In recent years, adventure games were less popular than many fans of the genre wished they would be. The old school, point and click adventure games are simply not as popular as they once were. Indigo Prophecy, or Fahrenheit if you prefer, gives a breath of fresh air to the genre, being an adventure game itself, but not quite like every other adventure game out there. While Indigo has similarities with the classic adventure games, it also has differences that actually manage to make it more interesting. Indigo Prophecy maintains some basic concepts of adventure games, while building a completely different, cinematic experience on top of that. One of such cinematic elements in Indigo Prophecy is the fact that the player gets to control different characters at different points in the game, just like a movie might follow adventures of several characters involved in the plot. The player starts out as Lucas Kane, an ordinary guy, working as an IT manager in a bank in New York, who somehow finds himself killing a random man, in a bathroom of a diner where he was eating. Lucas involuntarily stabs the man several times, and then drops out of his trance, shocked at what he just did. Later on, when the body is discovered, the player gets to control two cops that arrive at the scene to examine it. The decisions of each of the characters have impact on the storyline of the game. Lucas Kane can either attempt to clean up the crime scene to leave as few traces of his presence as possible, or he can just run out, panicking, and attract attention of two cops that were sitting in the diner. That is one of the interesting concepts that Indigo introduces. In the game the player will rarely get stuck somewhere, because he didn’t combine two items in his inventory – instead, the player will be given multiple paths out of any situation, and while some of them might just end the game (for example, by getting our friend Kane arrested), others will have an impact on what happens later. Decision making is an important part of the game, and often the player will have to make quick decisions when faced with difficult situations. Another interesting thing in Indigo Prophecy are the action sequences. Unlike most adventure games, Indigo has multiple action sequences, many of which are very cinematic, and look as if they were taken straight out of some popular action movie. While the player never directly controls the characters during action sequences, like he would do in a FPS or a similar game, the player has to play a reflex mini-game instead. By pressing the correct keys when instructed by the game, the player can make the character either succeed or fail at the action that they are performing. For example, there might be a car coming towards Lucas Kane, and the game might highlight one button to the right, and one button to the left. If the player presses the two buttons in the allotted time, Lucas Kane will manage to dodge the car and avoid getting killed. However, if player presses the wrong keys, or presses them too late, Lucas will fail to dodge the car and will get run over. While this system is rather simple, and doesn’t give the satisfaction of directly controlling a character, it is more flexible, and it’s still fun to see the action sequences on the screen while at the same time making sure they play out the way they should. Besides action elements, there are also more conventional adventure game elements. In those, the player controls the particular character from third person perspective, and interacts with the environment in multiple ways. While the camera and movement controls make the game feel very much like a console game, it isn’t bothersome enough to make the game less enjoyable, and in fact, unlike with some other games, it’s quite easy to use. While moving uses your usual, four-key controls, performing actions is more interesting, as it’s done by mouse gestures. Whenever a character approaches something that is interactive, an icon pops up at the top, along with another icon telling the player which way to move the mouse to perform the said action. So, for example, in order to open the door, the player might have to push the mouse forward while holding the left mouse button, or pull it back, depending on which way the door opens. The mouse gestures aren’t too complicated, and most often involve straight movement. The control scheme might seem kind of odd, perhaps another thing that got ported from consoles, but it works without too many problems and is easy to get used to. The thing about Indigo Prophecy is that the game isn’t enjoyable mainly because of the action sequences or adventure game elements; one of the main reasons why the game is fun, if not the main reason is the plot. Playing the game is like watching a good movie, and the interactive elements of it are just enough to keep the player more entertained, so that he doesn’t feel like he is playing some sort of a non-interactive film. While Indigo Prophecy manages to maintain the plot interesting throughout most of the game, it messes up towards the end of the game. It’s not just that some questions were left unanswered… It’s that it seems like some of them were never even asked. After the end of the game the player is forced to fill out some of the plot himself, and not because the game was mysterious, but because the game failed to provide some parts of the plot, and acted like the player knew them. Besides the rushed feeling towards the end of the game, the story remains fascinating throughout the game, and is probably one of the most interesting stories in any game that came out recently. And not only is the story interesting, the atmosphere of the game also contributes to it. The game feels very dark, and gloomy, and you can really start to identify with Lucas Kane, who desperately tries to find out if he’s going insane. The graphics in Indigo Prophecy aren’t special. While they generally don’t strike you as ugly, they aren’t awesome either. Some textures appear to be quite low-res, but everything else looks what you would expect it to look like – the graphics in the game are fairly standard. The animations, on the other hand, tend to look quite well. A lot of motion capture was done for the game, and some parts of it were literally played out by motion capture actors before being included in the game. Due to that, scripted sequences tend to look very good, and especially action sequences, which look very Hollywood-y. Audio in Indigo Prophecy is generally done well. Voice actors did a good job with the voice acting, and the lines they say generally help contribute to the gloomy feel of the game. The music in the game also helps set the mood of the game, or the particular scene, with few exceptions, when it seems sort of out of place. But generally, the sounds of the game don’t make you think of bunnies and rainbows, but instead add to the dark feeling of the game. Indigo Prophecy is certainly a unique game. Besides that, it’s also simply a fun game. The game is like a mix of a movie and an adventure game – and while such bizarre mixes sometimes make the end result less enjoyable, in Indigo Prophecy’s case, they actually work.
I first heard about this game from a mate whom he influenced me by describing how the game plays and how it begins. It sounded really interesting and was definitely to be a buyer when it was released. I got a copy of Fa... Read Full Review
While this game has it's flaws, it is an excellent example of how the medium is being moved forward artistically. While playing this game I came across a good point. If the "choose your own adventure" people had gotte... Read Full Review
