Thursday, February 08, 2007
Hotel Dusk - No replacement for real literature
I have to admit, when I first started playing Hotel Dusk I was completely engrossed. I love games and I love books. How could I not love Hotel Dusk? For all intents and purposes, this is not a video game at all. It's much more akin to an interactive novel. There are a few rudimentary puzzles sprinkled throughout and the occasional interrogation sequences in which a wrong questioned will elicit an abrupt Game Over, but the vast majority of this adventure is just a straight forward narrative. Unfortunately, I cannot actually review this game without sounding pretentious. You see, Hotel Dusk is a game for people who are ashamed of playing games. It is for people who want to appear well-read while still actively avoiding actual novels. The few pieces of gameplay scattered throughout are not strong enough to make this a worthwhile video game, and the story is so insultingly slow and predictable you will not be able to pass this off as an alternative to literature either. I am not sure why this game is garnering so much positive attention, but I seriously fear for the future of our generation, the one's who so love video games, if Hotel Dusk is noted for strong characters and a gripping story. As I stand up straight and hold my pretentious chin level with the ground, I have to yell, "Read a damn book!" Hotel Dusk just makes me sad.
Do you remember my long rant about Marvel: Ultimate Alliance? Nick had already critiqued the abysmal gameplay a week earlier, so I had to settle for deconstructing one of the worst stories in comic game history. My biggest complaint was the forced inclusion of every conceivable character from the Marvel universe. They spent more time explaining how every character tied in to the larger story, trying desperately to convince gamers of their relevance, and very little time actually developing a worthwhile plot or adequate motivations. Why do I bring this up now? Hotel Dusk forms its story in the exact same manner.
You play as Kyle Hyde, an ex-cop turned door-to-door salesman who can't quite give up the badge life. Your boss hired you for a good reason, and it has nothing to do with the adhesive remover or portable sewing machine in your briefcase. The business behind the facade of the salesman business is actually about finding lost items for desperate individuals. You find yourself in this out of the way hotel, picking up items for a client who has not revealed himself, while you try to solve a mystery that forced you to leave the force in the first place. The hotel is filled with the requisite number of seemingly random loonies, though they all end up having a strong relationship to each other. Surprise surprise. You mean the writer has a secret? The owner of the hotel is more than he seems? And don't forget about the bell boy. I know I've seen him before.
The problem? None of these characters are particularly compelling. While that assessment is completely subjective, I had one issue with the script that cannot be denied: the pacing is impossibly slow. You will spend hours upon hours playing this game before any detail, even the most banal detail, is revealed. This is not entertaining. But the time some of the juicy ideas are surfacing during the latter chapters, the drudge of a story had piled so high upon my back I didn't even care anymore. Twists are only successful if the reader is deeply interested in the plot and characters. By artificially extending every detail to ridiculous proportions, the game eschews any sense of tension and just creates suffocating boredom. By the time the conclusion was playing out, I was frantically tapping the screen in an attempt to make the credits roll sooner.
Do you remember reading an awful book for school? Maybe you had to read The Pearl or The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. You know how tedious those are to go through? Hotel Dusk is much, much worse. You are forced to read at a ridiculously slow speed because the game truly was made for morons. You have to solve pointless puzzles that, like the abrupt end to every conversation just when it begins to get interesting, are only implemented to extend the life of this drab experience. Worst of all, you have to go through every second of this game. You can't flip forward a couple chapters or peruse SparkNotes. It's just bone numbing boredom until the game wraps things up in an untidy bow.
If Hotel Dusk was a novel, an actual novel written for adults, it would never have been published. Why would I want to waste my time reading a story that isn't good enough for print when there is not one ounce of gameplay to pad the experience? I wouldn't, and I hope you heed my advice. If you want an interesting story on your NDS, just play Phoenix Wright. If you crave mystery, pick up a Raymond Chandler novel. Either way, stay far, far away from Hotel Dusk.
Do you remember my long rant about Marvel: Ultimate Alliance? Nick had already critiqued the abysmal gameplay a week earlier, so I had to settle for deconstructing one of the worst stories in comic game history. My biggest complaint was the forced inclusion of every conceivable character from the Marvel universe. They spent more time explaining how every character tied in to the larger story, trying desperately to convince gamers of their relevance, and very little time actually developing a worthwhile plot or adequate motivations. Why do I bring this up now? Hotel Dusk forms its story in the exact same manner.
You play as Kyle Hyde, an ex-cop turned door-to-door salesman who can't quite give up the badge life. Your boss hired you for a good reason, and it has nothing to do with the adhesive remover or portable sewing machine in your briefcase. The business behind the facade of the salesman business is actually about finding lost items for desperate individuals. You find yourself in this out of the way hotel, picking up items for a client who has not revealed himself, while you try to solve a mystery that forced you to leave the force in the first place. The hotel is filled with the requisite number of seemingly random loonies, though they all end up having a strong relationship to each other. Surprise surprise. You mean the writer has a secret? The owner of the hotel is more than he seems? And don't forget about the bell boy. I know I've seen him before.
The problem? None of these characters are particularly compelling. While that assessment is completely subjective, I had one issue with the script that cannot be denied: the pacing is impossibly slow. You will spend hours upon hours playing this game before any detail, even the most banal detail, is revealed. This is not entertaining. But the time some of the juicy ideas are surfacing during the latter chapters, the drudge of a story had piled so high upon my back I didn't even care anymore. Twists are only successful if the reader is deeply interested in the plot and characters. By artificially extending every detail to ridiculous proportions, the game eschews any sense of tension and just creates suffocating boredom. By the time the conclusion was playing out, I was frantically tapping the screen in an attempt to make the credits roll sooner.
Do you remember reading an awful book for school? Maybe you had to read The Pearl or The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. You know how tedious those are to go through? Hotel Dusk is much, much worse. You are forced to read at a ridiculously slow speed because the game truly was made for morons. You have to solve pointless puzzles that, like the abrupt end to every conversation just when it begins to get interesting, are only implemented to extend the life of this drab experience. Worst of all, you have to go through every second of this game. You can't flip forward a couple chapters or peruse SparkNotes. It's just bone numbing boredom until the game wraps things up in an untidy bow.
If Hotel Dusk was a novel, an actual novel written for adults, it would never have been published. Why would I want to waste my time reading a story that isn't good enough for print when there is not one ounce of gameplay to pad the experience? I wouldn't, and I hope you heed my advice. If you want an interesting story on your NDS, just play Phoenix Wright. If you crave mystery, pick up a Raymond Chandler novel. Either way, stay far, far away from Hotel Dusk.
// posted by Tom @ 5:37 PM 
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