Customer Reviews

Indigo Prophecy

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

So I receive my copy of Indigo Prophecy last week and I can't help but be intrigued by all of the hype about playing a "movie". I'd read the reviews on the gaming sites and I kept saying to myself that this is an awesome concept if it can be pulled off right.

It's been done right. From the onset you know you're controlling something truly different. The tutorial will walk you through the basics, as this game play like no other. Basic movements, slight shifts of the right analog button and you;re controlling every slight action the character has from opening a refrigerator to closing a window.

You start the game as Lucas Kane, but you dont know that. basically you're the murderer in a restaurant killing and the police are now after you. You manage to escape, but now the entire story unfold in a very detailed, very story oriented fashion.

Split screens, flashbacks, odd lighting and off the beaten path chapters make this game unreal. You play through the eyes of a few characters, and some acts may have you simply pouring some coffee and heading to work, or having a workout in the gym, but overall everything you do affects the storyline somehow.

As the game progresses you have tons of mini games which can feel frustrating or reptitive, but they downright make you sweat as you help one of the characters do what they need to do.

You almost always get the feeling that something is lurking behind you or about to flash before you and sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesnt. But everytime you get chills from every corner.

This game is downright addictive, I've played it just about through in my first week, and I never do that.

Note: I own the Xbox version of the game. From what I've seen, the two games are about equal in terms of graphics so my review should be accurate for the PS2 version as well.

There have been games throughout the years that have truly done something original, different and completely engaging. It always seems to be that these games fall by the wayside in terms of popularity which is a shame. Indigo Prophecy falls into this category as an original game with a fantastic premise and incredibly exciting gameplay.

Never before have I played a game that was so interactive in its story-telling. When trying to describe this game, I would point to God of War, a PS2 game in which there were scenes where you have timed button presses that would move forward a cutscene. It helped bring you into the story, the cutscenes so that it was you that were doing all of the cool acrobatic manuevers killing the hydra. Another game that used this to a lesser effect was Resident Evil 4, for example with the knife fight that you had to push buttons to keep Leon safe. Indigo Prophecy takes this idea and pushes it to the extreme.

IP is basically and incredibly interactive movie. It mixes the adventure genre, which is seldom seen on console, and movies and melds them into a cohesive and incredibly engaging story. It starts off with a bang as you immediately find yourself killing someone you don't know in a diner. You feel like you're not in control of your actions and as a result you have a body in a restroom and a policeman drinking coffee in the restaurant. What do you do? You're free to act from here on out. Do you leave the body and rush out? Do you hide the body? What about the blood? What about the blood on you? What about the knife? When you leave do you pay your bill? You can take care of all or none of the options above. And the story will be different, sometimes marginally sometimes drastically. Oh, and by the way, that cop sitting outside needs to use the restroom and soon the screen will split and you better be out of there before he makes it to the restroom.

This opening sequence exemplifies everything this game is about. Choices, story and gameplay all merged into one. But innovation doesn't end there. As soon as Lucas (the murdering protagonist) is free of the diner, you take control of two police detectives who investigate the scene. You can switch between the two on the fly and you have to find clues, make theories and basically do everything in your power to catch Lucas. Its this give and take gameplay, where you have to play one side against the other, that truly gives the game a sense of urgency and excitement.

Going back to the God of War example, when you have cutscenes in this game, you better not put your controller down. Gameplay pushes forward the story-centered bits as well. Whether its doing a simon says type control scheme to manuever your character past cars that are hurtling toward him, alternating between the L and R trigger as fast as you can to save someone who's drowning or using the R stick to make dialogue choices on the fly (you're timed) to hear all you can, the game makes sure to bring you into the story. Its very effective and really ratchets up the tension.

If there is one sore spot in the game its the graphics. While not bad, exactly, they don't necessarily push the Xbox in the way that this last year of Xbox life should. It looks like a first or possibly second generation Xbox game. Artistically the game is good. The characters in the cutscenes move really well and realistically. And there is never a moment of lag or skipping seen in a lot of games today. The character's faces have some nice emotion to them and the graphics aren't stellar, like I said, but they do a decent job. There's a ton of aliasing, however, which is sad.

