[AnneS]

After many crashes I reached the end of Act I. (Fortunately the crashes were predictable - they occurred every time I traveled to a new location, so saving before they occurred was easy.)

So far, I'm enjoying it more than I remember doing in 1999, but I do have one major reservation.

The writing is engaging and the dialogue is excellent, and very Pratchettian (Prattchetesque?), which is not surprising since he rewrote parts of it. The atmosphere is closer to the Watch novels like Feet of Clay and Night Watch than the Rincewind books the earlier games were loosely based on, which is no bad thing. The plot is interesting, and after thirteen years I have forgotten enough of what happens that I'm looking forward to the twists.

However, I do have one problem with the game so far: it has no significant puzzles.

That's a bold statement, so let me explain what I mean. I'm not saying a game needs to have brain-bogglingly illogical inventory puzzles like the first two Discworld games in order to be a proper adventure. The issue is that I've found no meaningful challenge in any of the gameplay. So far every problem has the same solution, which is 'talk to every character about every subject.' Due to the good dialogue this is perfectly entertaining, but it's not exactly stretching my intellect. The few inventory puzzles thus far are so basic as to be meaningless. (Did anyone have trouble working out that you need to use the SPOILER on the SPOILER to get onto the ship? Or the SPOILER on the SPOILER to get into the warehouse?)

I'm not usually inclined to complain that games are too easy (I thought Grey Matter's challenge level was perfectly calibrated, for example) but I do expect it to be possible to get something wrong and have to try something else. So far that has not happened to me in Discworld Noir.