Prologue: A Brief History Of Adventure GamesDirk Dagger title screenDirk Dagger is an extremely rare thing nowadays, an adventure game, and it's even rarer as it's a mobile phone adventure game.
Adventure games, for those who don't remember them, present the player with a series of locations and problems to solve, and usually feature a very strong plot and memorable characters. The solution to a puzzle lies in a combination of using objects and talking to people, almost always relying on intelligence and knowledge rather than fast reflexes.
The genre was present on the very first home computers as text-only games. Eventually graphics were added, and adventure games grew throughout the 1980s to reach a
zenith with the Lucasfilm and Sierra titles of the late 1980s/early 1990s. Instant classics like the Monkey Island and King's Quest series were huge-selling hits that made front page news in the gaming world, and one adventure (Lucasfilm's "Maniac Mansion") even had its own sitcom on television. People would buy home computers just to play adventure games, there were gaming magazines devoted entirely to adventures, it was an extremely significant genre.
After the mid-90s, adventures started to disappear as plotless 3D action games like Doom and Quake took over. The globalisation of gaming, which had previously been much more splintered into many local markets, sealed their fate. Adventures were relatively expensive to localise because they featured so much dialogue, which made them difficult to sell abroad. They didn't have cutting edge graphics, so it was difficult to sell computers or consoles using them, which annoyed the manufacturers and retailers. They weren't suited to
games console controllers either, just as consoles like the PlayStation were taking over from computers like the Amiga and Atari ST. Everything in the commercial game world started working against adventures, and even stalwarts like Lucasfilm and Sierra had to stop making them.
Lately though there's been something of a renaissance for adventure games on the Nintendo DS thanks to its touchscreen display, but they're still nowhere near the fame they enjoyed 15 or 20 years ago. Perhaps mobile phones will provide further growth for this neglected genre?
GameplayRight, back to N-Gage!
Dirk Dagger And The Fallen Idol is set in 1940s/1950s America, and features a pair of Private Investigators called Dirk Dagger and Harry Cannon. There's a Film Noir feel to the game mixed with a cartoon graphical style, and the two styles dovetail well.
You see your current location as a sideways-scrolling environment which can be moved either with the camera (by physically moving the phone left or right) or with the direction pad. The camera-scrolling is an amazing feature when you first see it, and it is likely to impress gaming friends you show it to, but to be honest the direction pad is much more reliable and uses up much less battery life. This reviewer strongly recommends switching the camera off and using the direction pad alone.
Locations can be explored simply by moving left or right, which automatically highlights any characters or objects of interest currently in the centre of the screen. Some are only highlighted for a very short time though, so keep your eyes open as they may be important.
You can move from one location to another on a city map, with more locations opening up as you progress through the plot. The location system isn't very freeform though, you are generally pointed to a particular location rather than left to decide that for yourself (Dirk will say something like "I'd better head on over to the office").
You can pick certain objects up, though there's no inventory and you can only use something if the game gives you that option. Generally the game steers you heavily towards the correct use of that object (for example you can only use fish food by clicking on the fish bowl). Experimenting with unusual uses for objects is impossible, which is a shame as that's where a lot of the humour came from in (for example) the Monkey Island games.
The game has conversation trees when chatting to certain characters, but they're generally much more limited than on the Lucasfilm games. Part of the fun on classic adventures was exploring all the weird and wonderful conversations you could have with each character, but there isn't very much to explore in Dirk Dagger's dialogue. There are one or two gems such as the fortune cookie basket, but there could have been a lot more.
In general, the gameplay is very linear. Quite often you don't really feel like you're playing a game, it's more like reading a book or watching a video. The game is over in about two or three hours, and after you've finished it there's not much reason to go back. To be fair though, the developers have put in some amusing bonus material which appears after you complete the main game, and there are also two or three arcade-style mini-games within the adventure.
