Review: Dark Fall: Lost Souls

Dark Fall: Lost Souls

Summery:
Graphics: Very Good
Animation: Good
Sound: Very Good
Music: Superb
Writing: Superb
Story: Very Good
Narrative/Gameplay: Excellent
Acting: Excellent
Puzzles: Very Good
Interface: Very Good
Difficulty: Not Hard
Overall: Excellent
This game received three Excellent, and two Superb ratings.

//Review:

Dark Fall: Lost Souls is the fourth Adventure game produced by Jonathan Boakes of Darkling Room, and the fifth he's been involved in.
"Lost Souls" is the third, and last, title in the well-known supernatural adventure series "Dark Fall," the first two being "The Journal" and "Lights Out". It is in first person.

In Lost Souls, you play as "The Inspector," a disgraced former British police officer, who was charged with the task of finding a missing child, Amy Haven. He failed, nearly convicting an apparently innocent man in the process, and was thus dishonorably discharged from the police force.
This Bonfire Night, 2010, he is determined to return, and find her.

Arriving at the old Station Hotel at Dowerton, you proceed to search for Amy. Obstructing your path to recovering the child are poisonous Life Leeches, near-lethal Shadowkins, and the numerous and diverse puzzles. To smash through these barriers, you will need logic, wit, and of course, a natural gift for hand-to-tentacle combat using domestic scissors.

Those who have played the original Dark Fall game, The Journal, will doubtless recognize the locations in Lost Souls from that game, as Lost Souls is a re-visit. However, you need not have played DF:TJ(Dark Fall: The Journal) to play this one, although it may help you get your bearings quicker.


This is most certainly a horror game, not a suspense-ghost story as the previous chapters in the series have been. It is rated 16+. If you are considerably below that age(e.g, 12, 14), be careful:
-Disturbing situations. A missing, apparently dead 11-year old girl is the centerpiece, and ritualistic activities involving dead and skinned animals is implied, though not directly shown.(Through you can see the bloody evidence. Not very realistic, through)
-Frightening imagery. Several moments, while brief, are a bit terrifying. Nothing very graphical is seen, but they are quite intense, and will scare you.
-Adult concepts. Police are not portrayed as heroes, but as a vaguely corrupt, impractical system that makes mistakes, and one of those mistakes is dealt with first hand.



//Graphics:

The visuals in DF:LS are quite good. Pre-rendered graphics are used, over-layed with 3D effects and objects. The scenery and sets are completely re-modeled from DF:TJ, and look far better. Dusty cobwebs, dirty piles of rubble, and hallways strewn with barbed wire give off the appearance of a supernatural war zone, now holding an uneasy truce. Sinister, detailed mannequins guard the various doorways, some frozen halfway through normal activities, as if human once..others simply strange, often pointing with a frozen finger at something important. Stacks and teetering piles of books, cardboard boxes, and unopened mail add to the grim chaos, as if roughly and fearfully shoved aside.

Rich texturing, flawless lighting and shadow details lend a surrealistic look to the environments,
casting corners in deep, dark shadow.

The only criticisms I have here is the frequent use of replication of objects, within the scene.
An example is the array of open soup cans you'll find in one room. Each of them has been duplicated and placed without a single rotation or texture change, and the symmetry is...distracting.

There are also small inconsistencies, such as flat gray objects, objects with no shadow shading, and sometimes spatial differences, such as this: In one view, the middle stall of a ticket booth is open. In another, it is closed. It's things like that occasionally jerk you out into reality and say "This is a game you're playing, not another world."

Overall, these issues are nibbling points. The graphics are very well-done, and are a far cry from the flat visuals of DF:TJ.

Graphics: Very Good


//Animation:

Everywhere you go, there is always something moving, even if it's only the camera bobbing a little. The screens are over-layed with flickering lamps and shifting fog, and sometimes you'll see the occasional green or red flash to indicate a firework going off in the far distance.
The camera movements are a nice touch-when you turn 90 degrees by clicking at the edge of the screen, the camera is actually rotating, in realtime, rather then in the previous Dark Fall games, where you simply snapped to another frame, which left you somewhat disoriented. In addition, most games that use this gimmick simply feature a flat scrolling effect-- you often see the seams, and nothing moves while in transition. But here, it's a full, realtime pan, and it may seem trivial, but it's a real nice effect.

