Ever had a dream that you couldn't wake up from? Probably not, or you wouldn't be here, reading this review! This is a problem that our heroine Zoe Castillo has, however - at least, she thinks it's a dream. But, as you'll soon learn, very little in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is exactly as it first appears…

It's hard to know exactly where to start with Dreamfall - typically in a review you introduce the game, as I have just done, and then you go on to give a basic synopsis of the storyline; yet to do that for Dreamfall would a) be impossible and b) spoil everything. Still, I have to tell you something about it, so I'll begin (almost) at the beginning, which is also (sort of) at the end. Not the very beginning though - that's at the very end! Cryptic enough for you?

Our story begins (almost begins) with Zoe Castillo. She's lying in bed in a coma and she's probably going to die. Yet somehow her spirit, her soul, her consciousness - whatever you want to call it - is alive and well, and determined to tell her story, just in case someone hears her and is able to help. So she takes us back to the beginning (at least of her tale), which is in Stark. This is the world of science and technology, planet Earth in fact, just by another name. It's a futuristic world and ten years have passed since the cataclysmic event known as The Collapse, which no one really understands. Still, things have gone back to normal since those dark times when technology didn't work, although things feel very 'big brother', what with the Wire, an evolved version of wireless technology that allows the powers that be to track anyone's location and listen in to their phone calls, or watch their computer access.

Zoe's day begins like any other has lately; killing time in bed, watching TV. However, something strange flashes across the screen - an ominous, tall, dark house on an icy landscape, where a little girl seems to talk directly to Zoe. Dismissing it as some sort of clever viral ad, Zoe heads out to the gym - but not before spending a bit of time with Wonkers, her pink toy monkey who's an intelligent robot with a personality (very reminiscent of Teddy from A.I., and voiced by the guy who played Teddy, Jack Angel). Wonkers is a very sweet and attentive companion, and it warms your heart just to talk to him! It quickly becomes apparent that life isn't going so well for Zoe - she dropped out of her studies, broken up with her boyfriend and has been moping around the house feeling depressed for a while now. She's lost her direction and is stuck in a rut. I'm sure plenty of people will think she should get a grip or pull herself together, but I could really relate to her character and they actually portrayed her as someone with mild depression very convincingly.

As she goes about her day, dropping in on her friend Olivia, who's a bit of a tech whiz and runs a shop near Zoe's house, before heading to the gym for some martial arts training, Zoe keeps seeing messages on live TV screens from this strange little girl, who addresses her by name - "Find her," she says. "Save her." "Who? Who does she want me to save?" wonders Zoe. "Find April Ryan. Save her!" By now Zoe realises that this isn't just another viral ad, but before she can give it much thought, her ex-boyfriend, Reza, needs her to do him a quick favour. He's a journalist working on a big story and he asks Zoe to pick up a package for him.

Zoe agrees to help Reza and this is the moment of truth, the one decision that starts her on the roller coaster adventure of a lifetime, an adventure that, if we are to believe her narrative, will eventually lead to that comatose body in a bed. Her errand to pick up the package is the first step on a journey that will lead Zoe into the deepest, darkest conspiracies of Stark and take her even further - to the land of Arcadia, the twin world of Stark, the magical counterpart to Stark's science-based reality. It is here that she will meet April Ryan, who is on a journey of her own, and whose adventure you will have a hand in unfolding too. The third playable character (fourth, technically!) comes in the form of an Apostle of the Azadi, a fearsome enemy made up of religious zealots who are intent on forcing their religion on everyone else - and anyone who will not accept their beliefs, or who is in any way different to the norm, will be wiped out. Sound familiar? No, not Nazis, try something more… current. I'd better not say any more, don't want to have people burning effigies of me in the streets! Ooh… political!

Before I delve any more into the game (and believe me when I say that the description above doesn't even find the surface, let alone scratch it), I would highly recommend to everyone that you pick up an old PC game called The Longest Journey. I haven't played it myself - but I'm getting a new PC soon (one with more than 200MB of free disk space!!) and believe you me, the first game I will be buying is that one. Dreamfall is a sequel, you see, and while you don't have to have played TLJ to understand Dreamfall, there's no question that it will help! Many characters from the original, including the first game's two main stars, Brian Westhouse and April Ryan, find their roles reprised here, as well as races like the Dark People and characters including the White of the Driac Kin and even April's nemesis, who turns up in the most unexpected fashion! Indeed, for a very dramatic and generally serious game there's a fair amount of humour in places and it's all done in such a way as to make you laugh without trivialising the story. I've deliberately left out one very popular character from TLJ, because if you don't know he's in it already, I don't want to be the one spoiling the surprise!

