Indigo Prophecy

"Choices are prevalent in this supernatural thriller from David Cage"

Fahrenheit is a hard game to review. On the one hand it's one of only a handful of games that can both immerse the player in it's world while still telling a cohesive story. On the other hand, however, it's a game with a plethora of flaws and ill-conceived design choices. One such fault is the fixed camera system which, more often than not, has you walking in the completely wrong direction as it struggles to refresh it's view, which
becomes a right nuisance in small rooms or tight corridors - locales you often find yourself in over the course of the game. Another flaw is the writing. While the main plot-lines/narrative are very well written, the game falls flat on it's face when it comes to dialogue which is just not quite up to the quality of the rest of the game, with most lines coming across as chessie or cringe-worthy. Carla Velenti's lines are particularly horrid. Other's include the rather shabby graphics and animation.

But enough about what Fahrenheit does wrong and lets concentrate on it's good points shall we? Fahrenheit is all about one thing: choices. While you may think that this is nothing new, games have always given the player choices - usually resulting in different outcomes, Fahrenheit uses them not as a means to an end but in a means to change the game itself. No matter what path you take the ending remains the same, however the game becomes a completely different beast. Let's take the games introduction, for example. You've murdered a man, by accident it would seem, do you: a) hide the body, mop up the floor and leave calmly like nothings happened. b) run out the back door and pray no-one see 's you or c) wait for the police to arrive and take your chances with them. It's moments like these that make Fahrenheit different from any other game. The choices presented to you are almost limitless, no two games of Fahrenheit are ever the same, making multiple playthroughs a necessity.

Like most games in the wake of Shenmue, Fahrenheit incorporates quick time events into it's already impressive portfolio. Unlike certain other games (#cough RE4 cough#) their use actually adds something to play and haven't been shoehorned in to make the game look hip. QTE 's in Fahrenheit tend to be of the rhythm action variety, with the player using both the analogue sticks (up, down, left, right) instead of the face buttons. While it seems ridiculous to incorporate such a mechanic into such a serious title (especially with the multi-coloured prompts), they actually work really well, especially in tandem with the trigger prompts. The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-esque fights found later on in the game are a real stand out, making the overall package all the more impressive.

The narrative in Fahrenheit creates a level of intrigue not seen in many other titles since the original Broken Sword, and while the dialogue for the characters leaves a lot to be desired, the voice acting is generally great with Lucas Kane's lines being particularly well delivered. It's a testament, then, to Quantic Dreams determination that they've been able to tell a cohesive story and make you care about it's characters, something video games have striven to do for a while now, but continually failed at. The story, which as you should know by now, follows Lucas Kane as he tries to get to the bottom of what caused him to carry out a ritualistic murder on an innocent man while also avoiding getting caught by the police or becoming suicidal (which is displayed by a sanity meter, which you can replenish by doing mundane tasks like sleeping, showering or doing a good deed). While the game is set up like a movie, it actually plays out more like a novel as the player has god-like control over the proceedings playing not just Kane but also the detectives investigating the murder he committed. As either Carla Velenti or Tyler Miles you can choose whether to ignore incriminating evidence thus giving Kane a helping hand in getting to the bottom of the mystery, or use it in the hope it will lead to his arrest. It may seem strange at first, but again Quantic Dream has pulled it off successfully creating a unique experience many devco's would struggle to match

Another successful experiment is the control method. While at first it may seem unnatural, the flicking of the analogue stick to open doors, pick up and use objects and respond to questions soon becomes second nature, so much so that when you finish the game and move on to something else, you may find yourself praising the system even more and lamenting the other games 'old-fashioned' control scheme. A lot has been said recently about making gaming more accessible to non-gamers, with Nintendo blaming the control schemes put into place by developers for non-gamers inability to grasp but the simplest concepts. It comes as a surprise then to find that one of the most complicated (in everything but difficulty) games has one of the least complicated control systems. Throughout the game you only really press a face button to run, everything else is controlled by the analogue sticks(triggers only really come into play during action sequences), making the game rather user-friendly and a far cry from the constant bombardment of button combinations that other games enforce.

Fahrenheit is a mature and immersing title but unlike games such as GTA, the maturity doesn't stem from acts of violence (although it can be quite bloody in places) but from the way the game treats the player, and the way the frankly amazing story is told. Fahrenheit has become something of a sleeper hit (well, here in the UK it has anyway) selling on the basis of word-of-mouth alone and it certainly deserves everything it gets. Special mention must go to Atari, who had the balls to publish this title after VU Games didn't. As I said in my opening paragraph, Fahrenheit is a hard game to review, so it took me a while to decide on a score. The score you see before you may seem quite low, especially after such a gushing review, but the flaws I mentioned in that same paragraph aren't just cosmetic, they're skin deep and as the game went on they became even harder to ignore. Regardless, Fahrenheit is still a great game that deserves a place in everyones collection whether they're a fan of the adventure genre or not.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/09/05