The Pinnacle of Storytelling in a Video Game
This is pretty much near the end of Xbox's heyday, and the tradition of storytelling within a game is kept alive with Dreamfall in spectacular form. It's a classic--it just depends on what you like. If you fast forward the dialogue in RPG's or go for a sandwich during long cutscenes, you'll want to skip Dreamfall. You'll be missing out on some great interactive fiction, but you like what you like. I guess.
I started playing Dreamfall immediately after finishing Black, which is totally on the other end of the spectrum. All intense action and nothing but filler for the story. I liked it a lot. But anyway, Dreamfall took a while to re-adjust to, but it quickly drew me in with perhaps one of the best stories I've ever experienced within a video game. It beats a lot of the movies I've seen over the past while, as well. I'm not exaggerating in the least--it's good stuff and when the pace picks up, it is very stimulating fiction, combining the best of sci-fi and fantasy.
As far as gameplay goes, it's mostly puzzle-solving, navigating worlds and light combat used to get you further along in the narrative. It's lightweight stuff, especially the combat, though it all presents enough of a challenge to keep it interesting. This action is to further the story and is nothing close to what one would call "intense." It's somewhere between Silent Hill 2 (where the action is a mildly difficult diversion) and Still Life (where you there's no combat and you can't even die!). It is what it is. Accept it for what it is, and it won't take away from the experience. The graphics are "mixed" in quality. These people have great imaginations, and the worlds and characters they create are eye-caching and imaginative at times. Some of the textures are good, as well. On the other hand, the animation can sometimes be rough and some of the images are only on par with early PS2 games, like GTA 3. Overall, they are good. The music is brilliant at times. Some of the melodramatic stuff is, well, melodramatic (the pop songs with lyrics), but are really not far off from the way music is used melodramatically in certain French or Asian films, so it does what it tries to do. Some of it is as good as John William's film work and reminded me of music from Fable and KOTOR. There is a lot of variety in the music, as well.
You know the feeling you get when you finish a novel it took you a couple of weeks to read and you're almost devastated it's over? All these characters, and you might never hear from them again? This is the first Xbox game that really gave me that sense. Good fiction provokes the reader to care about the characters, and to care about what has happened. Dreamfall achieved this for me. At the end, it seems to set the series up for another installment. Something to look forward to on the 360? i hope so!