Posted By: Jenny100
Nightlong Review - 04/08/01 06:33 AM
Nightlong Review
I wasn't expecting too much from this game. Judging by peoples' past postings in newsgroups and forums, some people seem to like it, others not. I'd heard it was short. I expected it to be rather mediocre. Instead it was a delightful surprise. It's a nice old-fashioned point-and-click game with no action sequences.
Nightlong is a third person game. You walk your character, Joshua, around the screen either by clicking on the area you want him to go or by clicking on an exit area. When you place your cursor over an item you can interact with, a brief text description pops up. If you left-click the item, Joshua will make some comment about it. Some of Joshua's comments have a wry humor about them, which can be enjoyable at times. To use an item, you right-click it. Your inventory appears at the bottom of the screen. You left-click items in your inventory for information or right-click them to use them the same way you do on the game screen.
The interface is very intuitive and reminded me a lot of the interface in "The Longest Journey" in the way you can get your character to comment on objects." Another similarity is that you don't seem to be able to die in the game. The futuristic world of Union City even reminded me of TLJ's Stark. Also the "Go to..." exit places at the side of the screen would fill in after you went to the place, just like in TLJ. For example "Go to..." becomes "Go to Corridor" or "Go to castle." Unlike TLJ, there is not a lot of dialog in "Nightlong."
The graphics look very good and there is no jarring difference in quality between the movies and the rest of the game. Voice acting was good, though lip synching sometimes matched up and sometimes didn't and sometimes really really didn't. Nightlong was made by the Italian company Trecision and some of the dialog was apparently lost in translation. Some scenes had music and some had background sounds. Technically it was very well done and polished-looking. I should also mention that you see text when the characters speak. Even without the text speech was easy to understand. There may have been a game option to turn off the text, but "text on" was the default so I left it.
Nightlong is essentially a detective game that takes place in the future. Joshua is asked by an old army buddy for his help in exposing some terrorists. But Joshua's objectives shift as he uncovers more information about the situation.
Nightlong would probably be a little on the short side for an experienced adventure gamer. It was sort of medium-short for me. But I found it very refreshing to play a traditional adventure game which isn't too old. Dreamcatcher is currently selling it for only $9.99 in their online store, though I'm not sure what their postage charges are these days.
Trecision is the company that is making "The Watchmaker." Information about both "Nightlong" and "Watchmaker" can be found at
http://www.trecision.com/
They have a flash website though, so it may not load right unless your browser can handle it.
I wasn't expecting too much from this game. Judging by peoples' past postings in newsgroups and forums, some people seem to like it, others not. I'd heard it was short. I expected it to be rather mediocre. Instead it was a delightful surprise. It's a nice old-fashioned point-and-click game with no action sequences.
Nightlong is a third person game. You walk your character, Joshua, around the screen either by clicking on the area you want him to go or by clicking on an exit area. When you place your cursor over an item you can interact with, a brief text description pops up. If you left-click the item, Joshua will make some comment about it. Some of Joshua's comments have a wry humor about them, which can be enjoyable at times. To use an item, you right-click it. Your inventory appears at the bottom of the screen. You left-click items in your inventory for information or right-click them to use them the same way you do on the game screen.
The interface is very intuitive and reminded me a lot of the interface in "The Longest Journey" in the way you can get your character to comment on objects." Another similarity is that you don't seem to be able to die in the game. The futuristic world of Union City even reminded me of TLJ's Stark. Also the "Go to..." exit places at the side of the screen would fill in after you went to the place, just like in TLJ. For example "Go to..." becomes "Go to Corridor" or "Go to castle." Unlike TLJ, there is not a lot of dialog in "Nightlong."
The graphics look very good and there is no jarring difference in quality between the movies and the rest of the game. Voice acting was good, though lip synching sometimes matched up and sometimes didn't and sometimes really really didn't. Nightlong was made by the Italian company Trecision and some of the dialog was apparently lost in translation. Some scenes had music and some had background sounds. Technically it was very well done and polished-looking. I should also mention that you see text when the characters speak. Even without the text speech was easy to understand. There may have been a game option to turn off the text, but "text on" was the default so I left it.
Nightlong is essentially a detective game that takes place in the future. Joshua is asked by an old army buddy for his help in exposing some terrorists. But Joshua's objectives shift as he uncovers more information about the situation.
Nightlong would probably be a little on the short side for an experienced adventure gamer. It was sort of medium-short for me. But I found it very refreshing to play a traditional adventure game which isn't too old. Dreamcatcher is currently selling it for only $9.99 in their online store, though I'm not sure what their postage charges are these days.
Trecision is the company that is making "The Watchmaker." Information about both "Nightlong" and "Watchmaker" can be found at
http://www.trecision.com/
They have a flash website though, so it may not load right unless your browser can handle it.