The character animation isn't great. Fortunately there isn't much of it, however. The characters look like puppets on strings, exceptionally smooth strings. That's the problem. When human beings move, they angle their body in a slightly jerky, snap-to fashion, rather then moving at a constant, smooth rate. There is some improvement over The Lost Crown, Boakes' previous title, but could still do with quite a bit of work. Lip synch just isn't there, either. But, quibbles.

When you move an object in the scene, or see it move, you're viewing a realtime 3D model, projected onto the 2D graphic-just like the characters. But, just like the characters, the animation is a bit too smooth/too jerky at times, rather then reaching the perfect compromise of the two factors.
It is also rather obvious that the model is separate from the scene from the jagged edges on every object- the sign of little, or no, anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing smoothes out the edges of 3D objects and textures by a process of interpolation, and you can't turn it on here. There is an option for it, in the initial setup screen, but you cannot select any option other then "No Anti-aliasing". This would have been nice, but is by no means really important and doesn't effect the game that much.

Overall, the animation is okay, and quite good in places such as the flickering lights and panoramic rotation, but the mediocre object motion and lack of Anti-Aliasing give it a slightly lower score:

Animation: Good


//Sound:
NOTE: Static background or thematic sound I classify as music(Next section).

The sound element has often been overlooked in games in favor of flashy polygon shading and fancy particle effects, etc. In reality, sound is just as important as graphics, supplementing, and sometimes exceeding, the visual material.
Go outside, cover your ears firmly, and look. In addition to the loss of sound, you'll also find yourself not "seeing" nearly as much as before, because our brain fills in the gaps with perceived images from auditory sources. Now close your eyes and take your hands off your ears. You can picture events in the world around you from the sound stimuli, based on past visual expeirence, such as a car slamming brakes on the road ahead, or someone felling a tree....the list goes on and on.

DF:LS has an extensive library of sound effects to back it up, from the cracking-pop of cheap fireworks to the dreadful hissing of a life leech. The sounds are of top quality, and are of tremendous impact in the dark, dank world of Lost Souls. There's a host of sounds that are in the deep background, that are barely perceived, and add to the suspense, and edginess of the Dowerton hotel.

However, I did feel that certain sounds, such as Amy giggling and the high, squealing "hiss of evil" were a tad bit overused. Some variation here would have been nice, instead of each incidence being virtually identical.

In addition, this installment of Dark Fall seems more focused on looping background sound, music, and random or theatrical "stings"-- loud, intense bursts of sound. What I enjoyed about Lights Out's sound design was the use of subtle sound in reaction to certain elements-- never random, but instead, for example: In the case of you reading a diary page, you'd read a passage where the author describes hearing footsteps going slowly up the spiral staircase, and being frightened, and then, slowly faded in, you begin to hear quiet, subtle footsteps climbing the stairs. It was incredibly spooky.
In Lost Souls, however, the sound design seems more arbitrary. It's possible that the reason for this is because Lost Souls is a horror game, not a spooky game, but I would have appreciated more carefully applied and timed sound effects, to heighten the tension. This game is very visual, in comparison to Lights Out. It's just a different style, but not one I enjoyed as much. The far better visuals make up for this somewhat....and remember, what I'm talking about here covers a very narrow range of the sounds in Lost Souls, the rest is ambient and soundtrack(See below).

But, the sound is of professional quality, and is done very well. I give this category an Very Good-- but it could almost be an Excellent.

Sound: Very Good


//Music:

The music is simply astounding; it covers many areas, from the scratchy, thematic gramophone records in the Station Hotel Reception, to the wonderful, epic main menu piece-- my personal favorite.
Some of the music was composed by Ben Gammons, and he, along with Boakes, have done a brilliant job.

The ambient and background pieces are just as impressive, full of wind, cold air(don't ask how you can hear cold air, just trust me) and grim, haunting sound. It's almost subliminal, the way it creeps inside your head.

