Weird Dreams is a great concept with
poor execution. Your character is in a coma, and you play
his surreal dream, trying to wake up. The graphics in
Weird Dreams are great. The frame rate
is a little low, but one could argue this adds to the
game's dream like feel. The imagery is suitably bizarre
and creepy; from giant bees to man-eating soccer balls.
And the music and minimal sound effects complement the
mood nicely.
Weird Dreams is similar to Dragon's
Lair or Out of This World in
that you have to figure out what to do on each screen,
then move on to the next. Where the game suffers is in
poor control and collision detection. With many frames
of animation, your character often responds too slowly.
Even if you know exactly what to do, you have about a
50-50 shot at getting through each screen. With only five
lives you'll need to use the S.O.S. cheat code (see to
the right) to get very far.
Weird Dreams came with a novella setting
up the game's plot as well as a hint book. I wanted to
give the game high marks for its great concept and atmosphere,
but considering you'll have to cheat to get very far,
I can only cautiously recommend it.
2008 ben langberg, all rights reserved.