Ah, yes. It's nice to finally beat a GAG without having to resort to a cluebook. It's even better when it's a great, challenging game like Dark Fall from the Adventure Company. This is a good, solid GAG with a spooky horror theme, though there's no blood and gore here. It's creepy, but more like "Blair Witch" creepy than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if you follow.
The plot is pretty straight forward--your brother, an architect, has gotten himself into trouble trying to rebuild an old abandoned hotel in an English ghost town. You hop a train and find that your brother has disappeared--and, er, you're hearing voices. You spend the rest of your time exploring a three-story haunted hotel and trying to sort out why so many people have disappeared here. You gradually piece the story together--and it all fits nicely together, believe me. I dare say that the story presented here is much better than that of many a cheezy horror flick I've seen. And the acting is better, too! True, there are some continuity gaps...For instance, you can't call for help--but you can call three different restaurants and get their answering machines. Blame it on the paranormal.
The interface here is decidedly Myst like, but apparently Macromedia is running under the hood. I'm not sure exactly how they put this thing together. The saved game files are in .txt form. I think they may have used Flash actionscript...? It's a mystery. None of this makes a big difference. The loading times are lightning-fast and the audio never stutters. While the game is certainly no dazzling graphic-fest like Syberia, I have no complaints. Besides, the sound is where this game really shines. The sound effects add suspense and make the old hotel feel so much creepier. My favorite example: You find several references to a mysterious knocking on doors. Guess what you hear as your sifting through some abandoned stuff in the room? Knock knock. Hey, it worked on me. The little hairs on my arms were standing straight out. I was also shocked a few times as doors mysteriously opened or shut.
I was a big fan of ICOM's classic Uninvited, a much earlier point-and-click adventure that was released a host of systems including the NES. Clearly, there have not been nearly enough quality horror-themed GAGs, unless we want to count survival horror like Resident Evil, which I don't.
If you happen to come across Dark Fall for $10--which you can if you browse the bargains at Target--you'd be silly to pass it up. This is a great game that requires a lot of effort to find fault with. The puzzles are challenging but entirely fair, and if you can solve many of them with trial and error if all else fails. However, I discovered good clues for almost every puzzle, though nothing is given away here.
There is one puzzle that requires good hearing and at least minimal aural memory (a Simon-like sequence without the flashing lights). This might make the game unplayable by players without hearing.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
– 
– 
– 
Recent comments