Review: The Last Express
I’ve heard a lot of great things about The Last Express, and since it’s now available for purchase through several channels (it’s $ 5.99 at Good Old Games right now), I decided to give it a go. If you’re still on the fence, read on to find out if you should hop on that train or let it pass.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that this game is pretty dated by today’s standards. It was released in 1997, so if you expect spectacular 3D graphics, this game is not for you. But you probably wouldn’t be reading Cultural Zest if you were so shallow, would you now? Exactly.
So, now that we’ve established your exceptional taste, what can you expect? Well, for one, you can expect to see a beautiful game. The characters are all portrayed by real-life actors, whose images have been rotoscoped to give the game the appearance of an animation film. This works quite well in combination with the beautiful, atmospheric backgrounds. It is a shame that the characters often don’t move fluently (except in cutscenes), but at least that means there’s no worry about lip-syncing. This ensures we can get the best of both worlds: one actor provides the model for the character, another actor provides the voice.
Now, at this point it’s good to mention that this isn’t your ordinary game when it comes to voices. The Last Express takes place on the famous Orient Express, so you can expect to meet passengers from all sorts of countries… and they don’t all speak English. Among the languages are English, German, French, Russian, and even Arabic and Turkish. Fortunately, the main character understands the former four languages, so whenever you hear people speak in German, French, and Russian, you’ll see convenient subtitles appear (provided you’re close enough to overhear what they’re saying). This use of language really adds a lot to the realism of the game.
The main character, by the way, is a bit of an enigma. You control his actions, but that’s about the only thing you control. In contrast with most adventure games, you cannot choose what you say to other characters, so you don’t have any influence over the protagonist’s personality. This can take some getting used to, but ultimately it’s pretty cool how you slowly get to know this guy over the course of the game.
One of the most interesting aspects of this game is the way it uses time. The whole adventure takes place almost in real time – for purposes of playability it’s just sped up a bit. And this game mechanic is not just a gimmick; all the characters have their own schedules, enabling you to meet different characters and overhear different conversations during different times of day. This helps tremendously in giving the game world a very realistic feel, and one has to wonder why there haven’t been more games that use this mechanic – probably because it’s a lot of work to implement.
Because of this way of handling time though, sometimes you are waiting for an event to occur before you can continue, without knowing what it is. Yes, this is just like in the real world, but it would be nice if there was always something to do, if only eavesdropping (a very fun element of the game, even if it’s mostly just there to fill in some of the blanks in the game’s rather extensive backstory, that just begs to be discovered bit by bit).
And because of the ‘real-time’ nature of the game, you can take a different approach every time you play. This opens up the opportunity for revisiting bits and pieces of the game over and over again, which can be fun, but if you make a mistake and only find out when you die an in-game hour later (yes, you can die in this game) it’s a bit less fun. But most of the time it’s just a really clever mechanism.
If there’s anything really frustrating in the game, it’s probably the fighting. The fighting sequences use a sort of quick time event mechanism, which makes it pretty invigorating, but at the same time annoying if you don’t get your clicks just right. For a game that’s focused so heavily on story, it could have done without the fighting.
Overall though, this game is just a masterpiece. The unique universe that is the Orient Express has been meticulously recreated, and packaged in beautiful art, music, writing and acting. An added bonus is the way in which the game interweaves its own story into the larger background of Europe’s coming of age, which, as we all know, has been a very painful process. If you want a game that challenges your intellect, this is it.
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Been meaning to play this soon, can’t wait.
I love this game and as I don’t own it – only played it – I got myself the GOG version.
I still remember how the richness of different languages and cultures blew me away already in the demo. A truly delightful and educational journey by train – never mind the murders, bombs and terrorists.