Adventure games tend to be few and far between, and good ones are even fewer and further than that. Because of the rarity of the adventure game, fans of the genre tend to stick to the net and watch diligently for new titles to show up. What came was a wonderful surprise. A game billed as Fahrenheit popped up over the Internet. The game was not only an adventure game, it added an additional twist of allowing you to play as three different characters and even had a branching storyline based on decisions the player made. The demo whetted the appetite and promised a decent title. Somewhere along the line, the name was changed to Indigo Prophecy in the United States, because it was rumored that it would be in a copyright confliction with Michael Moore's mockumentary/documentary (depending on which end of the political spectrum you stand) Fahrenheit 9/11.
The story starts off with Lucas Kane sitting in a bathroom stall. He is clearly being controlled by an ethereal force. He carved his arms with strange symbols and was controlled like a puppet to murder a random guy in the bathroom of a diner. Lucas comes to and has to make decisions about what to do. The game also lets you play as Carla Valenti, a workaholic NYPD officer, and her partner Tyler Miles, a street thug turned wisecracking cop. The story develops with Lucas trying to discover what had happened that night at the diner all the while trying to stay a step ahead of Carla and Tyler, who are vigorously searching for the mystery murderer.
Indigo Prophecy begins by offering a mini-tutorial on how to move your character. As I tend to not like reading instruction manuals, I picked this option. The controls turned out to be very intuitive and easy to master. The game is presented in a third person aspect and the character moves pretty fluidly on a player-centric field. (This means that when you move the stick to the right, the character moves right, press up and the character moves away from the player, etc.) Basically, the game developers avoided using the Resident Evil movement model and saved everyone a lot of heartache. Occasionally, the camera will change and throw your movement off. Thankfully, throughout most of the game this is only a minor annoyance, though there is one part of the game where the unfortunate camera shift will cause your character to die, and thus forcing you to start over from the last save point.
What sets Indigo Prophecy's control scheme apart from other adventure games is how the player interacts with the world. When you move near an object, like a door, or a bottle of gin, an indicator appears at the top of the screen. The indicator directs you to move your right analog joystick in a particular direction or motion to take the corresponding action. This is a very clever method that allows multiple objects/actions to be accessible in the vicinity of the character and clears up any doubt in regards to which action the player wishes to perform. Other games would have your character interacting with objects you had no intention of interacting with.
Dialogue is also set up in the same fashion, though I felt that this was actually a hindrance. Dialogue is set up as a key word or phrase at the top of the screen to open up a conversation. You are only given a limited amount of time to pick a topic or the character you are speaking with will assume you have nothing to say. The problem is the keywords or phrases above don't really give you any direction as to what you are going to speak about, thus removing the layer of clarity this interaction method provided with the objects. The game gives you little time to decipher which way the cryptic words or phrases may possibly steer the conversation and forces you to make a quick, unenlightened decision as to what to say.
The final aspect of the main gameplay is the action sequence. Upcoming action sequences are immediately prefaced by a flashing "Get Ready" that pops up on the screen. Once the action sequence begins, you are given prompts in the form of either two circles broken up into four separate colored segments or a bar with L/R on opposite ends. The circle is used mostly for complex action sequences, like fighting or fleeing a room full of monsters. The segments of each circle are broken down into up, down, left, and right and correspond to directions on the analog sticks. When the left circle lights up the top segment, you need to move your left stick up. If the right circle lights up the right segment, move the right stick to the right. You have to be on your toes with these sequences as you have to hit the direction while the segment is still lit, which is only for a split second. Fortunately, there are patterns in each action sequence that can be easily determined, so the rapid movements are not too much of a problem as you begin to predict and prepare which direction to move the sticks next. What I like about this setup is you get to enjoy some really wild action sequences, like your character dodging bullets while running along the side of a building while still retaining the adventure feel of the game.
The second action sequence revolves around the L and R triggers. The game will give you the same ready indicator before opening up the L/R sequence. The first sequence involves you rapidly alternating presses of the L and R buttons. These are usually sequences in which you are running or are doing other straightforward actions, like doing push-ups or fighting against a strong wind. Then there are L/R sequences where you need to keep the indicator in the center of the bar. One involves a breathing exercise. The indicator slowly moves to a red zone on the right side of the bar and you need to force your character to breathe to keep the character from panicking and keep the indicator in the green. If you go too far, you can hit the red zone on the left end. The other is a balance sequence that involves gentle tapping of the triggers to keep the character from falling off a beam. The balance sequence can get a bit annoying though as light taps can cause a wild swing to one end of the bar, resulting in your character's untimely demise.
The puzzle aspect of the game is fairly light as it focuses mostly on the action sequences. That really isn't too much of a problem though as the game is plenty fun. The only real drawback to the whole thing is you have to have some decent stamina to play the game for any extended periods of time because the stick motion action sequences tend to be lengthy and the trigger pulls can tend to test the limits of your trigger finger muscles' stamina. Out of shape gamers, this is a good excuse to get on a fitness plan.
The sound is quite excellent. Character voice over work is right on the money, once again showing that gaming is becoming more and more accepted as a major entertainment form. The main characters, Carla, Lucas, and Tyler, are all superbly done. Minor characters are also well done, from the diner waitress to the crazy Japanese guy in the bookstore. The music is well done and perfectly fits the atmosphere of the game. Even the ambient sounds are well done.
Visually, Indigo Prophecy gets the job done. The environments tend to be a bit dull, but then again, it fits well into the concept of the game. The game is set in New York, and everything is covered in snow and indoor levels tend to be boring and mostly concrete colored. There are a few interesting places in the game, like Tyler’s apartment, but they are few and far between. Still, the atmosphere is still fairly detailed, in all its emptiness. The biggest problem I had was the complete lack of people. New York is supposed to be a huge city, yet there were all of three cars and just about no people milling about outside at any given time. Even the park sequence had only a handful of bystanders. Character models have that half-assed feel. The head and facial features are very detailed and well done, but when it comes to the body, I feel like I have been returned to 1999. The body details have obvious joint links, which are amplified when viewing a few of the games' risqué scenes. A few other annoyances are in atmospheric graphics. Fluids in glasses don't move when characters drink them, pizza slices don't vanish off a pizza when eaten, and the camera has to pan away when a character takes off a coat because it needs to re-skin the model. Food packets in the cupboards are just flat textures in the back. Little stuff like that really detracts from the immersion of the game.
The replay is somewhat decent as you can play through the various chapters and make different decisions. You can see how things turned out if you chose to run instead of cleaning up the body after the murder or see how things played out if you made a wildly inaccurate police sketch of Lucas. An issue, though, is the choices are superficial. Events still play out in the long run the same way, though you do have the option of three different endings. Still, it is worth a second run through to check out how things may have turned out with different decisions. The game will provide a good 25 hours of play time.
Ultimately, Indigo Prophecy is a wonderful title and well worth a purchase. While the visuals leave much to be desired, the rest of the game is well packaged. This is adventure gaming at its finest and includes a wonderful control scheme innovation that should be used for future games. Be warned though, the game requires a lot of arm stamina to play for any length of time. Still, it is worth the exercise to play though this title.
