Discworld

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel series, but to be honest, the first time I heard of him and his work was when this game finally surfaced. Then a friend of mine turned me onto his books (his name is still in my prayers) and I got completely hooked.

Story

Those of you who've read some of the Discworld novels already know what (and where) the Discworld is so you don't require any introduction. Those who haven't, I'm sorry to say I won't be able to help here. You'll just have to read the books, 'cause frankly, I'm not good enough a writer to acquaint you with the place.

The story of the game is a mixup of several Discworld books, but the main theme comes from Guards! Guards!

On an otherwise peaceful night (as peaceful as could be hoped for in the Shades) a secret Brotherhood summons a dragon to take control of Ankh-Morpork and "dethrone" the Patrician. The spell works all too well and the dragon - not at all happy with the change of scenery - starts wreaking havoc on the city (while collecting a fair amount of treasure as well).

As the leader of the prestigious wizard school, the Unseen University, the Arch Chancellor feels it his civic duty to find the gold - I mean dragon - and by ridding the city of this critter, get all the gold - I mean glory - I mean respect, that he deserves. Naturally, a man in his position can't be expected to deal with every single little detail personally, such as finding and actually killing the dragon, so he sends out the University's "best man" for the job: Rincewind (that's us).

Opinion

This game - at least in my book - holds several records:
- Funniest adventure game ever
- Hardest adventure game ever
- Most bugs ever to be found in a computer game

A little explanation is probably due here. The 'funniest' and 'hardest' parts are easy to explain, the game is simply a collection of English humor such as you've never seen before nor are likely to again any time soon. Even the two sequels couldn't manage to come close to this first game in that respect. As for the game being hard, you'll have to play it to believe it. I have yet to see someone who was able to complete it without a walkthrough (at least in less than a year).

My ratings pretty much speak for themselves so instead of going on about the superb features of the game, I'll just quickly go over some of the not-so-superb ones. You could probably write a whole book of all the bugs in this game, but the most apparent ones include picking up objects that aren't there, not being able to pick up objects that are there, going through doors that are closed, opening doors that are already open, etc. Sound problems are also easy to find, for example Rincewind's voice (done by Eric Idle) sometimes changes and takes on somebody else's. But my personal favorite is the ending puzzle. Unfortunately, due to a programming error a piece of the final puzzle is missing and were it not for another bug (that let's you go through a sort of "closed door") you wouldn't be able to complete the game at all. I swear, there are so many bugs in this game, it is almost funny.

Anyway, admittedly, all these errors take a little bit away from the game, but at the end there's still plenty left. None of the bugs cause the game to crash and none of them prevent you from progressing in the story either, so there's no big harm done. Apart from these little 'mishaps', the game is perfect.