Developed by Darkling Room and published by Iceberg Interactive, the third installment in one of the most frightening volume in acclaimed British Dark Fall series. The game story is written by Johnathan Boakes, who has written also the Lost Crown, the second installment of the series. Darkling Room delivered a very solid point and click first person adventure game which sticks out from the huge budget AA games... having a great story that gives you a guarantee that the storyline was written with dedication and passion, the kind of story which is effective and clear.

Although Lost Souls is the third installment from the Dark Fall series, it stands on its own and you will surely go through the story just fine without having to play the previous two titles. You play the part of a disgraced officer referred as 'The Inspector' who has failed to find a young girl named Amy who was abducted years earlier. He returns to the train station and hotel which were abandoned since World War 2 armed with his determination to find the girl and haunted by his failure. As this wasn't enough, The Inspector is also haunted by the spirits which roam the place and from the ghost of Amy which apart from giving you the creeps with her spooky voice gives The Inspector clues and advice.

As you play along, the story and the truth will be unfolded to you and you will learn the story behind the key characters of the game which are The Inspector, Amy and Mr. Bones... along with the disappearance of Amy.

You start off with a black screen, but do not think you have any problems with your computer. As a hint for the first timers, just use the mobile phone and switch on the flash light to start your adventure back into the haunted train station and hotel of Dowerton. You will get advice and some clues with text messages from an unknown person called Echo which will help you understand what is going on. Also you will find fragments from news papers which you combine together to give you a better idea of the area you are exploring and what happened in that space.

The game graphics are situated into a dark area and the fact that this is a horror adventure the key of success is the sound and environmental surroundings. In fact, the sounds of the game where well designed and placed, delivering a clever storytelling and a thrill here and there... just enough to keep you stuck to the story and not much to prevent from you losing interest in the game. Let's just say the spooky ratio is at the right level. You will periodically hear the voice of Amy giggling behind you or hearing a moan round a corner. The best thing in the game which Boakes has thought and implemented very well is the horror of the game. When one talks about a horror game, one will always assume to see horrible zombies, scary monsters and blood covered ghosts... which is something well expected in a horror movie/ game, but in this game the author uses something else to scare your spine. The game evolves on spooky sounds and uses what you cannot see which scares you even more. The use of the sounds in the game gives a much more active world and brings the abandoned Dowerton train station to live.

The game is not recommended to everyone since it's a different genre than your usual action/ adventure game where the game features a number of puzzles with obscure solutions. The game lacks animation in many areas, but compensates well with sounds which do the right trick. The game difficulty is quite high and you need to use all your investigative skills to get past some spaces (which makes the game more interesting in my opinion). The creepy noises and moans are very realistic, especially the voice of Amy which gives you the most creeps, but the voice of the Inspector would have needed some more polishing.

Conclusion

Dark Fall: Lost Souls is a great stand alone horror adventure from the pen of Johnathan Boakes. It's not your usual super graphics genre game, but it surely sticks out in gaming scene. The storyline is well built and created to the top perfection. The spookiness of the game is to the right level and it will be a great collection to the horror adventure fans. The game lacks a bit of animation and the voice of the Inspector needed some more polishing, but it greatly compensated by the environment sounds and spooky voices in the areas.