Dark Fall: Lost Souls

by Iceberg Interactive

Product Details

• ASIN: B002S0O76I
• Item Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,016 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great installment by Jonathan Boakes, January 31, 2010

By 

Michail Chourdakis (Greece) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dark Fall: Lost Souls (DVD-ROM)

Review under Windows 7 x64.

Preface
-------------------------
It is amazing on what some people can do. Being a programmer myself, I admire the power, the work, the capabilities and the end-result of Mr. Boakes. Darkfall III - Lost Souls is another great game that any adventure gamer should not miss.

Installation
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1 DVD which completely installs to the hard disk, not needed afterwards to play the game and no stupid protection mechanisms. 100%.

Scenario
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You are a Police Inspector (hey, no name?) , having left unfinished business in the old creepy and mysterious Dowerton railway. You were assigned that missing girl case before but you were caught trying to manipulate the evidence to support charges against your suspect. This time you have to find out what happened to the girl, prove the guilt of your suspect, and restore your name and status. Not bad for a DarkFall, 90%.

Vote for: Simple and clean scenario
Vote against: Not that unique, but this has never been an issue for me.

Graphics
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As in any DF game, graphics are very good and creepy. This time you are fighting darkness and your weapon is light and patience. There are some problems in finding your way out, and be sure to look up and down in many screens, as they are clues/objects to be collected.

Vote for: Full screen graphics, nice coloring, atmospheric.
Vote against: Not that much animation.

The graphics are not as perfect as in Lost Crown, and the animation is minimal (In LC, almost *every* screen had some brilliant animation element). But when compared to the other DarkFalls, the game deserves an 90%.

Sound
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All games before DF 3 have excellent sound quality and DF 3 is no exempt. Great and creepy ambient sounds, doors that open mysteriously, voices from everywhere, girls crying around, and of course, the fine element in all that stuff is that you do not actually see anything, but only hear. Something 's behind you presumably, but when you turn, nothing is there.

Vote for: Excellent ambient sounds.
Vote against: Inspector's speech. Somehow not natural or too much manipulated or edited.

Very effective and creepy. 96%.

Control
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This is a first person one, so you use the mouse to turn around. The game doesn't allow free movement, but it turns you 90 degrees left or right (except in places that there is a clue, so the rotation is more precise). When you want to view something, the cursor changes into a magnifying glass, and when you can handle something, the cursor changes to a tool or a hand. Also these cursors are somewhat too clearcut: I don't think that you can miss a hotspot in the game.

At the bottom there is your inventory, and at the bottom left is a mobile phone that acts as your control panel with load,save,quit, sms messages (you receive some from an unknown source?) and stuff.
When using the hand to move something, be sure to try all possible directions because sometimes it is not clearcut how to move an object. And as I said above, keep looking up down left right. There is a lot to be found.

Vote for: Subtitles allowed, First person.
Vote against: There is a temporary freeze when accessing the "control panel" , not fully free control and movement, the game doesn't end with Alt+F4. Also the rotation is not fast, so in case you are in a hurry, you may have some problems. There is no way to skip that animation.

Good and working, with some issues. 85%

Atmosphere.
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Nothing to say about that. This is a Jonathan Boakes adventure, so the atmosphere is guaranteed to be very good. This time it is more "macabre" than "creepy" , but what I certainly missed from the Lost Crown is found here: A way to make you jump out of your chair.

Vote for: More Creepy than LC (or I should say that LC was not creepy at all - sorry Mr. Jonathan!).
Vote against: Somewhat more "what a pity" or "poor souls" or "oh my god" than "OH MY GOD!!!!".

92%

Plot & Riddles
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As in the first and second DarkFall, the game is not long (nothing compared to Lost Crown), but there is a sound difference now: DarkFall 3 is certainly easier than the previous two installments. Perhaps Jonathan was criticized earlier and he decided to make this somewhat more easy, but there are indeed puzzles with obscure solutions. Some of the puzzles are inventory based, some require you to assemble torn pages/newspapers, some puzzles are "puzzle" based. The game is still non linear, but unlike DF1 and DF2 in which you had to explore a lot of puzzles before actually reaching a conclusion, here you spend less time in searching what to do and spend more time in how to do it.

You will be carrying a few things and you will frequently use them (hey, part of your inventory is pills and vodka. Someone's been drinking ?)

Some pictures have a timeout and you can die, but fortunately the game will restore automatically for you.

Vote for: Non linear (I like that), not that hard puzzles.
Vote against: Somewhat short, somehow obscure puzzles. But generally the game is well-designed and reserves an
89%.


Overall
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This game deserves your money. Although some issues do exist, the pleasure you will get from it is great, and judging from the fact that most adventure games produced today (and they are not many) are dumb, this one clearly deserves your attention.
Overall score: 91%

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stylishly creepy, August 17, 2010

By 

hollygolightly (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dark Fall: Lost Souls (DVD-ROM)

The third installment of the Dark Fall games reprises the Dowerton train station and hotel featured in Dark Fall: The Journal. This time, you are playing as a nameless Inspector who has come to investigate the 2005 disappearance of an 11 year old girl, in the hopes of resolving the mystery that ruined your career.

Compared to the earlier Dark Fall games and especially the mammoth undertaking that is Lost Crown, Lost Souls is streamlined and plays quickly. Many of the puzzles are logic/common sense rather than inventory-based, so it takes some mental bandwidth. Several puzzles repeat themselves throughout the game (e.g., picking locks or talking to ghosts) so once you solve the first one, you have something to work from. The game also requires manipulating objects by zooming in and dragging up/down/left/right, which I found awkward. A few puzzles are timed--if you happen to die, the game automatically restores you.

Pros: The graphics are excellent--almost as good as Syberia--so if you like (or at least tolerate) the macabre, then there is PLENTY to look at. I'm not a big fan of the ghost-hunting equipment that Jonathan Boakes likes to use, so I was happy that I didn't have to mess with goggles and ghost-sensors and whatnot. Best of all, the game flow isn't overly burdened with complexity or a zillion characters to keep track of, so things move along quickly. Often, solving a puzzle and walking out of the screen is enough to prompt guidance on where to go next from a mysterious character who sends timely SMS messages.

Cons: So if the design is superbly atmospheric, what's the problem? The story--both by itself and in context with the other Darkling games--is pretty illogical. I don't want to give anything away, but while the trees are very nice, the forest needs a lot of work. Case in point: the game's tagline is "It Knows Your Name." No, it doesn't. The character is only referred to as Inspector, so if it knows my name then it does a darn good job of never saying it.

Overall, Dark Fall: Lost Souls is more than worth the investment. And if Boakes needs a continuity editor, then I'd totally sign up for the job.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars dark fall: lost souls, November 13, 2010

By 

Craitg R. Anderson (Kirkland, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dark Fall: Lost Souls (DVD-ROM)

Not a bad game overall. The hotel was really bad, as in good. It was totally creepy and disgusting. I really did get chills running up my arms more that a couple of times. I liked the idea that the inspector could change the bad things that had happened in the past. The ending was not a total let down as so many of the current adventure games seem to be.

I liked the game. I recommend it.