Indigo Prophecy

"Whatever happened to the story?"

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy

After hearing a lot of hype for this game, not too mention the snazzy flash ad to the right of the screen whenever I logged on to Game FAQs, I decided to go out and give this game a try.

First things first about the game, the graphics are as you would expect from an average PS2 game. Nothing too fancy, but I must add that the character faces are suitably detailed. The rest of the game seem a bit drab to me, but that is just my personal taste. This could very be one of the first PS2 game to feature fully blown sex scenes, and although it is weird to see "polygon-ic porno" in a sense, kudos to the developing team for having the guts to break one of the age-old video game taboos. The soundtrack of the game is nothing to go nuts about. Just about all of your standard action game sound effects are here. There's not much that stands out of the crowd. The ending theme was quite alright though.

Now the story. Yes. Ahem. It actually started off quite interesting as advertised on the back cover. Our protagonist, Lucas Kane, had killed a man against his better knowledge in a New York City diner and has no idea why he did it. But he knew it wasn't his conscious "him" who did it. He was possessed in a way, but who or what did it? Sounds good? Yeah that's what I thought. Without trying to spoil the rest of it, all I'm gonna say is the story slowly degenerates from a promising police suspense thriller to a really dodgy 'Matrix' rip-off (complete with the air-time fights and the slow motion bullet dodging) added with a bit of Silent Hill elements to give this game a dark aura. I certainly didn't feel inspired by the story because I just got the feeling I've seen it all before. The game prides itself on its story, but for me I felt it was just really really tragic how such a storyline of good potential was wasted. Not to say that story sucks in any sense, because it doesn't, but it should have been a lot lot better in my opinion.

Now on to something a bit more positive, I felt the game play was good. It was simple but it did the job well. Director David Cage wanted Fahrenheit to be more of an interactive movie rather than a traditional video game. And in my opinion he pulls it off nicely. Game play consists mostly making choices in conversations, tapping L1 and R1 furiously a la "Track and Field" style whenever your character is facing some test of strength, or pushing the 2 analogs sticks in directions which correspond to the on-screen cue whenever your character faces a test of agility or reflexes. One great point I must add though, is the ability to play as 3 characters at pretty much the same time. Lucas is your main guy, but you also need to play the 2 cops who are investigating on his murder case too. In a sense, that's great fun because you get to see the game develop in different perspectives most of the time.

Ahh yes the usual Game FAQs Rent or Buy? I'd say rent. Because I managed to complete it in 2 days, and the re-playability is almost non-existent because I unlocked all the videos, soundtracks and extras after just one completion. I would really doubt I'd be playing this game more than twice, at the most optimistic.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/05