Nightlong
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.
Overall Grade:
A-
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GameBoomers