The fact that this is the shortest category I've written here is a good thing, because whenever I have a long rant, it's often because of bad little details that I find very, very distracting. I've nothing but great things to say about the music. Top scores. Very top scores.

Music: Superb


//Writing:

The writing in Lost Souls is perfect; both the few written documents you'll find, the dialogue, and the story itself is fantastic. Again, all I need to say.

Writing: Superb


//Story:

The story base is quite good. The missing child, the ghosts of the Station Hotel, and the Inspectors own demons are very well done and written.

The characters are all great, my favorite being Andrew Verney. His earnest, slightly timid nature and back story had a lot of parallel with that of the guilt-ridden main character(I forget her name), in the original Haunting of Hill House. I liked Hill House quite a lot, so good points.
Echo, the strange personage who continually sends you text messages, is nicely mysterious and beguailing...and just who Echo turns out to be is somethng of a surprise. Up to the end, you keep yourself guessing as to whether Echo is benevolent or not. The truth is a bit more complicated...

But. I didn't like the story as much as DF:TJ. Purely because it isn't as complex --The Journal had nearly ten hotel rooms, each with its own ghost and story to tell, interlocking and weaving with facinating results. Lost Souls seems simplistic by comparison. That said, I liked the modernity to the story, and the way it collides with the past. And sometimes you need a simple story.

Story: Very Good


//Narrative/Gameplay:


The way the narrative is presented, and told, is quite well done. You(as the Inspector) are far more involved in the narrative's progress, unlike The Journal, which was virtually plot less. However, it pales a bit in comparison with the Lost Crown, which had the most scope, and richness, of flawless narrative that I have ever seen in a game.
This weakness here is understandable to a degree, given that the story of DF:LS is lonely and desolate by its very nature.

Pacing is really good- no sooner have you solved a puzzle, opened a new area, seen a new event, etc, something new happens. The gameplay is tightly tied together here.

However, this brings about a very linear gameplay structure. You are lead through the game in a very straight line, hardly ever branching off to explore other areas and sub-plots, unlike in DF:TJ and DF:LO.

However, despite my qualms, narrative is much improved over the previous two Dark Fall games. Gameplay, however, in certain instances, such as the rigid lineaty, is not.

The finale was great, and open-ended. I'll give Narrative/Gameplay an Excellent, but it barely makes it past Very Good.

Narrative/Gameplay: Excellent


//Acting:
The cast in this game is nowhere near as, well, giant, as The Lost Crown was, but the roles are mostly well played.

Emma Harry, cast in all of Boakes' games since Barrow Hill, is present for two of the cast: Amy Haven, and Matilda Fly. Harry is defiantly the most talented actor here, deftly pulling off both roles without a flinch, and making them utterly belivable.

Coming in close behind her is Philip Philippou, as Andrew Verney. He conveys the somewhat timid, isolated, and quietly anxiety-proneness of the character very well.

Lorraine Marsh is next, as Gloria Grable and the switchboard operator. Good enough acting, but a bit over-dramatized sometimes. However, this could have been the character profile. I'm not nitpicking this.

Lastly, Jonathan Boakes himself is cast as Mr. Bones, the hotel staff, the Shadowkin, and, lo, the Inspector himself-- Despite the ominous "?" left in The Inspector's slot in the credits, I knew first thing it was Boakes. Nigel Danvers all over again! Not as good a job, however, as he did with Danvers.
Boakes does a decent job as Mr. Bones, but the slurring, growling, and hissing Bones gave off was more then a bit carried away. I would have preferred it if Bones had a deceptively normal, disarming act on. The quietly frothing-at-the moustache act got a bit old. But, opinions, opinions.
As the hotel staff, Boakes does rather well, likely because nothing beyond "normal" speech patterns was demanded by the role.
The Shadowkin didn't exactly need good acting to manage. Screeeech. Hissssssss. Ahhhhh. Eeeeeekk. Good points, if anti-climatic.
The Inspector...did not go well. Let me just say this: A 36-year old man should not try imitating a 66-year old man. I'll leave it at that. His performance was strictly tolerable. It's unfortunate, and I wish I could give better points for it. But I can't.

