Technically, this title doesn't stand a chance against today's standards. However, it can be fun to play nontheless.
User Rating: 6.2 | Discworld Noir (UK) PC
A year 2005 review of a 1999 game, you might ask? Considering I just bought the game for a bargain and GameSpot doesn't have any other info on it, I'll just give it a shot. Discworld Noir's a deliberately paced point-and-click adventure game that puts you in the role of Lewton, P.I., who's been hired by a mysterious, attractive female to find her missing lover. Solving the countless puzzles that the game throws at you requires investigating pre-rendered backgrounds with your cursror and interrogating polygon characters in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork. For those of you who don't know - the game is based upon the Discworld universe, created by British author and comedian Terry Pratchett. The series has spun off dozens of books and other related merchandise, as well as a couple of videogames (Discworld I & II come to mind). Since this practically is a niche game AND it's over 6 years old by now, I'll make it short: Technically, there isn't much to say: This game is six years old, what can one expect? The backgrounds and characters are nice, at least from an artistic point of view. Unfortunately, the game doesn't hold up against today's standards, technically speaking. The display defaults to a resolution of 640x480 and there's no way to change that (running the program in a window would've been an option, for example), plus there's the occasional stutter. Polygon characters have rather stiff animations to them, and the textures lack the level of polish of today's software. The voicework is brilliant (granted you're into British humour) and is literally bursting with hilarious one-liners, from start to finish. Occasionally, character speeches are cut off one or two syllables too soon, but that doesn't happen too frequently. Closing comments: This game suits you if you're 1. into British humour (Monty Python and the works), 2. you have an interest in old-school point and click adventures and you just can't get enough of this genre, 3. you don't need your 1600x1200, 8xAA filters to enjoy a good piece of software, 4. you're willing to swallow the fact that this game is old and thus can't compete with today's graphics and sounds by far. One last warning! This game is *not* officially compatible with Windows XP (are there any Windows users out there by now that don't run their systems on XP?), so you'll have to live with the occasional CTD (crash to desktop) and a couple of weird glitches (clicking on "create desktop shortcup", for example, doesn't actually create one). Be warned, and for all the brave out there: Enjoy!
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