I
don’t get adventure games too often these days. It’s not
that they’re not available, it’s just that I don’t
have the money I once did to spend $60 or more on every new title.
These days I tend to wait a couple of years before the game comes
down to a more civilized $10 and get it then. So, it’s pretty
exciting when Randy sends me a BRAND NEW GAME FOR FREE!

Anacapri the
Dream is a two-man project from father and son Silvio
and Giuseppe Savarese following on from their critically-acclaimed

A Quiet Weekend on Capri. I played
A Quiet Weekend on Capri when it came but
gave up a little short of the end when I got lost. It was similarly
a first-person point-and-click adventure but was a bit complicated
and I lost my way. There seemed to be so many streets and alleys that
I didn’t have a clue where I was. My reading about the game
Anacapri the Dream led me to believe that
it would be more of the same so I anticipated it might be a visually
stunning but ultimately frustrating experience. I was glad to find
a walkthrough (there’s even a link on the official
website) to allow me to play this game to review it more faithfully.
By the way, speaking of the official website, be sure to download
the update (about 10 MB) there-I’m not sure what it actually
does but I’m a firm believer in ensuring a game is as stable
and up-to-date as possible at the outset.

The
first thing I was struck by when I went to install this game is that
it takes FOREVER to install. I can’t recall a single game that
takes this long to install. I had this idea of installing it just
before bed and having a brief look at it as a way of unwinding before
catching some z’s but it took me three failed attempts over
three successive nights before I gave up and started installing it
with plenty of time to go and do other things. The install took over
60 minutes before all the files were decompressed and the game was
ready to go. There are huge games with 3D engines that install faster
than this. The only thing that I can recall even approaching the time
that this took was when I tried to install a large Russian (read not
well programmed) game MANY YEARS AGO on a very slow computer. I realize
that this game was created by a couple of independent developers but
perhaps their programming skills could be developed to overcome the
need to decompress every file so slowly… The game takes up an
almost impossible to believe 7 GB on the hard drive and claims to
have over 50 hours of gameplay!

The
next thing I noticed is that this has the most stunning photographs
(apparently 8000 of them!) of one of the most beautiful places in
the world. Anacapri is apparently the second-largest town on the island
(after Capri). I dare anyone to play this game and not wish they could
visit this idyllic Mediterranean island. It looks like a truly extraordinary
place to visit-but very self-contained and not overwhelming as traditional
style meets modern. In other words, a great site for the beginning
of a mystery. Speaking of mystery, I really wonder what the designers
were thinking of not providing some kind of an introductory movie.
All of a sudden, you are plunked down in café and told to go
somewhere to meet someone-this was just screaming out for some kind
of brief outline of why you’re here. The game does reveal this
as you meet people but I don’t think much of the mystery would
have been spoiled by having an introduction. There are very infrequent
animations that add a little color and life to the otherwise static
backgrounds. There are also points where the static image can be panned
in any of four directions to reveal other hotspots. This reminded
me of a lot of those 1990s QuickTime-based games like Mortalus
and made for some more interaction than would otherwise be found with
the static photos.

This
in itself would not be the undoing of a game but what next follows
is an absolute atrocity in an adventure game. This game has, without
a doubt, the absolute worst voice acting I have ever experienced.
Not only do the characters sound like they are reading but they sound
like they have never read before and care not to ever read with an
ounce of intonation or emphasis. Speech is universally clear, with
no obvious muffling or background noise interfering with the speech
signal. At one point, though, a waitress’ voiceover sounded
like a computerized voice. The accents are not Italian either, so
not only do we get subpar inflection, the actors aren’t even
native to Capri. The characters waffle on in pseudo-English that between
the absence of recognizable English and complete apathy in the vocal
production makes understanding what is actually said a complete impossibility.
Just talk to the turtle to understand what I’m saying (yes,
you read right). Thankfully, the one saving grace is that all conversations
are logged and can be accessed later so you can view the conversation
script and attempt to make sense of the haphazardly written dialog.
I really think it’s a shame when a game is dubbed. This game
has the option of playing in Italian but unless you’re a native
speaker you’re not going to understand a thing. NOTE TO ALL
GAME DEVELOPERS: subtitles are not an extra, they are essential. Not
only do they allow the hearing-impaired play games, they allow us
to make up for lousy sound recording, difficult accents, and even
allow the flexibility of playing a game in another language.

