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LIGHTS
OUT (2004)
Developer:
XXV Productions In
2003, wunderkind Jonathan Boakes
released his independent game Dark
Fall. Initially
self-published and distributed, DF
soon caught the attention of The Adventure Company, who purchased
the North American publishing rights.
Dark Fall became one
of the best-reviewed adventure games of 2003.
When Mr. Boakes let on that he was at
work on a follow-up game, anticipation was high in the adventure game
community. At last we have Lights
Out, the long-awaited “sequel” to Dark
Fall. Does LO
live up to the standards of its predecessor? Yes,
and then some. Fans
of Boakes’s first game will want to know
before they spend their money that Lights
Out is not a sequel to DF.
Rather, it is a true follow-up, continuing many of the same
themes and utilizing much the same style while introducing a completely
unrelated story and cast of characters.
This time around, you play as Benjamin Parker, a young Scottish
cartographer in the year 1912. At
the beginning of the game, Parker relates (via his journal) that he is
in the Cornish It
soon develops that things aren’t quite what they seem at the
lighthouse. Without giving
too much away, there is more science fiction than supernatural in the
story. To Boakes’s
credit, he shows a natural ability to wed the two genres effortlessly,
combining time travel, advanced computers and space exploration with
ghosts, possession and hauntings into a
tasty Cornish stew. I found
the storyline of LO to be far
superior to that of DF,
providing more length, depth, intelligence and emotional resonance than
its predecessor. Lights Out also beats Dark Fall in the graphics department. The static, first-person-slideshow graphics are even more detailed this time around. Boakes utilizes steam, mist and especially sky to effectively evoke a mood of mystery and eeriness. There are a couple of shortcomings in the graphics department, however. First, it eventually dawns on the player that they haven’t seen anything move during the game. There are virtually no animations at all. Unfortunately, one of the only animations we do see is the face (from the nose up, anyway) of Parker’s employer as he discusses our mission to the lighthouse. While the details of the half-face are painstakingly rendered, the artificiality of the blinking and the corners of the mouth soon become distracting. Boakes also uses several instances of a water effect that simply doesn’t work. In one spot, the player encounters a puddle of water which is supposed to ripple when touched. The actual result ends up looking more like the player is maliciously poking at a jellyfish. These are minor quibbles, however. Overall, the graphic quality is extremely high, particularly given that LO is a one-man effort. Unfortunately,
Lights Out simply cannot
compare to Dark Fall when it
comes to the scare factor. This
may be a bit unfair, as DF is
one of the scariest (perhaps the
scariest) adventure games ever produced. Boakes
set the bar so high with his first game that LO
seems like a disappointment in comparison. Part
of this stems from Boakes’s decision to
eschew any animations in Lights
Out. Many of the scares
in DF came from unexpected
movement: scurrying shadows, fleeting sprites, moving furniture.
Similarly, many of the jumps in DF
came from unexpected and outré sounds.
While the audio work in LO
is excellent, it tends to be done more subtly and more for a slow
effect of suspense than for outright scares.
The constant not-quite-sub-aural thrumming of the DEOS station is
especially effective, producing a slowly increasing irritability and
unease which unconsciously leads you to accept that brutal and violent
madness might well have occurred there.
The voice acting is also universally at least passable and at
times quite good. Again,
this is all the more exceptional when you consider the generally low
standards in the genre today and the fact that most of the voices were
provided by Boakes himself and his family.
Even his young niece and nephew (I am assuming) turn in
surprisingly authentic performances. Those
of you who have read my review of Dark
Fall know that one of my quibbles with the game was the relative
ease of its puzzles. Well, Lights
Out, despite being a much longer game, has fewer puzzles than DF
and the puzzles that are present are considerably easier still.
Despite this, LO
manages to be the harder game! How
is this possible? A couple
of factors combine to produce LO’s
greater difficulty level. First
of all, there is much more territory to explore than in the confined Dark
Fall. (This is also one
of the reasons why LO isn’t
as scary… you don’t have the same sense of being trapped in a
houseful of ghosts.) Opening
up LO for greater exploration
allows Boakes to scatter several clues for a
particular puzzle over a lot of ground, rather than relying on the more
self-contained puzzle/clue combinations of DF.
The “Verney box” is an excellent example of this, as well as
being a clever in-joke for DF
fans. However, and this was
a real drawback for me, much of the difficulty of Lights
Out comes from the required pixel hunting.
The simple point-and-click icon is quite tiny compared to the
widescreen play area. Even
the movement hotspots can be difficult to find.
Thus much of the game is spent beating your head against a rather
easy puzzle because you didn’t realize that you had missed an entire
hallway you could travel down to find the corresponding clue.
In at least two cases, “action” hotspots are hidden in
completely black (shadow) areas of the screen.
While I love a tough game, increasing difficulty by making items
and locations harder to find isn’t going to win a designer any points
with me. SCORE: 8½ (out of 10) |