Another sore spot is the controls. When you are in direct control of your character (i.e. actually moving them as opposed to having control of the cutscenes via button pressing) the game is pretty loose. It reminds me of playing the old Resident Evil games. You have the cinematic camera which causes some confusion as to which direction you should push your character. As a result, you will do a lot of figure 8s in the game which can cause a lot of problems when you have to hide the evidence because a cop is at your door and the timer is going down. Character animation while moving is also very stiff and a big difference from the cut scene animation.

The audio is terrific, however. While the box says the game does not run in 5.1 in game, I think it lies. My receiver lights up whenever 5.1 is being used and its always lit with this game. And it sounds like 5.1 is being used. The voice acting is absolutely wonderful and professional. Each voice matches the character and it helps enhance this feeling of playing a murder mystery movie. With voice acting becoming so important in games today, this is most welcome and really helps sell the game. Musically, the game also excels by using the very talented Angelo Badalamenti to score it. That name might not mean much on the outset but he has created scores to many Hollywood movies including most by David Lynch (Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., Twin Peaks) but also Dark Water, Arlington Road, etc. The score is absolutely beautiful and moving; it really fits in with what is happening on screen.

What this game does best is meld the story-telling of a movie with the gameplay of video games. It exposes the limitations of both and yet uses the best of both to create an engaging, moving and very interactive story. For me, this game is a perfect building block for video games. I can overlook most of its flaws because it is so different, so exciting and so damn cool. It warrants a 5 star review simply because of what it did. I would most heartedly recommend this game to those who love a good story, like action adventure games and want to be impressed with what video games and movies can accomplish together.

Indigo Prophecy is one of those surprisingly great and terribly underrated and unnoticed games that come along every now and then. Despite it's low-res graphics and textures, Indigo Prophecy features an incredibly dark and gloomy atmosphere thanks to some creepy and bloody cinematics, as well as one of the most well written and original stories you will ever find in a video game. From it's opening cinematic, which will stick in your head for quite some time, you control Lucas Kane; a seemingly normal guy who doesn't seem to recall that he just violently murdered a man. As you progress through the game, you will be introduced to Detectives Valenti and Miles, of whom you will also control as everyone involved is on the course of a collision that will feature many events you won't see coming, and plenty of twists as well. What really makes Indigo Prophecy is the fact that the choices you make really do effect later outcomes. The game has no linear feel to it at all as cause and effect have never had this kind of impact on a game in, well, ever. As you play through the game, you will also participate in mundane tasks to boot, much like playing the original Shenmue from years ago. There's also some inventive elements in the game's core gameplay in terms of action mechanics; taking advantage of the controler's analog sticks as well as your reflexes. The game however, does have it's share of drawbacks, most notably being the game's graphics engine. Nearly every character you encounter moves and reacts in the same caricatural way, while their features (faces, clothing) are all so low-res that it occasionally looks kind of ugly to look at. It's not that bad throughout most of the game, but it does have it's noticable moments nonetheless. Other than that and some plot holes, the only other real downside to Indigo Prophecy is the game's somewhat schizo camera that at times has a mind of it's own. Those are the only real flaws in a game that features superb storytelling, wonderful voice acting, an ultra eerie environment, and some inventive gameplay; so all together the game is a different and worthwhile experience. All in all, if you missed out on Indigo Prophecy when it was first released, now is the time to pick it up. It's one of the best and most original third party games made for the PS2, and it's one of the most memorable to boot.

I recently purchased this game for the PS2, though I wanted it for XBOX. The graphics aren't mind blowing anyway (they don't need to be) so it doesn't really matter what system you get it for. Just get it. The story and gameplay are all top notch. Being an adventure game, there are "puzzles" but not in the tradition sense. Since the game is set in the real world, all items and puzzles are things you would find and use in the real world in a real fashion. You won't be killing a giant wolf to find a magic amulet or pixel hunting, you'll be using your brain the way a normal human being does. As for replay value, the jury's still out on that. Being an adventure game, it does have a fairly linear story, but the overwhelming number of choices you have in your actions and dialogue really do affect what path you take. I've only been playing the game for about 5 hours and already I can think of 8 or 9 things I would have done differently. A definite must rent for everyone, and a definite must by for gamers with more mature, discriminating tastes.

