The Player Makes The Journey, The Game Finishes It

Right before my last trip, I beat Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. It didn't feel particularly impressive as victories over video games go. The ending was so herky-jerky. I thought the game was over. Then it appeared as if things were simply jumping ahead a few months, and I'd pick up from there. If a sequel appears*, it probably is where things will start, because then the game did end.

The "Evil is triumphant" ending doesn't provide a feeling of accomplishment, either. Over the course of the game, I controlled three different players. Kian is arrested as a traitor to his people, and will be shipped back home, where he'll face a show trial before his likely execution. April Ryan wound up stabbed in the gut and fell into a swamp. Zoe was trying to save April, find her friend Reza, and stop Waticorp's plans to use their Dream software to control people. April's dead (maybe), Reza probably is as well, as Zoe knows someone's impersonating him, Waticorp's released their new dream program, her friend Lydia is either imprisoned or on the run, and Zoe's in a coma. There's a certain amount of hope. Kian isn't dead yet, we see April fall into the swamp, but no one bothered to confirm her being dead, and Zoe's dreamself is still active. Since that's the part of her that moves between worlds anyway (as opposed to her physical self, which is how April does it), she can still be an active player.

The problem is, there's no sign of that follow-up on the horizon. Which wouldn't be a terrible problem, normally. I'd like to see what the creators had planned, it's their brainchild. I could always make up an ending on my own. That's where the sense of history I enjoyed as I played works against me. Since there was a previous game, characters would reference events from that, and maybe even things that happened in between the two games. It provided a sense of a larger world. It leaves me feeling I don't really understand the rules for this universe, so I don't quite know what an appropriate ending would entail.

When I first talked about the game in February, I mentioned I had a hard time stopping, because there'd be a few minutes of gameplay, then some cut scenes. It made it seem easy to make progress. As the game continued, I became disenchanted, I felt more a bystander. More and more, the story seemed to occur as I sat and watched. That was the real issue with the ending. I walked all three characters to roughly the same place, then had to sat passively as their fates were decided. No opportunity to resist or escape, even if it would have been futile. It became less a game, more a movie. It's similar to what I've felt watching other people play the Metal Gear Solid games in the past. 20 minute movies of people explaining their tortured past or evil schemes while the player sits idly. It starts to feel less like something I'm taking an active hand in, which is not really what I'm interested in when it comes to video games.

* They announced a Dreamfall: The Lost Chapters in 2007, but nothing's come of it so far. Even if it does appear, I'd probably have to venture into computer gaming to play it, as it certainly isn't coming out on the XBox. The 360 maybe, but then I'd be buying a new console.