Fallout succeeds in depicting a creative dystopia, telling the players just enough about its world so that they can appreciate their impact, but keeping enough mysterious to evoke a sense of scale. Populating this vast environment is an interesting cast of characters, and while unfortunately none of them experience any character arcs or evolving personalities, their basic traits are entertaining in themselves. The dialogue trees have a relatively large amount of depth, but a degree of choice is removed if the player realises that picking the polite option normally achieves the desired outcome. The UI is overly complicated and the combat system is clunky, but once the player grasps the controls there's much potential for strategic play.
Gabriel Knight is a triumph in the adventure genre. The detailed depictions of real world Voodoo mythology helps bring to life to the creative characters and engaging storyline that is found in Jane Jensen's masterpiece. Being a lengthy 16 hours, the designers were sure to make the gameplay varied. As well as the classic item use/combine puzzles, during the course of the game the player will also have to: translate German poetry, communicate via drum beat, and decipher a Voodoo Code. Unfortunately a couple of the puzzles are poorly designed - standing out clearly when stood next to the rest of the intuitive puzzles that the game offers. Interactive dialogue also plays a large role in this game, in quality and depth falling second only to Planescape.
Without a doubt, the story this game tells is the greatest I have ever experienced in any form of media. It's just phenomenal. The world the game depicts is more detailed and creative than any I've seen before, with it's own set of genius laws and logic. The characters are the some of the most 3 dimensional ones in gaming, each with their own thorough back-stories and unique set of morals and views. The plot takes the player on an incredible journey, not only with clever twists, but by dwelling deep into many mature themes in ways I'd never thought of. In the end everything comes down to one question - "What can change the nature of a man?"
This was Michel Ancel's game, and you can clearly see his beautiful vision all the way through. Everything fits together so perfectly, be it the simple but appropriate story line, the memorable music, the funny characters and of course the continually innovative and original gameplay that is paced perfectly. In so many respects, this is a beautiful game.