I don't even really know where to begin.

I want to give this game five stars, and I want to give it one star. One thing I can say is that it did keep me playing it until the end. As in most reviews, the thought here is, Indigo Prophecy tries, and succeeds to make its story the focal point of the fun... it's fun til you're about half way through, that is. Your interactivity is actually pretty limited, in that you'll control where your characters walk, and then you'll flick a stick to make them drink coffee if you're near a coffee machine. You'll also mash L1 and R1 alternately during times of crisis. This may not sound like much, but it's actually okay, if the story is good enough. It's why I await Heavy Rain.

The things I love about the game are its characters for one... Carla Valenti and Lucas Kane especially. One's a tough, independent female detective chasing a killer she almost knows nothing about, and Lucas is the killer who commited a murder he doesn't remember much of and knows almost nothing about. You'll lead the two of them on their own investigations as to what really happened in a restaurant lavatory. It's suspenseful, and is truly unique and brilliant to play both sides of the coin like this. In addition, you'll play limitedly as a priest who wrestles with a question of blood vs faith, and another detective to wrestles with career vs love life. However, your choices as to how these events actually unfold are very limited, but the story is just so good up to this point, it just doesn't matter. It leaves you wanting to see this thing through to the end.

Also well done was the score, which during action sequences is big and epic, when you're wandering alone in the dark creepy, and when you're in an over all solemn atmosphere just poking around, dark and subtle. The voice acting captures the characters well, and the voices match the faces fairly well too. There are also sections that play into people's phobias, and the section where you're wandering around as Carla in the dark with a bunch of mental patients, and having to keep quiet, or having to keep her rhythmically breathing in tight spaces are well executed, and the former section had my heart pounding.

The controls are a nightmare, unfortunately. Walking is simple enough, but if you run, or want to change directions, you must come to a dead stop, face the direction you want to go, and then run, as if you hold run but point the stick in a different direction, you will continue to run in the direction you no longer where to go. The camera also is pretty shoddy, as when you're Lucas and it's time to hide evidence, with no ability to rotate the thing, you'll find yourself using a guide to find the bloody shirt was behind the pillar you weren't allowed to see behind. And despite the many choices and interactive elements of the game, it's really only the last few choices towards the end you make that change the storyline at all. You're placed in control of small details, yet what happens to Lucas will happen all the same. And then there's the games post-half way story elements that just bring the thing crashing down. I finished the game, and it was fresh and innovative, and the way the story was told itself was pretty refreshing, but it wasn't enough.

It's an immersive game, it really is... it just... it just falls apart though. I hate it, but I can bring myself to get rid of it, because I love it. It's a bizzare game, and I really wouldn't even know where to begin when it came to recommending this to someone.

First off, I should praise whoever made this game because it's certainly different, especially among adventure games. For this, I'm willing to cut them a bit of slack. Despite what I say below, the game is pretty fun, if you like adventure games. The story is decent, and the character models (especially the faces) and voice acting are pretty good.

The basic idea of the game is that you're playing in almost an interactive movie, playing as four main characters throughout the game, trying to unravel the mystery of a bunch of bizarre, grizzly, and random murders. Very small details, such as answering the phone or climbing a fence, are interactive and supposed to feel seemless so one can immerse oneself in the game. Further, the choices you make affect the outcome of the story.

There are very few pure cutscenes, most requiring at least a small degree of interaction. This idea is interesting, and works well for the smaller stuff, but the implementation needs a lot of work in my opinion. The "action" sequences generally require two forms of interaction, either mashing buttons alternately, or moving the analog joysticks to match colored indicators on the screen. I find the latter to be the most problematic. It's obvious that the idea is for the interaction to be intuitive and unobstructive, so one can focus on and feel a part of the story. However, this results in the colored circles being too dim in many circumstances and one is forced to stare at them, and miss what is actually happening in the game. It's not that difficult, but takes away from the fun.