Graphics & SoundDirk Dagger's graphics are entirely 2D, but that's nothing to be ashamed of. The 40s/50s comic book style looks very nice, with a consistent style that is packed with in-jokes and details. There are frequent cut scenes as the plot unfolds, with lots of changes of camera shot to emphasise different characters and situations. The 2D backgrounds are arranged into parallax layers that move as you move, and there's a subtle joke based entirely around this effect in the very first location.
The sound is excellent, at least what there is of it. The music could be straight from a 1940s PI film, and the sound effects are good quality (for example the diner has authentic-sounding traffic noises as an ambient background). The main problem is the lack of sound: quite often a scene will go by with no sound at all, or perhaps just a few events will make a noise while others don't. There also isn't much music. It's understandable that the developers would want to keep the game's file size as small as possible, but perhaps they could have tried using MIDI files to fill in the bits with no sound at all? On the latest phones MIDI can actually sound rather good.
N-Gage ArenaWell, this is a bit of a puzzle!
On the face of it Dirk Dagger has no Arena features at all apart from point pickups. These come at a steady pace as you progress through the story, and when the case is over you should have the full 1000 points.
HOWEVER... if you check the Arena rankings for Dirk Dagger through the N-Gage app you find completely unexplained scores like "18,255,353". What do they actually mean? The game never explains. And because there's no way to know how the points are calculated, there's no way to compete in the rankings, so they're pointless and meaningless.
TV & Keyboard TestSome N-Gage-compatible phones (e.g. Nokia N82, N95, N95 8GB, N96) have a TV Out feature which lets you connect the phone to a
television set. This can be used for playing N-Gage games, or for any other phone function.
All N-Gage phones are compatible with Bluetooth keyboards that use the HID Bluetooth standard, and such a keyboard can be used to control games or any other phone function.
Dirk Dagger looks absolutely great through TV Out, partly because it's in 2D (which always looks good on a TV) and partly because it's a vertical-mode-only game. This is highly recommended for playing on a television.
Bluetooth keyboard control is equally good, the simplicity of the game's interface means that controlling it with a keyboard is a piece of cake.
OverallThis is a very frustrating game to review because it has so much potential yet fails to live up to that potential.
The interface is very good, and allows the adventure to work on even a 2 inch phone screen. The characters, story, dialogue, artwork and setting are all wonderful, with a lovely dollop of humour, and cultural references by the bucketload covering everything from 1940s movie moguls to 1970s British sitcoms to 2000s console games. Dirk Dagger doesn't take long to play (2 or 3 hours) but that time is extremely enjoyable. There are lots of little jokes hidden in the scenery and dialogue trees, and some laugh-out-loud moments too, which are sadly quite rare in games nowadays.
However, there's one important element largely missing: the gameplay. There's just nowhere near enough user interaction. At the heart of any good game is the feeling that you've achieved something, solved a puzzle, performed a task, customised a house, won a battle... anything that involves skill and judgement. Dirk Dagger on the other hand requires virtually no skill or judgement, it's a very easy ride all the way through, far too easy in fact. The game's story is excellent, but stories in adventure games are supposed to be the reward for solving the puzzles, they're not supposed to replace the puzzles completely.
Obviously phone games have to reach a more casual audience, but there still has to be some kind of challenge, otherwise it becomes very boring. This is especially important with adventure games, as they usually have little replay value once you've solved all the puzzles.
On the other hand, this game does show a lot of potential, and the next one might be a real corker.
So, Nokia, we would like a Dirk Dagger 2 from the same team, but with the level of user interaction turned up quite a few notches. Let the player try stuff out for themselves, explore a more freeform environment, and experiment with solutions instead of being driven from A to B with no choice. There needs to be less hand-holding and more puzzles to solve, with more details in the locations and more branches in the conversation trees. Increased use of mini-games might help matters too.
Incidentally, if you're interested in Dirk Dagger but put off by the limited gameplay life, try renting it with a day pass or week pass instead of a full purchase. Though it has quite a short shelf life, it's definitely worth playing at least once.
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