There are few ambient sounds-mostly
they are a standout, adding realism to the static images presented.
It sounds like you are at the beach, in a cave, etc. What really jars,
though, is the grating music that suddenly starts and stops as you
approach an interactive area. The music doesn’t seem to match
the mood of the island or the game and is greatly at odds with the
subtlety that I expect music should bring to a movie or a game-it
should create and enhance a mood, not drown it. The most out of place
music would have to be the electric guitar pieces that are more suited
to slasher/horror movies than the tranquility of a Mediterranean isle.

So,
what is the game about? According to the makers, you are Dr. Nico
N., “an expert in ancient civilizations”. For some reason,
you are summoned to Anacapri to seek out a legendary artifact called
the Obsidian Disk, which is rumored to possess some kind of power
but has an evil past. And things don’t get much clearer from
that point. There is a reasonable amount of dialog but most of it
is confusing and doesn’t forward the story any. Most of the
time is spent wandering and wondering what to do, which becomes pretty
boring…fast. It’s strange that the streets are so lonely.
I remember it was similar in S.P.Q.R. wandering
the streets of Rome. For such a popular and populous place, why were
there so few people? The game claims to have “logical puzzles”
but in such a confusing game, the puzzles don’t seem very logical.
With the way the interface is designed, it’s very easy not to
realize that there is something you can do with an inventory item.
The menu interface is very simplistic (not simple) and looks out of
date in a game from 2007. I have a prejudice against games where I
can’t name my saved games. Even though there are eight slots
to save, thankfully it defaults to the most recent save when you go
to reload a saved game.

As
I said earlier, this is a point-and-click game. Perhaps this game
should be called point-and-click-and-click-and-click. Every click
progresses you in the real world about 10 feet but unfortunately only
about 10% of the screens actually have something interactive in them.
You find yourself clicking and clicking, which allows you to really
appreciate the stunning vistas but in terms of gameplay, it feels
a real drag. It really says something when someone like me, a lover
of point-and-click adventure games has real concerns about developing
RSI from too much clicking! Be sure to have the markers switched on
or you’ll spend an exorbitant amount of time attempting to actually
find any hotspots on the largely non-interactive screens. On the plus
side, the game is almost completely open-ended allowing much exploration.
It reminded me a lot of a role-playing game except there is far less
to do and far characters to interact with. As I became accustomed
to the mapping, I realized that it wasn’t too bad but initially
I found it very confusing. Once an area has been visited, though,
there is, from that point forward, the option to teleport without
having to ride the bus or walk the streets to get there.

Puzzles are of medium difficulty
but not always the most logical. I liked the way the dream world and
reality were interconnected such that information in one place could
be used in the other. It’s not always evident where any given
inventory item should be used and there is no onscreen icon that illustrates
that there is any interactivity with any object. What this essentially
means is that there are 8000 possible screens where you could use
an inventory item. This is just an invitation for frustration so I
suggest the game developers think about incorporating a way to make
this more user friendly. I realize that gamers are jaded and criticize
a game for being too easy but the overarching reason that we play
games is for FUN. Clicking 8000 times unnecessarily is not my idea
of fun. I like games to reward intelligent thinking so that you feel
a sense of accomplishment when you get the answer or solve the puzzle.

For
those who don’t like adventuring at all, the game has the option
of “exploration mode” wherein there are no puzzles and
you can wander the streets of Anacapri for hours and gaze in awe at
surely one of the most picturesque locations in the world. Almost
every photo captures an exotic beauty. I had heard that this game
was going to be made with some support of the Italian tourist board
and if it was, the effect that the game is likely to have on players
and viewers as potential tourists make it worth every penny of their
investment.

So, this is a pretty ordinary
game that has potential in some areas. In terms of fun and comprehensibility,
this game deserves a D/F but some of the features
lift it slightly. I’d give it a C-/D+. I don’t
really look forward to the Savareses’ next game unless they
make far more radical changes to the game design than those that have
occurred from A Quiet Weekend in Capri to
now. Another side of me looks forward to seeing more of the beauty
of their home so I am a little torn.

System Requirements:

• Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000,
  XP, Vista
• Pentium IV 1.5 MHz
  or Athlon equivalent
• XGA monitor (4:3 aspect
  ratio) capable of resolution 1024 x 768 (24-bit color)
• 7GB free hard disk
  space
• DVD drive
• 256 MB DRAM