You actually spend relatively little time moving your character around, but the controls are clunky. It sort of feels like the first Resident Evil game, when 3D environments were very new, and developers hadn't yet got the feel right. Further, the camera angles change change at inopportune times and it's somewhat easy to get disoriented. Thankfully, there are only a few times that you need to move under pressure, but it's a pain when you do. There are two sequences when you play as a kid on a military base, which to me are absolutely annoying, in part due to the weak controls.

My final complaint is that sometimes, when you fail to meet an objective, it must reload your saved game and load data from the disc, which can take 10 or 15 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up when you're trying to figure out what do initially, such as during the military base scenes.

Despite all this, it is pretty fun and interesting. I think it's worth $10 or $15 for a used copy, and you can easily beat it in a weekend. Probably what frustrated me the most was that it didn't live up to its potential. The developers have some good ideas; maybe next time they'll get it right.

I would like to point out, before we go any further, that I am a huge Silent Hill fan and I purchased this game solely based on the fact that it seemed a lot like my favorite series. It isn't much like Silent Hill at all, but now that I've played it all the way through, I am not disappointed in that at all.

It begins much like any survival horror game. You wake up, and discover that, oh no, you've killed someone. And why have you done this? You have absolutely no idea. And that isn't the worst part. You spend the rest of the game (or at least the next two-thirds of the game) covering for what you've done. Of course, you'd love to look into, say, the reason why you committed this crime, but much of your time is spent running from the police, hiding evidence and so forth.

This is where the game gets creative. You not only play your main character, Lucas Kane, but you also control the two detectives who are responsible for catching you and tossing you in the nearest prison, or rather, mental institution. I found this fun, especially since I knew exactly where I had hidden all the evidence, although I think I kind of screwed myself in this one part while making a composite sketch of the murderer (me). I made it exact, and then when one of the detectives came to question me, he knew exactly who I was.

It's all in the little details, you see. Every action, and I mean EVERY action makes a significant difference in what happens to all of your characters.

And then, there's your mental health, a very important factor that is reminiscent of the same feature from Eternal Darkness, although it isn't nearly so integral. All of your characters are stressed out, especially Lucas, who can't seem to get a grip on reality ever since he became a murderer. It's all the psychic visions, I think, but he seemed like an unstable guy to begin with. Just keep all your characters as calm as you can. Give them water. Let them sit down for a second. There's no need to rush...unless your being timed, which you usually are.

The gameplay itself is innovative, and I have to say that overall I approve of the new techniques that were explored. You do move your characters with the classical analog, pick up items and move things around in much the same manner as any other action oriented game, but there's a lot more that you'll have to become familiar with if you want to make it past the first scenario. I strongly suggest that all players, even the most seasoned, make use of the convenient tutorial offered at the beginning of the game. Now, even I was hesitant to use this feature, but trust me. I was so glad that I did.

You never truly have to fight your boss battles. The game uses a strange sort of Simon Says system by placing two dials in the center of the screen. You move your analog sticks up, down, left, or right, to mimick the flashing lights, and, presto! Your character survives, dodges, jumps out of the way, or does whatever it is he has to do in order to not die. It simplifies the gameplay immensely, and the patterns never become too complex or too quick to follow. It's almost like watching a weird movie.

Another less innovative but still mentionable facet is yet another creative use of the right analog stick. You move it according to the choices presented to you at the top of the sceen in a conversation, interrogation, ect. You are also timed, so move the stick quickly, or the game will choose your answer or question for you, and usually it picks the most suspicious or useless choice available. You'll also use this to do things like climb, open doors, sit down, turn on computers, look at stuff...yeah. It's real important, but it never varies, and you will get very used to it.

