Reviewed: September 19, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
The Adventure Company
Developer
XXv Productions
Released: August 26, 2004
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
8
8
7
7
7.9
System Requirements
Dark Fall II: Lights Out is the sinister sequel to last years Dark Fall: The Journal, but in reality there is very little to tie the to games together other than the title and its creator, Jonathan Boakes. But sequels don’t always have to complement each other and Lights Out stands fast as a wonderful adventure game.
Lights Out takes place in the creepy harbor town of Trewarthan. When a thick fog covers the land, the silence is shattered by the sound of a ghostly foghorn. Suddenly, Fetch Rock Lighthouse is plunged into darkness.
In Dark Fall: Lights Out you play as Benjamin Parker, a young cartographer, sent to map the area, and Polly White, a ghost hunter determined to make contact with “the beyond”. Explore the Lighthouse throughout four different time periods and more than 50 realistic pre-rendered locations and experience a startling ghost story weaved with multiple chilling subplots. Players will come across an original cast of characters as well as observe and interact with spectral beings in this adventure thriller.
The opening movie probably asks more questions than it answers and you will quickly find yourself plunged into a traditional first-person adventure full of exploration, fetch questions, and inventory manipulation. It’s the standard adventure formula used to deliver a well-crafted and often spooky story.
Lights Out follows the tried and true formula of exploring beautifully crafted screens by moving the mouse around looking for “hot spots” to interact with or items to pick up and add to your inventory. You will also meet some interesting characters and engage in several conversations, which advance the story, but most of the plot is delivered through the written word.
You navigate the game using the mouse and clicking to move to new views. This can sometimes create the problem of being able to see an item but not being able to interact with it until you view it from another angle. The small cursor and the hot spot areas seem to be smaller than similar games in the genre forcing you to be slow and cautious in your exploration.
As you might expect, there are plenty of puzzles and for the most part these are integrated nicely into the environment. Many are mechanical and others are logical, mathematical, or even inventory based. Everything you do is all focused on advancing the story and solving the mystery.
Lights Out is comprised of hundreds of beautiful artistically rendered still images to recreate more than 50 locations. Thankfully, the designers have upped the resolution to 800x600 giving the game a much more crisp feel to it than last year’s 640x480 adventure, but even so, the graphics are a bit dated when stacked up against other recent adventure titles.
One thing I did fine impressive was the sepia tone styling of the artwork that gave the game a "film noir" presentation value that fit the mood and setting of the story.
The voice acting is excellent; I only wish there had been more of it. The sound effects are suitably sinister and range from environmental sounds to some ghostly murmurs. Again, all of these sounds are really good and work perfectly within the setting of the game but there could have been more.
The score is a nice blend of orchestra music combined with atmospheric sounds that serve the story and perpetuate a good deal of emotion, usually fear or at least extreme uneasiness. And once again, it’s good but there should have been more. There were often periods of silence that would have been better served with more of that excellent music.
As with any adventure game that tells a singular story, it’s usually a one-shot deal. With no branching plotlines or alternate endings you will likely only play this game once, but the up side is Lights Out is only $20 and it’s a good 8-12 hour ride, which averages out to some affordable entertainment, even for budget-minded gamers.
Dark Fall II: Lights Out doesn’t break any new ground in the adventure genre. It’s very formulaic in its design and the way it delivers the story in a traditional pixel-hunt on static screens fashion. There is a bit of violence, enough to warrant the Teen rating but nothing that most parents should worry about. The difficulty level is about average with most of the difficulty lying in the interface rather than the puzzles.
There is an immersive story, excellent voice acting, and some really creepy music and sound effects that combine to create a compelling adventure. The fact that the quality is so good is why I regret there simply isn’t more of it available. With a bit more music, sound, and speech, this game would have shined. Even so, Lights Out is an excellent game and worth a look, especially if you don’t have enough tension in your life.