And speaking of surprises, it's fair to say that I don't think I've ever played a game that consistently surprises you as much as this one does - there aren't many times when you see something coming, and even when you do, it never unfolds quite the way you were expecting. Indeed, the story is far and away the best story ever to be told in a game. It eclipses everything that has gone before. I would say that Dreamfall is very much like an interactive movie - but that isn't quite true, because it's far longer than a movie could ever be, far more in depth and far more detailed. It's like an interactive epic sci-fi/fantasy novel that's been made into an unabridged, impossibly long movie. That's what it's like - and as such it's utterly enchanting to play, sucking you in like a game has never sucked you into a story before.

However, this is where I'm going to give you the first of two warnings - this really is like an interactive unabridged movie, with more emphasis on 'movie' than 'interactive'. You see, there are many, many, many cut scenes, and many of these cut scenes are several minutes long, and you can't skip any of them - although it would be pointless to play if you intended to skip the cut scenes, because you won't have a clue what the hell's going on (indeed, even if you hang attentively on every word you'll still only have half a clue!) So, if you are the sort of person who just wants to play and you skip cut scenes at every opportunity, then this game isn't for you. However, even for impatient gamers of this type, if anyone reading this review enjoys getting into a really great book, or film, and loves being sucked into the narrative and spellbound until the last page turns or the credits roll, then you simply must buy Dreamfall. Don't rent it - buy it, because firstly this game deserves your support, and secondly, you'll want to play through it again.

So, why is it more like a book/film than a game? For starters, there's the presentation. Dreamfall creates a fully 3D, utterly absorbing, luscious world for us to explore, with so many different areas and environments that I couldn't list them all even if I tried. Within Stark you'll visit several countries, infiltrate secure installations and sneak around on missions of vital importance - and when you end up in a massive office complex you'll get the first real WTF moment, where you go through a door and what lies beyond it makes you go "What the f…" Within Arcadia you'll explore ancient underground ruins, the bustling city of Marcuria and several other locations and realms, the nature of which I'm loathe to give away - all of these with more facets to them than you will at first realise. Every location is stunningly rendered and absolutely teeming with detail; stop outside Friar's Keep for a moment and take in the sweeping view of the city. Later on, look at the way the setting sun illuminates the marshes you're in and shines in your eyes just as it would in real life. Marvel at the consistency and detail of the two realms and their inhabitants. The one big drawback of the graphics is that the Xbox is struggling to handle them - the screen refresh rate can be quite shaky, causing a distracting ripple effect when you scroll around. You get used to it after a while, but it's a shame things couldn't have been smoother.

I will say that there aren't as many people as I would have liked, meaning that at times these bustling locations don't feel that busy, but you can examine and talk to almost everyone, and the ambient buzz of chatter adds a lot to the atmosphere - indeed, every aspect of the sound adds to the experience. All the sound effects are well placed, fitting to their surroundings and realistic, while the musical score is nothing short of astonishing - with a number of grand, sweeping themes for the epic locations in Arcadia to the tension building rhythms during stealth missions, the emotional songs with vocals when you're travelling and during other key moments of the game, to the slow, mournful themes as events take a turn for the worst (and this game had me shedding a couple of tears at one point, something that I don't recall a game ever managing before), the music is an absolute triumph. Then there's the voice acting.

Early on, the voice acting can feel a little bit forced and unnatural - but that's before you get into the rhythm of it, because in actual fact all the dialogue is far more down to earth and natural than the dialogue you usually find in TV and film that's scripted for enhanced dramatic value. That's not to say that there's no drama here - there's loads, and issues that crop up include freedom of speech, religious wars, slavery, occupation, depression, corporate greed, the eternal struggle between good and evil, and much more - yet the dialogue is very much like the things you would actually say in real life when encountering such situations. People speak their minds and they speak passionately from the heart. They mention matter of fact details, they chat about trivia, they say all the things that people say in real life. And once you start to get to grips with that you realise just how awesome the voice acting is - there's masses of it too, hours of voice acting (every word is spoken, bar the text messages you receive on your mobile phone), even when you examine something and get a description. As the story progresses the characters truly come to life, and you find yourself really caring about Zoe, April, Kian, Brian, Benrime, Brynn, even the White Dragon, and many of the other characters, more and more, to the point that when bad things happen you really care - and the final events of the game are really hard hitting.

