We wept like little baby voces who had just got coal for Christmas, and it was strange because we knew what had to happen. Dreamfall is one of those games that starts at the end. Except the difference is: the beginning is without context, without a sense of presence; a perfect, crystalline introduction without emotion…

With all this talk about Funcom and what their current holdings are doing to their company we just had to hearken back to this beautiful game and its predecessor. We still remember the day that we got The Longest Journey (the first one, this review is of the sequel) opened the box with melancholy hearts and read the end of the instructions.

“Dear Funcom, my girlfriend/boyfriend left me and took all my CDs and games with him/her, please help!” it read. And we thought: Wow! That’s exactly what happened to us… The advice was precious. “We can’t promise to make you feel better, but we can certainly help you forget for a little while. Come into our world.”

And into their world we fell. Head over heels.

Dreamfall introduces some new aspects to adventure gaming not seen in its predecessor. Namely an ungainly form of combat that involves a bit of button mashing and paying attention; but it was easy enough to get a handle of. The biggest problem that we find with the combat, though, was that it was totally tacked on. It wasn’t necessary for the game to be well rounded. These are adventure games, after all, point-and-click is more than enough for us. We don’t need the excitement of a sword battle to be immersed.

The old worlds of Stark and Arcadia are back in full force with the interesting addition of strange government conspiracies and a weird little girl who seems to be reaching out to tell us something. The main character is a little scrapper named Zoe with some love interest issues. We’ve left our previous heroine, April, behind in the predecessor and we missed her dearly. (Psst, she’s in this one too.)

The plot splits itself between Stark and Arcadia in ways that The Longest Journey didn’t by giving us access to several characters rather than just Zoe to tell the story. However, really this one is Zoe’s story and we love her for it.

The story unfolds with Zoe tracking down strange emanations from a weird little girl who wants her attention for some unexplained reason. Ticking away like petals falling from a flower, revealing secrets, unveiling strange politics between Stark and Arcadia—including some flittering folklore about Arcadia and scintillating technological dramas about Stark.

Visually, this game is awe inspiring. It is beautiful to look at. Moving between scenes is rarely a problem and it’s always a new experience seeing a different environment before. The stunning vistas are worthwhile and compelling.

Be forewarned. The ending of this game will hurt your heart; but you will be a better entertained person for it.

Funcom! WE WANT MORE!

Last year we were promised downloadable chapters, but they haven’t unveiled themselves. We have been waiting.

Until then…

Goodbye.

Buy Dreamfall: The Longest Journey in our web store!

I must admit, my discussion of Age of Conan was based on the game that shipped at release, not the one that exists now, since I was concerned mostly with how Funcom managed to shed half their subscriber base once the first billing month ran out. And you’re right, there are some good things that are unique to the game, and I would be remiss in my duties as a blood-sucking leech on the game industry’s jugular if I didn’t share the details of a particularly savory vein.

So in that spirit, I would like to show you the best features in Age of Conan, starting with –
( TBagUFace appears from goddamn nowhere! )
( TBagUFace has ganked your ass for 6967 damage! )
( You have died. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )
( TBagUFace kneels deferentially. )

The MMORPG Age of Conan was released by Funcom right around the middle of May in 2008, probably to avoid getting steam-rollered and plowed under by the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for everyone’s favourite fantasy juggernaut. In less than a month of blistering sales fueled by desperate gamers trying to escape the pull of Warcraft, Age of Conan had gathered up over 700,000 subscribers in its muscled and well-oiled arms.

Six months later Funcom was quietly merging servers and banning anyone who talked about subscription numbers on their forums. Age of Conan is now, for all practical purposes, a walking and half-naked corpse shambling toward a dark horizon. So what happened? How did Age of Conan die?

The quick answer? It was never alive.

When you first login to Age of Conan, you’ll wake up on the shores of a lush island, overflowing with quests, voice actors, plotlines, and wonderful vistas. Even bitter veterans who wouldn’t piss out Funcom if the entire company were on fire admit that this starting zone, Tortage, is a great experience. Tortage lasts for about twenty levels out of eighty. Then, you step away from the jungle harbours and into the wide world, and that’s when Funcom shouts “Sucker!” in your face before running off laughing into the night with your money. They give you the finger the whole time.

You see, a few things were lacking after Tortage. Those wonderful vistas transform into dirt and rocks, mostly because the DirectX 10 support listed on the box isn’t actually in the game. Instead, Funcom took the graphics overhead DirectX 10 would have used, and plugged it all into the famed Realism Brownifier. That’s right, in the harsh world of Conan, real graphics are brown and dirty.

You might also discover the barren lands are short on things to do, since all those Tortage quests which brought you up to level 20 are gone. From here on out, most of your questing will involve going to the proper Place of Great Respawn and grinding mobs like you were filling up a resume to take some Chinese gold farmer’s job. The dust and dirt must be really hard on the lungs, too, since the vast majority of quest givers are mute. Voice acting, it seems, was too much a courtesy for Funcom to extend after the trial period.

But hey, at least your character isn’t wearing a clown suit like those technicolour lollipop bastards over in Azeroth. That’s true enough, but you better like that brown, realistic outfit, because you’ll be wearing something just like it for the rest of your career. Not that it matters what bonuses it gives you. Character stats didn’t work at all when the game released, and bonuses on gear were so low you’d need to twink out a full suit over a single bonus to even see a 1% increase in your abilities.

Fortunately, you’ll be able to move around those desolate zones easily enough, what with how dying and rezzing is actually a faster way to travel than going there through the game.

And you will die, make no mistake. The combat system relies on position and combos to deal your best damage, but the great part about this is that while you’re pressing the four buttons and swinging around the five attacks for your combo, the other guy just walked away from you, got into position behind you, and sank his sword into your spleen. Oh, and two classes can close in on you under stealth. Doesn’t everyone love getting ganked by Warcraft Rogues? In Age of Conan, there are two different flavours of teabagging rogues to sample and savour.

To their credit, Funcom has tried to fix the problems of their newest flagship game, but it seems whoever actually built Age of Conan has gone on to other pastures, or perhaps their next life. The remaining crew’s attempts at repairing the game can be likened to dozens of monkeys eager to help out with an especially critical moment of brain surgery. It was messy, things got broken, there was alot of hooting, and something nasty was left dripping off the walls.

Gaute Godager, the Producer and Game Director even resigned, leaving Funcom after sixteen years with the company over how the game was handled post-release. Without Godager’s influence as a unifying force, the game sunk further in the pits of hooting monkeydom.

Suckered in by the newbie zone, 700,000 souls subscribed. Faced with the rest of the game after level 20, they unsubscribed. It all lasted a bit over two months.

In the end, all that is left are guilds of gankers, hiding in grinding caves and waiting for someone to unstealth. What began among the jeweled towers of Aquilonia ends then, here in caves and dirt. And brown. Lots and lots of brown.