In 2000, well after the dawn of adventure gaming in the middle of the 90's, Developer Funcom went for an imposible task: Making an old-school adventure game while everyone was busy blowing stuff up or commanding large army forces. The result is a work of art.

The Longest Journey has everything you could ask of an adventure game, and then some more. It is considered to be one of the first "Modern" adventure games. Modern in a way that its narrative is much more advanced, its characters much more lifelike than the ones you find in most games in general. The key here, I think, is the way the story goes - you get to know April Ryan, you get to know her friends, you get to read her diary and learn about her past. I wonder why so few games care or even try to develop a bond between you the player and the character you play. This was done to perfection in TLJ.

To sum it up, TLJ is an amazing (and very long!) story, with plenty of twists and turns till the very end, excellent graphics, wonderful voice acting, and very important - great, deep and REAL characters - you'll never feel you're dealing with a cardboard characters here. Just as the original HOTU review says, very soon you'll start to like and care for April and her friends.

Note that this game isn't considered abandonware, and you can get it at a bargain price using Steam. Also, check out its amazing sequel, Dreamfall.