Overall, excellent performances by the first three voice-actors, and mostly good from Boakes.

Acting: Excellent


//Puzzles:

Conundrums abound, from bizarre bone-divination involving shaking a tin can in the correct fashion, to destroying life leeches with rusty scissors, to rotating a massive enigma wheel.

This game gets great marks for inventiveness, most of the time...Many of the puzzles are rather unique, and unexpected, in their mechanics. However, this blade is two-sided. You'll find a select few of the puzzles to be somewhat arbitrary and...odd, I suppose, as a result of this experimentation. But, this is a supernatural game, and supernatural forces are at work. Anything goes, really, in this world of abandoned shopping carts filled with bits of mannequins and strange, pulsating pink globs of flesh.

NOTE: If you're color-blind or tone-deaf, you'll need assistance playing this game.

Puzzles include:

Searching-Every-Corner ploy: This is enjoyable-- the items are not hidden too randomly, and sometimes you get tips and riddles from Echo.

The magazine/letter/poster/note/page/newspaper assembly puzzles: Here, the document in question is ripped to shreds, and you must piece it together. This is fun the first two times you do it, but the next four or five grew tedious.

The Scissors: To make this clear, the scissors are not an action element, not really. You will stab a few (Three, I believe) bizarre, red Leeches, with these deadly implements, and when one is broken, simply pull another from the wall and do it again...But, it adds theme, not action. There's nothing like in The Lost Crown, like the odd, two-dimensional ghosts screaming towards you, and you shooting the creatures by an odd, two-dimensional charm stone. (Incidentally, I hated that puzzle.) No, there's nothing like that in Lost Souls, thankfully.
Nevertheless, I didn't quite see the point of the scissors, other then a way to get across the fact that this is a horror game, and it is already quite apparent.

Dialogue puzzles: Several times during the game, you will learn background information about the three main ghosts in the hotel- Gloria Grable, Andrew Verney, and Matilda Fly. After having found the ghost, you will engage it in conversation, and a few menu choices will pop up-- one is true. Having clicked on it, you'll be shown another set of choices, and so on. This works fine, and I enjoyed having to prove that I'd seen all the background materials, but I'm convinced there was a misplaced dialogue choice in there somewhere or two, sometimes making the puzzle a simple trial-and-error.
Also, the Inspector never speaks when he asks the questions. Odd.

Lock-pick puzzles: A few instances of this are scattered throughout the game. This is pure trial-and-error- - no skill here. You just turn the lock picks around the circumference of the lock till you hear a musical note; then you find the next one, and the next, and the next-- four steps. Odd though this may be, I actually found this quite fun. Despite the oddly placed musical tone, I found myself feeling like a real lock-picker, who knew that they're doing. I'm not sure why. But it was fun. Leave it at that.
They also, for the most part, eliminate the "find locks x, y, z, find keys x, y, z, use each one till you find the correct pairing" too often encountered.

Reflex/timing puzzles: A few of these, anything from chasing Amy around a room, blindfolded, to turning a lever fast enough three times. These are mostly good, but some are too difficult to be enjoyed immensly, escpecially by someone not familar with the mechanics of this breed of puzzle-beast.

Combination lock puzzles: You'll encounter several of these, from the treditional circular combo lock, to bizarre bone-divination involving shaking a tin can from side to side, in the proper sequence. No complaints here. These make for good puzzles, and the hunt for the correct combanation, often involving piecing together bits of information, is just as good.

Puzzle-box puzzles: A couple of these. Late in the game, you operate a series of large rings, which, when turned, align a symbol. That was a great puzzle; you actually sort of start doing it near the beginning of the game, and once you're almost done, you have everything you need, and know everything you need to know.
Another puzzle, however, appeared to be copied directly from The Lost Crown-- being the four circular dials, placed around a fifth, each of which you turn to align colors. In TLC, you found exactly the same puzzle -- just with patterns instead of colors. This just seemed a little cheap to me, but the puzzle is still great.

