Parents' Guide to Dream

Have you ever had one of those moments where you wake up from a deep sleep with an overwhelming feeling of confusion, trying your hardest to make sense of the dream you were just having? That feeling pretty much sums up Dream. The game is an oddly disjointed, abstract mess with no real direction. On the upside, it's a gorgeous-looking abstract mess with a fantastically haunting score. It's not exaggeration to say that Dream is one of the best-looking and -sounding indie games in recent memory. If only the gameplay measured up to the presentation.

One of the game's selling points is its nonlinear story and gameplay. The problem with this is it basically leaves the player stranded, akin to dumping him or her blindfolded in a desert with no compass and saying, "Figure it out." You'll spend most of your time wandering aimlessly and hoping the cursor happens to run across something to interact with. Even when you do find something, there's usually no indication as to whether or not what you've found has any real relevance to the overall story. Since the game doesn't follow any specific time line, even when you do come across something relevant, you'll have to figure out where (and when) it fits into the tapestry of Howard's mind. As in many real-life dreams, Dream is an experience whose concept is hard to grasp and harder to remember.