If you are like me you spent the early 90's enthralled playing games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and even the classic Dragon's Lair. The Whispered World is an adventure game told through a very rich and vibrant art style that feels as though you're watching a classic cartoon. Motions and things are fluid, characters are well animated. the game follows Sadwick, an appropriate name as he's quite a downer, a kind of "glass is half empty" person. He's thrust into an adventure and you follow him on the journey. The voice acting is quite good, at first Sadwicks voice may annoy you, but once you get into the game and get to know the character the voice becomes quite fitting to him. The game has quite a bit of humor to it, from characters and situations you find yoruself in. It's a lighthearted game but with mature elements in it's storyline and characters. If you enjoy classic adventures, and miss those classic cartoon style adventures, this is the game for you. I recommend trying the demo at least, it's what got me hooked into buying the game at release on steam.
Maybe nostilga influences me somewhat, but this was a favorite classic adventure game for me. I spent many late nights sitting in the glow of my 14" CRT playing this game when I should have been in bed for school the next morning. The combat and dismemberment were always exciting. You could fiddle with the move editor for hours on end trying to make some absurd move that would probably never actually come in handy during the game but still you thought it looked awesome. The story is basic, your damsel is captured and you scurry off to rescue her. There's not a whole lot of depth to it but you're likely looking at it for the gameplay, and as far as action goes this was a gem, a bit with some drawbacks. The "VSIM" combat system was a great idea, if only we weren't restricted by a mouse. The problem is that a mouse is stuck to a 2d surface, you can't move a mouse like you can your arm, and this herein lies the main problem with DBTS's combat system and why most people who played the game and finished it, used the numpad VSIM control. It was just not suited well movement wise to the mouse, you would find yourself trying to mimic the hand holding the sword only to end up wrestling with it trying to orient it on a 3d lv but you couldn't that well. Instead I'd find myself just swinging the mouse left and right being about the only effective way to try this until I resorted to the numpad control scheme which provided a much tigther and quicker control method that I could actually kill people quickly and get on with the game. Even with this drawback the combat was bloody and fun, not necessarily in that order either. You could chop off limbs and body parts. Your character could have the same down to him as well. With lower health you would have visible wounds and damage. You could pick up limbs and other random body parts of your enemies and use them in combat as well. Overall it was just a fun and humours action adventure game with high idea's that it could not quite reach, When you're a kid though, fun gameplay can overcome many things that today you might let cloud your view.
