We all know Grim Fandango. The adventure game that didn't sell well, even tough its the greatest achievement in Videogaming history. Storywise, at least. The noir take on the land of the dead became a cult classic. By now, most people know about it, or at least know that they should play it. Released in 1998, it was the last good game of the great adventure era.

Except it wasn't. Ok it was for lucasarts, but shh. Be a sport and keep reading.



Enter Discworld Noir. A... well, noir adventure game released in the year 1999 for the PC, later ported to the Playstation in 2000. Altough it's based on the Discworld book series by Terry Pratchet, it features an original story not present in any of the books, a superb story full of references to the 1940-1950's noir film period (particulary Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, among others), great characters, amazing dialogues, coupled with solid, but standard point and click gameplay. This is the Grim Fandango nobody mentions. The forgotten adventure game.

I should tell you right now that i am absolutely clueless about the Discworld lore. The books and both previous games have eluded me completely. Where and how does this game fit in the complete storyline is unknown to me. But it doesn't matter, since, like i said, it's pretty much a stand alone story.

We play as Lewton, a witty hard-boiled private investigator with little work or money. Like the good noir character he is, he constantly narrates what's on his mind. He's living in Ankh-Morpork, the biggest city in the Discworld, and also the worst possible place to call home. It's a heavily polluted, dark alley filled and crime-riddled city. There's even an assasin guild somewhere. But hey, you gotta love it. It's the perfect setting for a noir story, after all. The game begins with a cutscene, in wich we see Lewton being chased and murdered by an unknown assailant. Luckily for us, he soon rises from the grave. He's later hired, in typical noir detective fashion, by a beautiful woman who wants to find her lover. It's the beggining of a great story, filled with murder, mysteries, old friends, an old love and lots of ... just plain weird people.

Visually, the game presents prerendered backrounds and characters, Lewton being the only one with 3 dimensions. It's dated, to say the least. The backround looks good, dark, but good, and the characters are not well animated. But it's really the only issue i have with the game, the only thing that might put some of you away. The gameplay features a typical adventure point and click interface: items to collect and use, characters to interact with and places to go. One original and noteworthy aspect to mention is that as a private investigator, you have access to a notepad, where all characters and clues are scribbled by Lewton himself. You get to make deductions yourself, crosschecking characters, places, items, etc, even use its contents to interrogate people, trying to solve the ever complicating case. Later in the game you gain access to a new ability, wich i don't want to spoil.

But most important of all, the thing i love the most about it, is that every character and every line in the game is fully voiced and really well delivered. Much like Grim Fandango, the dialogue is witty, charming and consistenly funny. For example, Lewtons crosses with his old love Ilsa, the talk you have with Death, the big watchman on the pier who refuses to help, the captain of the Milka, the pianist in the bar ... these are just a few of the very memorable dialogues you can find.

I'll let the game speak for itself. The first 10 minutes of the PC version:



Actually, you can watch most of the game on youtube.

So what's the problem? Why is the game so unknown?

Well, as far as i understand, the game never got a worldwide release. Apparently the company who made the thing got into monetary trouble after court disputes over contracts with Psygnosis, all in the same year DW:Noir got released. After that the company disolved, and the game never made it out of Europe.

Even though it's already hard enough to find it, the newer PC OS do not get along too well with old games. While there are ways to get it working, the computer illiterate will want nothing to do with the procedure as it involves changing windows registry keys. The Playstation version, the one i played years ago, works fine.

And there you have it. The most obscure adventure game i have ever played. If you care for something a la Grim Fandango, look no further. This is as close as it gets.