Customer Reviews

Dark Fall: Lost Souls

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Review under Windows 7 x64.

Preface
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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%

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.

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.

The atmosphere is pretty good, but this game is impossible without a walkthrough. You have to look up and down sometimes (this is a still image game), but you find things so infrequently with it that you sometimes forget to do it, and if you didn't do it in a spot you were supposed to do, you're stuck until you look at a faq. Also, at one point there is a bag you look in, and you pull out a note. I then proceeded to be unable to continue because I was missing a key item. I looked at a guide and it turns out you're supposed to click on the bag AGAIN in order to get another key item. Oh, silly me for assuming that boxes and bags only need to be searched once!

Seriously, who pulls this kind of garbage? Imagine if other games had you search every chest twice to get all the items. Ridiculous.

And then, there's this other time that some old film is all chained up, and I tried pulling it out, and the game made it clear that those films were not coming free. Turns out they don't come loose unless you pull them to the right (pretty arbitrary). I was pulling them up and down.

There is also a section where you must identify 6 random constellations out of 16. However, one of the constellations (which I needed) was not labeled, and instead one constellation was shown twice. I had to look at a guide to figure out what my final constellation was.

This series usually has some good stories and atmosphere, but gameplay execution is very bad sometimes

I thought this was a great game. Really freaked me out sometimes playing it though. You definately get immersed in the graphics and story, but some of the puzzles were not as intuitive and I did have to get help online a couple of times. But even that did not detract from how much I enjoyed the game.

I've played all Mr. Boakes games and will continue to do so. I was excited to see this new one was set at the Dowerton train station as I loved DF:TJ. I found this game to be less logical. I often found myself wondering what I was to do next. Maybe I just didn't quite "get" the text messages from the beyond. Also, it was darker. I prefer games that are less macabre and more 'anticipation'. I felt as if it took awhile to get into the game and midway the story seemed to flesh out particularly after you finally get into the lodging area. I liked the other lives of the guests that you explored. All in all, it was worth playing but just not as good as the rest of Mr. Boakes' games. Keep making 'em!

This is the best of the Dark Fall series - engrossing story line, haunting setting, scary atomosphere, straight forward gameplay. Well done in all ways!

Love all the Boakes games but think the graphics are the best in this one. As always he makes a story feel really creepy with the atmosphere and sounds. The stories just pulls you in keep your interest . Will never tire of his games. Keep them coming.

a much needed improvement over the first 2 chapters of the dark fall saga, 3 is a four star game-great atmosphere, crisp graphics, better pathfinding, a recommended game for horror adventure gamers.

It was graphically violent, and the gross out factor figured into my rating of this game. The puzzles were very similar to the first game, but...really just too much gore.