. the storyline saved it from a rating of 1.… Expand

This game is just as boring as The longest journey, and the graphics are stuck in the 90's. There's no sense of YOU actually playing the game - you're just tagging along on what should be a movie instead of a game.

This is the worst piece of shovelware that I have ever been unfortunate enough to experience for the PC. It is SO buggy just trying to get the game up and running that I gave up and threw it in the back of my closet in disgust. 1) Can't install AT ALL if not enough space on Windows drive (not the drive I want to install it on, the drive Windows is on!) 2).. after having to EDIT THE REGISTRY to get it to install.. I'm forced to put the disc in every time to play. Par for the course, run of the mill, pain in the ass copy protection? Not quite. Because WHENEVER I PUT THE DISC IN, THE F**KING INSTALLER POPS UP! Aspyr has no solution for this problem. They were unwilling to accomodate me in any way (such as sending an offical "NO-CD" patch). BUYER BEWARE!… Expand

Crap. Fails as a game and as a low budget movie.

Let's get one thing clear right from the start: calling Dreamfall a game is like spending a night in the bathroom with a girlie magazine and calling it a date with a hot chick. Yes, some folks might enjoy it just as much, but who are we kidding?

Dreamfall is mostly devoid of any fun gaming elements, and chock full of a hodge podge of the worst gaming mechanics handpicked from all genres. Erratic third-person view camera that gets in your way? Check. Stilted button-mashing fights? Check. Pointless fetch quests consisting of nothing but running back and forth? Check. Forced stealth sequences? Check.

But wait! "It's an adventure game," you say, "I can overlook all of that if the adventure bit is good."

Well, it's not.

I'll enumerate the three things that define an adventure game for me:

1. A sense of exploration and discovery. Dreamfall has some beautiful environments, but there's invariably nothing interesting to interact with aside from what you need to proceed with the storyline. In fact, some chapters consist entirely of just walking a bit and triggering cutscenes. There's never a sense that you are interacting with the world, just rolling through it on fairly obvious rails.

2. Clever puzzles to solve. One of the weaknesses of The Longest Journey was that most of the puzzles were pretty much sequential; It was always clear you had one puzzle to solve, and you weren't allowed to do anything else until you solved it. This is bad because it makes the puzzles easier to solve, since you're always sure you have the resources to solve it in your immediate area, and also because if you do get stuck, there's nothing else you can do in the game until you solve it. Dreamfall continues that tradition and makes even the exercise itself annoying. The puzzles are either trivial. ("Oh look, here's a key and here's a locked door right in front of me. Hmmm ...") or require triggering an obtuse mechanic even if the solution is obvious to the player ("Wait, I just saw the combination, why won't the game let me enter it?") The puzzles don't have to be difficult, but they should feel like more than just going through the motions to get to the next cutscene. If the story is the payoff to your night with a girlie magazine, then the puzzles in this game are like the advertisements showing hairy, fat, naked men on every other page in said girlie mag.

3. An engaging story and characters. I would like to say that this is where Dreamfall delivers, but it's really only good compared against the lowered expectations for what passes for plot in a computer game. Overall, the multiple characters makes plotting less tight than in The Longest Journey, and often a little contrived in the way it makes the characters Zoe and April meander back and forth aimlessly ("I need to get to Arcadia to get April to help Reza! No, wait, I really should be back in Stark to do something about the Static! No, let me be whisked off by fate to achieve ... nothing!")Given what the gameplay is like, I recommend reading a book or watching a movie to get your fix of fictional narrative instead. Both are better delivery mechanisms for story than the machinima cutscenes in Dreamfall.

One other strike against the plot is that it's mostly setting up for another sequel, and as you can imagine, feels about as satisfying as getting to the centerfold in your girlie mag and finding out it's been replaced with those annoying subscription mailer things.

And yes, I only flogged that metaphor into a bloody dead horse pulp because I care.

Have we gotten so desperate for adventure games that this steaming pile manages to walk off with a game of the year award from anyone? Go play some other better games instead:

The Longest Journey from FunCom, if you haven't played it already.

Sam & Max from Telltale Games, if you want something current, actually like to have fun and want the adventure game genre to live on.

The Gabriel Knight series from Sierra, if you want an adventure game with mature themes and good writing. Be warned that this is old school adventure game difficulty.

Psychonauts from Double Fine Games, for an example of a genre bender evolved from adventure games, which has all the fun elements instead of all the sucky ones. Beyond Good and Evil, from Ubisoft for the PS2 is another fun example.… Expand

This is not a game. It is a slightly interactive movie. It's maybe one or two steps more advanced than clicking a "Next" button to watch the next cutscene. Most of the input from the player-- I mean, viewer, consists of running through towns to the next cutscene. There are a handful of symbol puzzles. There are also a number of interactive "world" puzzles, but all of these have either painfully obvious solutions, or are clunky and tiresome. The story takes a long, long time to get good (I was bored witless for about 80% of it). But it does get good, very good, eventually. Right when it gets good, however, it ends. None of the plot's major elements come to a conclusion and this immediately sours and frustrates what little enjoyment I recieved from this gam-... movie. Don't pay more for this than you would for a night at the movies, popcorn included.… Expand

I consider myself a fan of the original title, The Longest Journey - it had a unique atmosphere, captivating storytelling, likable characters and much more. It was a rewarding experience to play this game and that time was definitely not wasted for me. This title also has a replay value, although of course, it doesn't offer any new content or new ways of solving puzzles, but it's the kind of game that I like to play again from time to time (time being measured in years) and still enjoy myself while doing so. It's a very good relaxant. I am sure though, that this kind of title generally has more appeal to female audience than to a male one. / I was looking forward to the sequel, but that was probably because I hadn't been seeking any gameplay-related information in advance. If only I had known... / The game was fine at first, only to gradually get worse and worse. Fighting in TLJ? Really? And of course, also a pretty lame one. Why put that there? So the console users would feel satisfied about having at least some action and wouldn't run away to let off their steam elsewhere? The biggest problem though - at certain point, the game stopped being a game and turned into an interactive movie. Also, the storyline... I can't comment about the inconsistencies with the prequel because it has been quite a long time since I played both games (and when I was playing Dreamfall, I didn't remember all the nuances of the original title to be able to compare the storylines perfectly). But I must say, seeing April again was dissatisfying and her character was only a shell of her old self (which is understandable, given the circumstances, but still... a letdown) and the ending was depressing and clearly prepared for a next installment. / What bothers me about this (apart from what I already mentioned), is that some imagination was clearly still present here - e.g. nice and interesting environments, but for some reason, it's full potential was not unleashed. It's always sad to see there WAS some idea, but the team failed in delivering what they were supposed to deliver in terms of gameplay. / I am definitely not looking forward to another TLJ title (if any will be produced), because I don't believe that anything is going to change here, even though a lot of criticism has been voiced towards the creators. Seems to me like the authors are just milking the fame of the original game and they want to happily continue doing so. /
I am giving this game a 4 (I considered giving it a 5) - the main reason for it being a lack of gameplay. I don't want to support a trend of movies posing as adventure games. And of course, the re-playability I mentioned in the beginning drops to zero for me with this title.… Expand