Play it again discworld fans (Discworld Noir (PC))

Member Name: The Solid Grey

Product:	Discworld Noir (PC)
Date:	01/10/01 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good if you liked the books

Disadvantages: Doesn’t have mass appeal, probably

Its recently been estimated that 1% of all books sold in Britain are ones written by Terry Pratchett, personally I’ve always been a Douglas Adams fanatic (there you go I’ve said it already) and so always kept away from Terry Pratchett, why?, I dunno really, I started to read Terry Pratchett books a couple of years ago and loved them, and then this game came out around the same time, my luck was in.

This is the third of the Discworld games, and is different from the previous games (so I’ve heard), I’ve not actually played them, but I gather you played Rincewind, a character from the books, and it was much more cartoon-like. Discworld Noir as the title suggests, relives the film noir films of the 40’s/50’s, the ones that tend to be set in the land of cloud covered moons, where its almost always raining, people double cross each other as the down and out detective finds out, smoke filled bars where life is tough and the streets are mean, depressed yet?, well you should be.

The Plot?
You play a character called Lewton, Ankh-Morpork’s first private detective (Ankh-Morpork being the Discworld’s largest city (the Discworld itself being a large flat disc which sits upon the backs of four elephants, who in turn, stand upon the shell of a giant star turtle, got it?, OK)), previously a member of the city watch until he got thrown out and also a character unique to the game. Well that’s your character and the action takes place in Ankh-Morpork, in the film noir, murky underworld (see above). You are given a case to solve, or rather the game starts with somebody coming to you with a case, and then its your job to solve it, but of course its not that straight forward, is anything?.

Game Play
As Lewton you walk around Ankh-Morpork, asking questions and investigating in order to solve your cases, however where you go depends on who you’ve talked to, where you’ve been and what y
ou’ve discovered etc., the idea is that as a detective you follow your clues, therefore a person you’ve talked to might mention a place or person you should go/talk to, you have a map to view and the places that are highlighted are the ones you can go to, you can choose where to go and once you’re there you can look around and talk to people.

Talking
You have the ability to talk to people, you also have a note book, in which you write down (well there written down for you) your clues and leads, you can ask people about things in your note book, and anything you learn from them is added and old notes are crossed out when they are no longer needed, you can also ask about things in your inventory.

Your Inventory and Objects
Like many other games of such a nature you have a inventory, some things you have when the game starts others you collect as the game progresses, asking people about things in your inventory will help you to solve the cases, also you may need to use them and combine them in the course of your detection. In each place you visit there are objects that you can look at and learn more about, some are helpful some are not.

Other Information
There are three Acts in the game, when you’ve made a huge discovery, or something major happens, it moves on to the next act, there are various events and different aspects to the game that make it more enjoyable, it would have been very boring if it was just the same thing all the way through, I’d like to go into more detail but it would spoil the game, but it does move through different parts and new things happen. The places you visit change, depending on what happens and as time moves on, so people may not be where you left them.

So What Do I Think?
Well you might have guessed by now, as I seem to only write about things I like or love, but yeah I did enjoy playing the game, its similar to games such as Starship Titanic and a
little like Tomb Raider (well not much I grant you) which are the type of games I like, so if you don’t like these type of games then your wasting your time.

As a Discworld game though, it didn’t really do much for me, there were a few characters I recognised from the books but otherwise it could have been set anywhere, there were some characters that were from books that I hadn’t read yet, and I was none the wiser, so its not essential that you need read the books first, or at all even.

As with most games I play, I needed help from outside the game e.g. the Internet, one thing I found out is to go around everywhere, do everything you can and ask everyone about everything, and then do it all again, Why?, well because I got stuck early on and found out, that what I had to do was to talk to a character and then go away and then go back and talk to them again, due to time moving on and the character now knowing something new!.

If you listen to the characters talking you may recognise the voices of Robert Llewelyn (Kryten, from Red Dwarf) and Nigel Planner (most famous for The Young Ones), Terry Pratchett didn’t write the game, but he did write a foreword and introduction in the manual, and is thanked for far too much interference. The manual though is quite good, giving lots of information about the Discworld and such and is helpful in playing the game, and its also written in a similar style to Terry Pratchett that being humorous with a lots of footnotes.

Although it may not seem so great, my young nephew tried playing it and he didn’t seem to impressed, I really enjoyed it, it seemed like a very unique (am I splitting my infinitives?) game and I’d love to play a another one like it, so if you know of one which is quite like it then please tell me.

I whole heartedly recommend it!.

The Solid Grey.

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