Discworld

"A Hilarious Point and Click"

First of all, I would like to say Terry Pratchett is a genius. He is the author of the Discworld series, which this game is based of and his satirical wit is unmatched. This game does not follow any one of the books, but takes ideas and characters from several of the novels to create a new story. The Discworld like its name suggests is a disc shaped world, which is on the back of four giant elephants, which stand on a turtle named A’tuin who swims around space. Sound absurd? Well this is only the start of the eccentricities of the Discworld

You take the role of Rincewind, an incompetent wizard who makes an unlikely hero. By combining items and doing the most unlikely things, Rincewind must rid the town of a dragon.

Gameplay is very simple and easy to pick up. Much like other adventure games, the controls compose of walking around the screen, talking to people, picking up items and using items with everyone and everything. It is the point and click system, you point where you want Rincewind to go and he will go there. It is very easy to pick, even if you are new to Adventure games. The difficulty of this game is high. Because of the complex nature and absurdity of some of the puzzles it is often near impossible to work out what must be done next to progress through the story. However daunting this may sound it is worth the effort.

The story is one of the high points of the game. It is not complicated, with lots of huge plot twists and yet it is still compelling. Because of the nature of the game, the story does not move fast as a lot of time is needed to get everything done and speak to all of the characters. The dialogues between Rincewind and the other characters are very funny and there are many small references to the books, scattered about, like small messages on notice boards that can be read.

The graphics are not bad for an early playstation release. All of the drawings are comical cartoons and this fits well with the tone of the game. There are a few slowdowns when too much is happening on the screen and sometimes the characters seem to be fumbling, as it is not clear what they are doing. The sound is very mixed. Most of the voice acting is well done, however the repetition of minor character voices is very obvious and becomes slightly redundant. The music and background noises are what you would call pleasant. At the time they are enjoyable, but none of the music is particularly memorable.

Like most adventure games Discworld does not have a whole lot of replay value. The fun lies in working out what you have to do next, and so knowing, makes the game too easy and so boring.

Overall I would recommend this game to everyone especially if you are already a Discworld fan. You will not be disappointed with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/04