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| Dark Fall PC review | |
| developer | XXV Productions |
| publisher | The Adventure Company |
| author | Mike |
| date | Jul. 24, 2003 |
| graphics |   |
| sound | |
| gameplay | |
| value | |
| reviewer's toast | |
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Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
This game was provided at no cost to wickedtoast.com by the publishers.
If you are an adventure gamer, stop right now and thank whatever deity you believe in for the Adventure Company. They are single-handedly keeping the genre alive by providing quality adventure games at low costs to gamers. While not every title they release is perfect, they have a pretty solid batting average. Once again, they prove to be the current kings of the genre with Dark Fall, a supernatural thriller that should make adventure gamers quite happy.
I am going to get two things out of the way before we begin. First, I am going to be very vague about the story, because I don’t want to spoil anything. Dark Fall is a game about discovery, and I would feel terrible if I ruined just one surprise. Second, Dark Fall does not look that great. It’s built with Macromedia, a style I’ve never been particularly fond of. It’s also in 640x480, a resolution you MIGHT remember if you have been gaming for awhile. But I can overlook these things because it’s the gameplay that counts, and that is where Dark Fall shines.
Sticking with my promise to keep this review spoiler free, I will describe only the bare bones of the story. Dark Fall starts with you, the main character, listening to a cryptic yet disturbing answering machine message from your brother. He needs your assistance, so you hop a train to meet him, and here your adventure begins. After you reach your destination, you are left up to your own devices to find him. You will need to search each area, picking up clues and unfolding the story as you go. I am going to stop there, but I will say you will visit interesting locations, solve challenging (but not too difficult) puzzles, and uncover some truly disturbing information. If you enjoy a good ghost story, this is the game for you.
Dark Fall plays like a traditional Myst-esque adventure game. All of the locations are rendered in mostly static screens, and you can look around in all four directions. The game can be quite dark at times; you will need to be extra observant when looking for clues. As in most of these games, the cursor will change when there is an action available – be it opening drawers, turning on lights or solving the various puzzles that give you the next clue or open the next area.
As I mentioned above, the graphics in Dark Fall are not that great. It’s not the actual environments themselves, but the program that renders them. Macromedia has always given games a very dithered look, and as monitor sizes increase, 640x480 is going to make any current game look bad. Once you have spent a couple of hours with the game however, you will forget all about the sub-par graphics as you’ll be completely engrossed in the story. Dark Fall was also made by a very small team, and to accomplish what they did with this game engine is a testament to their talents.
What Dark Fall lacks in graphics it more than makes up with audio. I would even go so far as to put it in my top 10 list of ‘best sounding games ever.’ Every creak, voice, bark and whisper will chill you to the bone. Even the lone sound of a ringing phone had my hair standing on end. The voice acting is well above what we get in most video games, and there are a few characters that will stay in your head long after you shut the lights out and go to sleep.
Dark Fall does have its share of negatives, the biggest being the sheer amount of info you collect throughout the game. The problem does not lie in the amount given, but the lack of any way to record it. I highly suggest keeping a notepad handy. An auto-journal feature would have really helped in this regard. Another low point is something that had plagued graphic adventures from the beginning: the pixel hunt. It is very easy to overlook an object in some areas, because either the screen is dark or the object blends into the scenery – I found myself dragging my cursor over every pixel in a couple of areas because I had missed a crucial item. This has always been an albatross for these kind of games; either make the items stand out, which makes it too easy, or do it this way.
Simply put, Dark Fall is an excellent game. Sure, it has its faults but they are not enough to distract you from the engrossing story being told. If you are new to adventure games, I’d probably suggest starting with The Longest Journey or Syberia instead – they ease new players in a little better. Once you finish those, you had better pick up a copy of Dark Fall. Seasoned adventure vets will jump right in with no trouble at all, know exactly what to expect and get much more than their money's worth. The Adventure Company estimated 25 hours of gameplay, and I’d say that is just about right. Priced at 19.99, Dark Fall is simply too good to miss.