Slowly but surely, Terry Pratchett is starting to get the acclaim he deserves in America. His humorous fantasy novels, the Discworld series, have been steady sellers and his recent collaboration with comic-book writer Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, is a classic of apocalyptic humor. Now, Pratchett has finished his "lucky" thirteenth Discworld book, Soul Music, and Psygnosis has released Discworld, a CD-ROM based adventure featuring the voice of Eric Idle as Rincewind the wizard.
Idle is not the only voice of note in this product, but the names of Jon Pertwee, Tony Robinson, Rob Brydon and Kate Robbins are not as familiar to most Americans. Trust me, these guys know what they're doing. The already funny material is raised to the level of hilarity by these British television veterans. Take Lord of the Rings and spice it liberally with Monty Python, you'll get the idea.
The biggest city on the Discworld is the metropolis of Ankh-Morpork*, where a fiendish plot is underway. (There always seems to be one of those around, doesn't there?) The good citizens are being terrorized by a fire-breathing dragon. Now, of course, dragons don't exist unless people believe in them, and there are a group of subversives who are deliberately believing in them just to cause trouble.
Ankh-Morpork is the home of Unseen University, an institution filled with learned wizards devoted to, among other things, really big dinners. When the dragon shows it's fiery snout, the Arch-Chancellor decides that it would be a good public relations move for the University to do away with the dragon. Then the locals would be more supportive of the University, and the faculty could have even bigger dinners.
So, Rincewind is saddled with the task of tracking down and doing away with this dragon. Just a single wizard (and a pretty incompetent one, at that) and his luggage. The luggage, by the way, is as much a pet as away to carry items. A luggage also makes a convenient homicidal maniac, should one be necessary.
In your travels around the disc, you will have to do a lot of talking to get the information you need. Your conversation is controlled by an icon bar. Instead of choosing exact quotes, you pick the general tone of your speech, from sarcastic to polite to just plain bitter. Since the writing is so rich in this game, you may want to make your way through all of the possibilities, whether you have to or not.
While it is possible to die in this game, death does not mean that the game is over. Rather, the story continues beyond death's portal. Death himself is an interesting conversationalist.
There is no question about Discworld's being funny. It is frequently roll-on-the-floor hysterical. The main problem I have with this game is that is was rushed out the door before the voice editing was complete. There are times when sentences are repeated within lines, which usually means that "take 2" was accidentally left in the final product. In fact, sometimes the voice completely disappears, replaced by a subtitle telling you what the character should have said. Well, these are frustrating elements, but hopefully Psygnosis will release a patch to fix 'em up.
There's also a minor flaw in the interface design. Overall, the point-and-click works well, but when you retrieve an item from your luggage, you have to close the luggage window before using the item. This may seem an odd complaint, but when you want to go through your inventory trying different items on a puzzle, an extra two clicks (open and shut) can really get on your nerves.
By no stretch should anyone take these comments as meaning that I don't like this game. It is easily the funniest thing I've played since last year's Superhero League of Hoboken. It is also a fine adaptation of Pratchett's literary style. It even contains "footnotes", in the form of a nerdy looking character suddenly appearing to elaborate on a point while the rest of the game comes to a halt. Discworld will certainly delight fans of the novels, and is also likely to win new converts. It's a must for gamers with a taste for the weird.
*Neatly bisected by the river Ankh, the city of Ankh-Morpork is also the oldest existing city on the Discworld (and know to its citizens/denizens as the Big Wahoonie). It is really two cities; proud Ankh, Turnwise of the river, and pestilent Morpork on the Widdershins side, although the pestilence is quite democratic and in fact covers most of the city.