Sound puzzles: Good use of tone distenction. Occasionally these puzzles combine with other catagories to provide an interesting result. Overall, the sound puzzles are well done, and there's a particularly inventive one at the very end of the game.

Overall, well done on the puzzle front, better then I've seen in a while, but not quite perfect.

Puzzles: Very Good


//Interface:

The interface is mostly a standard affair; in slideshow, first-person, 90-degree-turn format, it's an old style, but still a great one. Worth a mention is the use of a 360-degree panoramic engine to handle the 90-degree turns. I've never seen this before, and it's quite innovative, in a quiet sort of way. As mentioned in the Animation section, when you turn, you actually turn, no side-scrolling or immediate snap movements here.
The wide lens angle and slow-speedup-slow motion of the turn may leave you blinking at first, but it's easy to get used to, and you will soon.
The resolution is 1024x768, which makes for crisp visuals and smooth animation.
Navigation is simple point' n' click; you move the mouse, find a hotspot, and click. I've done it, let's see, about 31 times now, and I havn't gotten tired of it yet. It's all good.
There's also the click-and-drag gimmick, which I havn't seen since Myst IV: Revelation, where you click on a drawer, door, metal plate, winch, etc, and pull in the appropiate direction. I liked it in Revelation, I like it here. It adds a lovely measure of "direct" interaction with the game world. The way you do so seems uneven in differnt places, however: In some, you click, drag, let go, and then see the thing move; others, you click, drag, and you can even wiggle it back and forth. It seemed arbitrary which one it was in each circumstrance.
Inventory is typical click-on-item, move to hotspot, click to use. It's a good format, and I've no problems with it.
You have a digital PDA with you, which functions as a weak LED flashlight when needed, and alows you to save/load your game. Limit is 100 saves-- I can't imagine needing anywhere near that many(I used two) but you should know just in case.

Interface: Very Good

//Difficulty:

First of all, you can set the difficulty setting to Easy or Hard. I don't know exactly what the easy setting entails-- probably it gives you more clues or something similar. I don't know, as I played with Hard all the way through. It wan't actually very difficult. I'd even reccommend the game to almost-fledgeling players for that reason. I'm rather proud of the fact that I didn't use a walkthrough, but I'll spare you my pompus preening.
You cannot die or make any unreperable mistakes, although you can make a wrong choice at the very, very end.


//OVERALL:

Jonathan Boakes has had a remarkable carrear so far. Each game produced by, or with, him has landed high praise. Every work since Dark Fall: The Journal has produced at least an Excellent from me, with The Lost Crown and Barrow Hill both reciving a Superb.

Now, Dark Fall: Lost Souls proves he has done it yet again. The terrifying events, the epic score, the creepy, haunting cast of DF:LS have made a very welcome additon to my shelf, and many, many others as well. If you have not already devoured this work of art, do so ASAP. You won't regret it.

I'll be first in line when the sequel to the Lost Crown, the Last Crown, arrives late this year, and just as fast to grab the planned third in the series. But here, this series, Dark Fall, is at an end, and, although I nitpick a little, and it dosn't rank quite as favourably with me as The Lost Crown, I still can't think of a better way to see this series off then Dark Fall: Lost Souls.

Overall: Excellent



System Requirments:
OS: Windows XP(SP2/SP3) or Vista
CPU: Intel Pentium IV, 1.4 GHz or above(or AMD equivilent)
RAM: 512 MB RAM(1 GB recommended for Vista)
Graphics Card: 128 MB DirectX 9.0c Compatible 3D accelerated video card
DVD drive: 4x speed DVD-ROM drive
Hard disk space: 2.5 GB
Sound card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Pereperials: Mouse, keyboard and speakers/headphones

I ran it on:
Dell Optiplex G240, called Black Mark II
Windows XP Home SP2
1.9 GHz
512 MB RAM
128 MB ATI Radeon 9250
8x speed DVD-ROM drive
CrystalSoundFusion 16-bit sound card

Preformance was very smooth.

Bugs:
Initially, I encountered a problem where DF:LS would randomly minimize to the desktop during gameplay. Reinstalling DirectX 9.0c fixed this problem.