Until recently, the only point and click adventure I had was Myst III and URU, two beautifully made games, the sequels to Myst and Riven. I think The Longest Journey is an offshoot of the Myst series, but couldn't swear to it; however, if you compare the graphics, they are remarkably similar. All are beautifully put together; full of dialogue and the graphics are sumptuous to say the least. When these games first came onto the scene a decade ago they must have been like a breath of fresh air, though I do think that 3D games have caught up with the realism that the point and click adventure game gave with the photo realistic backgrounds, for example if you jump into games like Far Cry 2, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Crysis, the scenery that you are able to actually walk around in and interact with is amazing. When I first opened up Far Cry I was gob-smacked by the realism of the game as I was the others.
Besides the Myst games I've got several freeware games and only purchased Dreamfall: The Longest Journey a few months ago. I bought the Limited Edition set that included The Longest Journey and Dreamfall its sequel, a CD of the music and a beautiful hard back book of the art work
You can buy the standard Dreamfall and The Longest Journey in one package from Game UK for less than £2 that’s equivalent to less than $3, (an outstanding bargain). Anyone interested in buying the game postage and packaging in the UK is free. Just Google Game and you'll get the full url) Overseas orders cost an additional $7 for postage & packaging but even then $10 for a game of this caliber is fantastic.
The Limited Edition, which is still available costs only £14.99 ($21) Oddly the normal X-Box version of The longest Journey costs nearly as much as the PC Limited Edition version. The 89 page art book, is crammed full of gorgeous imagery from the game as well as the odd sketch done for the original story board. I’ve hardly touched the game though simply because of my addiction for buying games on a regular basis.
I’m sure the giveaway team won’t mind me posting a link to the product page which shows the prices I’ve quoted above:
http://www.game.co.uk/search.aspx?platform=*&s=dreamfall&sort=itemOrderasc
What I find annoying is you can find this game for as much as four times the price elsewhere on the net. I’ve seen just The Longest journey being sold for £10 which is ridiculous when you consider you can buy it and it’s sequel for less than £2 from Game UK. I suppose that’s what we call market forces, lol.
I await your review of Syberia 2. Though I'll probably just use up one of my game credits, which have accumulated over the last few months because all I see at Big Fish at the moment is a stream of Hidden Object games; (all beautifully illustrated, but it's getting crazy - where have all the traditional arcade games gone? I'm sure the bubble with respect to HD games is going to burst soon. (I hope)
Regards
Whiterabbit
p.s.
Midori, I'd recommend buying Dreamfall; the longest journey in preference to Syberia, there's much more game play, you get two games and it's a lot cheaper. Though not having played (or for that matter bought) Syberia 2, maybe I'm being a little hasty in what I say. Still if you’re limited cash wise I reckon from what I've seen of Dreamfall, The Longest Journey and Syberia I, there's not much to separate them for quality.
p.p.s.
I still can't figure why the developer called it Syberia and not Siberia (the correct spelling I think)
p.p.p.s.
Unfortunately the games are out of stock at Game UK at the moment but you can find them on Amazon, though you won't find the standard edition of Dreamfall : The longest journey for such a low price. If you click on the stock alert button you can leave your Email in the field provided and wen the game comes back in stock you will be notified. Game UK do not spam you with unwanted mails, so it's safe to use this facility.
As for a link between Myst and The Longest Journey, Ornithos has told me there isn't one so I did some research and can confirm that he is right. There are similarities but there is no developer connections etc. Both games are well worth hving if you're into pint and click. The original Myst held the most ever computer game sold until 2002 when the Sims took the crown. Myst was originally released way back in 1992, but copies you can buy today in special editions etc have been remmastered to up the graphics to 24bit, so don't think you're getting old graphics if you decided to buy one of the earlier versions.
