Hotel Dusk: Room 215: A Stay You Won't Want To Forget
slightly_insane
95% score
I love this game. Well, maybe "game" isn't exactly the right word; it's more of an interactive novel. Non-literary types need not apply, since there are mounds of text here. However, it's all filled to the brim with personality and humor, and that makes it all okay. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The story here is compelling and mysterious: you play as Kyle Hyde, a door-to-door salesman and ex-NYPD detective who quit when his partner, Bradley, turned rogue and Kyle shot him. Convinced that he's still alive, Kyle quit to go across the country and look for him, and the search leads to Hotel Dusk. There are a metric ton of shocking twists that I refuse to spoil; you just have to play the game. Let me move on to the graphics. Holding the DS on its side like a book (more on that later), the left screen shows a fairly detailed 3D first-person view, while the right shows a 2D map of the areas you're traveling in. The real kicker for the graphics are the character models. Remember the music video for A-Ha's "Take On Me", with the pencil-sketched characters? Well, the designers lifted that right out of the video and planted the style into the game. It's unique, cool, and fits in perfectly with the atmosphere. Color is used sparingly, if at all; mostly, the models are monochromatic, adding further to the game's atmosphere. The music also adds here. While the music wandering around the hotel is standard-issue elevator fare, when you get to the tenser situations, it really kicks it up a notch and fits the scene perfectly. The sound effects are average, but nothing to write home about. The real draw is the gameplay; like I said before, you hold the DS on its side like a book, which adds to the vibe considerably. Moreover, while the game is technically an "adventure game", the point-and-click side is considerably downplayed, and it never resembles a collection of interactive slides (Wazzup, Myst). Rather, there are puzzles, dialogue, and exploration in equal measure. Dusk also uses the DS in innovative ways: scribbling notes in your handwriting in the notepad, closing and opening the system to administer mouth-to-mouth, and using both hands to flip switches are a few that come to mind. However, it's not all wine and roses. At certain points in the game, you have to have some superhuman powers of logic or the patience to investigate nearly everything to find out what's next without going to look at a guide. However, these points are few and far between, and if you do figure it out by yourself, the rush of pride is rewarding enough. In conclusion, for all of its tiny faults, Hotel Dusk is a fantastic game that doesn't deserve to be passed up.
