Personally, I'd rather stay at a Motel 8.
I maintain a bias against Hotel Dusk, let's get that out of the way. I labored through the game, often 15-20 minute spurts at a time to get through it, which is why my review of this game is coming so late. I'm sure many people have reviewed it, know many people have talked about it, and am aware that the general consensus is that this game is off the charts spectacular. But I beg to differ.
Most people say that Hotel Dusk plays like an interactive book; an interactive experience in solving mysteries and finding clues to travel through the fairly linear plotline. This is precisely the problem that I had with it.
In a generation that has long forsaken the gift that are books, this is the closest thing you can get to reading a book, without actually reading a book. I on the other hand, grew up reading books in place of television and videogaming. While this wasn't a personal choice, it has certainly brought about a pleasure to my life that I most probably otherwise would not have discovered.
So let's get to Hotel Dusk.
Hotel Dusk is boring. A very text driven game, the words scroll too slowly, and the dialogue gets really cheesy at times. The plot depends too much on extremely convoluted tangents that ultimately tie into the game, but seem too derived from afterthoughts, as if the plotline was all mapped out, and then developers threw in wrenches and sideplots to give the game some more length and flavor.
Simply put, if Hotel Dusk were to be made into a novel, it would be horribly boring and unreadable. Maybe reading books by Koontz, King, Patterson, etc. play into my bias, but I feel as if the bias is a reasonable one.
The revelations (when the sound affect has the rising pitch tone and Kyle Hyde makes that OH MY GOD face) are very.. not revelating? Is that even a word? They are so unsurprising, and often times so tangential that they take away any element of surprise that is supposed to come.
The fact that there are Game Over options really bothered me as well. The fact that such a linear plot could be ended on a wrong decision between two lines of questioning (which needless to say has the polar effect of "absurdly obvious do-not-pick-this" vs. the "this is most definitely the right choice") bugged me beyond belief. I chose obvious mispicks because picking the safer option just got too boring.
And the chapter ending quizzes. Really? Is that necessary? Is Kyle Hyde that stupid? The game revolves around him trying to find Bradley, his missing ex-partner, and he needs to remind himself about looking for Bradley? Goodness gracious.
One can't argue against the presentation though. Stylus use, although tedious at times with all the knocking and tool usage, is well implemented for movement and navigation. The graphics are simple, but its simplicity is its beauty. Mood changes portrayed as a shimmering of colors up and down the characters. The animations aren't full animations, but more step animating, which adds to the quirky nature of the game presentation.
I guess that's all. I didn't like it enough to play it for longer than an hour at a time.