The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey is LONG, make no mistake about it. This game's strength is in its story, not in its play. The puzzles are predictable to seasoned players. Playing this game is more like reading a book, or watching a play. Dialogues are lengthy. Excellent continuity from beginning to end. The voice talent and direction are excellent! I can't say enough about it. The character Flipper Burns had me crying with laughter. (Warning: coarse language) I'd love to see or hear these actors in other works. The outtakes were a nice treat too. The look/feel/playability is similar to point-and-click games from Sierra-Online, such as the Kings Quest series. No arcade sequences. The rich story and character voices are what puts this game at the top of its class.

The Longest Journey is a cross between a traditional point-and-click adventure game and a computer-animated novel. Story, character and environment are much more important than you'd expect, and it's here that most of the innovation is to be found - the puzzles are quite old-fashioned and occasionally a bit silly, and the technology doesn't push any envelopes.

Ragnar Tornquist's script, though, is hugely ambitious, and mostly successful; it has a superb premise - essentially a pair of worlds, one futuristic, the other a place of post-Tolkeinish fantasy, and with a heroine (April Ryan) who finds herself shifting, at first unwillingly, between the two. There are some problems - a few too many genre clichés, and the script is needlessly verbose in places where less would have been more. Most of the vocal performances are excellent, however, especially from the lead characters, and visually the design, especially of the environments through which April moves, is superbly evocative. This gives TLJ a narrative range and emotional resonance that's very rarely found in games - if you have the patience to operate at its meditative pace. Even if there'll never be a mass market for this kind of thing, I hope it is another step along the way to the development of the computer game as a genuine art form.

If this game had been released a little earlier in the United States it most likely would have faired better, but by the year 2000 the 3D graphics were quite dated.

That said, this game was one of my most memorable gaming experiences, right up there with the first time I played Zork, Myst, and Half Life.

The puzzles are mostly logic based, and while some require inventory items that can be a little non-logical to come by, it didn't takeaway from the experience, but rather enhanced it for the most part.

I just finished The Longest Journey, and if your looking for Video Game of the Year look somewhere else! This is Video Game of the Decade! Everything from the Music, Graphics, Characters, to Story is Excellent. The main character April Ryan, played by Sarah Hamilton, is the key to 'the balance' between two worlds. You will be emerged in a different time and world playing this astonishing game from FUNCOM. It's no wonder that it is a best seller around the world. Go check it out!

This game is a true gem -- gorgeous graphics, extremely engaging and entrancing story. The puzzles are not too difficult, but are fun and fit well into the story. I'd encourage EVERYONE to play this game -- yeah, I'm talking to YOU! There's philosophy and humor, excitement and mystery, and most of all -- well, ADVENTURE. It's fun. It's interesting. You'll love it.