Which brings me to my second warning - the ending. I didn't actually feel the same sense of being cheated that cliffhanger endings usually bring (yes my beloved Halo 2, I'm looking at you!) and I think this is simply because the ending was so phenomenally written and built up so well with so many pivotal events. It's one of those endings that leaves more questions than answers (Yes Lost, I'm looking at you!) It only really ties up one plot thread and leaves the fate of all the main characters well and truly up in the air (dead, dying, soon to die, treacherous or subverted…) as well as leaving many other threads completely unresolved. This isn't a complete story - it's the second part of an even greater tale. Now, I must stress that you should not let this put you off playing Dreamfall - please don't let it put you off, because it's such a wonderful experience, like nothing else you've played, not even other adventure games. You'll survive the cliffhanger and we need to make sure this game sells so that we can get the sequel and find out what happens next! However, I couldn't in good conscience recommend it without warning you. So play the game and just be prepared for it to end when you least want it to. That's good though, right? Isn't that a golden rule of writing? Always leave the audience wanting more… Actually, the real golden rule is "Always give a sense of resolution while leaving the audience wanting more," but let's not split hairs!

Would you believe it? Over two thousand words in and nothing on the gameplay! Well, this is actually a game that you watch more than play, but there is still plenty to do in between those cut scenes. Each area consists of a series of tasks and puzzles, some of which require you to fight! Unfortunately the fighting system is truly pitiful and a complete waste of time. Fortunately you don't have to fight very often, so it just doesn't matter. If they can integrate fighting into the sequel with a decent engine then that'll be great - but this time around they might as well not have bothered. Block, hit, heavy hit, that's it, no target lock, no enemy AI, just you and them hitting/blocking until someone's energy bar runs out. That's the low point for the gameplay though - the rest is great! There're a few nice stealth moments where you have to sneak around, hiding from guards or automated patrol droids, which leads to some pretty tense moments at times, as discovery could mean serious trouble, or even instant death.

Other than that, it's all about solving puzzles - there's not much exploration to be done, beyond searching an area for items, and even then there's never a single instance where you miss an object and have to backtrack to find it (if you're stuck you're not missing an object, you're missing the point!). Examining your 3D world, discovering objects, figuring out how to use those objects, or combine them with others, to progress beyond locked doors, or find alternative routes via windows, ladders, vents and crates - this is the sort of thing you do. Sometimes you have to fetch something so that someone will help you. You're given clues as to what to do at times, but not necessarily how to do it, leaving you to do the thinking, and the puzzles are almost always well balanced enough to give you satisfaction for solving them without feeling like they were too obvious or without causing you to get totally stuck. There's only one puzzle in the whole game that, for me, really sucked, and if I hadn't happened to have saved the game before I arrived in that area I'd have had to look up the solution on the Internet, or start again. So I'll give you one little hint: when you first fall through the ice, listen very carefully to the recurring theme in the music - because you'll soon need it!

The final element to the gameplay is mini-games that are a fun distraction but nothing revolutionary, which you use when hacking technology. One gives you a grid full of similar-looking symbols and you have a limited time to match up the sequence of symbols in the bottom panel by finding and selecting them on the grid. The second is a cool rotating puzzle where must match the four symbols above and below four circles, by turning them to move and exchange the symbols within the circles. Neither is taxing, but both are a nice distraction for a couple of minutes. It's a reasonable mix and while there isn't as much interaction as you might be used to, that really doesn't matter, because this is one game that really is all about the story - it feels to me like the first true attempt to turn a book into a game, and on that level it works perfectly.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is an epic, sweeping, grand adventure game that will take you across parallel worlds and to the gaps in between, weaving several destinies together as events spiral towards potential calamity. It's an interactive story in the truest sense and as such the gameplay is secondary - although there is enough to do between cut scenes, with the usual puzzle solving, exploration, sneaking, mini-games and even a bit of combat. However, when you factor in the stunning graphics, wonderful musical theme and first class voice acting, you'll realise that the gameplay should be secondary - this is first and foremost about telling a tale and as such you feel like a book has loaded itself into your Xbox. I applaud Funcom for releasing this wonderful PC adventure on Xbox and I encourage everyone to go out and buy it, because innovative, compelling games like this deserve to be every bit as successful as the next big shooter or racing game. I just hope this is the start of a new trend for PC adventure games to make the leap to consoles and with Xbox 360 leading the way with next generation power that makes this more than possible, perhaps it will begin to happen. Regardless of what systems it comes out for, I for one will be there on release day when the third game in this magnificent series hits the shelves.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).