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City of Lost Children

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In Brief:
Incomprehensibly awful game, although it's visually nice.
Puzzle Quality: sucks Visuals: great Difficulty: absurd
Dramatic Effectiveness: weak Ease of Interface: tolerable
When I come across a new game site, I try and get a sense of the quality of the reviews by looking up some of my favorite and least favorite games. If a game review of City of Lost Children doesn't say that it's the most godawful game they've ever played then I must look askance at their whole enterprise.

The City of Lost Children is an amazing French movie (usually a contradiction in terms) about a man who can't dream who tries to steal the dreams of children. It is visually stunning, and the game of the movie is also beautiful, as you guide a pretty young girl around the docks and beautifully decayed buildings of some big city. If all you needed to make a good adventure game was set design then this would be one of the greats.

If you need decent puzzles then it's another matter entirely.

Virtually none of the puzzles in this game are solvable by logic, deduction or common sense. As I worked my way through a walkthrough I saw that almost every puzzle could only be solved by trial and error; trying everything in your inventory with everything in your environment. I'm amazed that anyone ever bothered to play through the whole game, but someone must have because someone had to write the walkthrough.

Bad game. If you ever meet anyone who enjoyed playing it then shun them. They must not be right in the head.

-- Charles Herold -1997