City of the Daleks now (Not) available
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
The first in a series of 4 Doctor Who adventure games released by BBC for free is now available. Follow this link to download the game. Let us know what you think!
…And just like that, it turns out that the file was UK only, and was yanked down. False alarm, apparently.
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Turns out that if you live outside the UK, you will have to purchase the games. Yeah, I don’t think so, BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames/download/nonuk
But if you found out these were good, why not pay for them?
Because they were made as free games, look like crap, and are likely made for kids. However, nothing I’ve seen even remotely indicates that they would be close to “good”. Just the opposite, actually.
I’m not sure I would mind paying for these IF they came in one package for a decent price like $10 or something. That’s assuming the games are any good. I’ll have to ask a couple of my UK friends to see if they’re going to play these.
Seeing as I’m from the UK I thought I’d check this out for you guys and let you know my thoughts. Rather than posting a long review I’ll just list the pros and cons of the game in my opinion:
Pros:
-To me they succeeded in making a game that felt like playing through an episode of Doctor Who even up the the beginning and end credits which was nice and added to the feel.
-Great sound both music wise and the voice acting which was done by the main cast adding the authenticity factor.
-Interesting story which I enjoyed.
-For a free game the graphics are impressive.
-Enjoyable puzzles and pretty decent stealth play.
-Collectibles if you’re into that sort of thing and if you’re not you can just choose to ignore them.
Cons:
-Whilst the graphics are very good for a free game the faces can be a pit doll like which can be a bit creepy as sometimes they seem a bit soulless.
-Sometimes when interacting with objects instead of them doing things you get stupid facts, which I assume are aimed at adding a small education component for kids, which can detract from the TV episode feel, although this only happened a few times in my case.
-The main gameplay elements of puzzles and stealth while pretty decent are also very simple especially if you regularly play games.
-I also had some performance issues when lots was going on especially towards the end, although I should note that could have just been my computer.
-My biggest problem was the controls, which whilst very simple are in my opinion incredibly unresponsive and characters have a habit of getting stuck by tiny steps or bits of rubble. All in all I was more frustrated with the controls than content.
Overall it was an enjoyable hour and I think they achieved what they set out to do, which was to make a game that felt like being in a TV episode. If you can get it free and are a fan of Doctor Who, give it a go after all there’s no harm. Would I pay for it? Personally I probably wouldn’t have bothered if this was the case and of course this is all my personal opinion, which you may disagree.
I wasn’t expecting much since i’m not the biggest dr who fan and it being a free game but i wasn’t as bad as I thought it be.
Pros:
-Felt like an episode of the show which was the main thing going for it with intro and credits and the story was decent
-Sounds/voice acting all great
-random collectables that give information about characters
-Decent graphics
-When you restart from a death you’re pretty close to were you were before.
-Cutscene to gameplay ratio good. You’re not spending minutes waiting to play again or to get some more story.
Cons:
-When turning the graphics up all it seemed to do for me was make everything shiny, which was weird on some surfaces and things like skin. Seemed to take a lot to run for what it was too and was running quite hot
-Controls. Using a laptop didnt help but i’m sure they could of made it so i didnt have to click all the time when wasnting to pick up a collectable or talk to someone after finishing objective. Couldnt move camera easy which touchpad and having to crouch in stealth sections all the time didnt make sense. At times it was faster to be seen so that you could run.
-Fetching objectives not so fun and some puzzles repeatative. I like puzzles to break up the gameplay but some of them could of been more fun.
-Loading times longer than expected for the game but only about 3 in the game.
I wouldn’t pay for this game unless i was a big dr who fan, it was cheap and contained all the game episodes and not just one.
though sometimes there was lack of emotion in the voices for some scenes and not sure if it was me but they seemed to be talking slower and just a little off than if it was a TV episode.
I would pay for it as a Ipod game or cell phone game most games on my ipod are crap anyways
PS the link no longer works or is that the UK link only ???
Find a free UK web-proxy, then you can download the game for free. You need to still be using the proxy when you begin the install (on a Mac anyway) since the install program checks for it, but once its installed you can be non-UK and still play it.
It wasn’t a total waste of time, but it wasn’t worth paying for either.
Is this out for the US right now ?