Now, here are the downpoints, and these are only the things that stick out to me after having beaten it. Firstly, while I love the idea of making the action sequences based on your movement of the analog stick, I rarely got to see what was going on with my characters in moments when I was having to copy the commands being shown. The problem is in two parts. You have to copy the patterns in a timely manner, and depending on how quickly you repeat them determines whether you pass or fail. So I am heavily concentrating on watching the pattern and executing it through my two analog sticks. Meanwhile, all the action is happening but I'm too busy to watch. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, but you only have to do the analog controlling DURING the most important and exciting scenes in the game. And the second part? The dials are right in the center of the screen! Even if I did want to look up for a split second to watch my character act out what I told him to do, there's these two big dials right over all the action.

The second downpoint isn't nearly so important as the first, but it is worth mentioning. I bought the game from my work, around four o'clock in the afternoon, and I immediately went home and played it, until about midnight. I woke up the next morning, played on the computer for awhile, and then picked the game back up around three pm. It is now 7:20 pm, and I am writing this review. I just wish that it had been a little longer. This isn't to say that the plot is short or boring. Trust me, it isn't. The game that I started to play in the very beginning almost seems like a completely different game than the one I finished. Major character development, and a plotline worthy of an eighty hour RPG. I was HOOKED. I could barely put it down to go to sleep, and even the most frustrating parts didn't chase me away for a break. I cared about Lucas Kane.

Overall, I would definitely tell you to buy this game if you are at all interested in doing so. The game gets mildly frustrating at times, especially when you realize that you have to play each and every scene over and over again until you get it right, but even in that there is some fun. You never run out of replays, so you have as many opportunities as you need to become familiar with your surrounding. The game is never boring, and even though I missed all the good parts because I was too busy making them happen, you unlock every scene in the bonus features when you beat the game. So I've already watched everything I missed.

And just so you know, there is an opportunity to make your characters woohoo (sim language: sex!) But only one, so good luck finding it! It's relatively hard to miss, but I bet you'll never guess which characters.

And a side note to all of you who hate timed missions.This game is full of them, but fear not, for they are all easy enough to be completed in a few tries, and you are rarely forced to watch the same dialogue over and over again. I've had a deep seated fear of time based gameplay ever since FF8, and Indigo Prophecy has helped me admit to my fears, which is the first step towards recovery. Tom Clancy, fear me! I am no longer afraid!

Let's start with the pros and cons, for those of you who don't like to read the entire reviews.

PROS:
- Great storyline
- Very good graphics--for 2005, that is.
- New concept: manage mental health
- New concept: almost everything is done via analog sticks

CONS:
- I don't care if you're a novice to gaming or you're thirty and living in your mom's basement because you've been stuck on video games since you were twelve--this game has only about thirteen hours of game play, even when played on hard, and is not hard to beat in two easy days. (MORE ON THIS BELOW.)


Indigo Prophecy (AKA: Fahrenheit) was not what I expected. But then again, I wasn't sure what I would expect, anyway.

Atari and quanticdream came together to take PS2 fans for one hell of a ride. With a whole new concept of character and game play manipulation, with fairly good graphics and a chilling storyline, I--and I'm sure many others--was totally blown out of the water.

The game begins with a simple tutorial that guides you through this very unexpected and unique method of character control. You use the analog sticks for almost everything throughout the game. I don't think I remember using the directional buttons for anything. You move the character with the analog sticks, perform actions with the analog sticks, and basically do everything with the analog sticks. It takes a little to get used to, but it really doesn't take very long.

You control three characters throughout the game, two of which are cops. Automatically, you're thinking--oh, so this is a takeoff on GTA or something, right? Not quite. Sure, you can't get caught by the cops--yet--because if you do, it's game over. So you learn quickly or you have to keep starting that area of the game over. But actually, it's because the three character's lives are all linked--and those said links are revealed later in the game.

There's a lot of "your-decisions-effect-the-rest-of-the-game," but that's one of the reasons why Indigo Prophecy is so fun. You have to be careful, though, or your decisions will lead you to a dead end and you have to back up a bit and rethink your decisions.

Now, the one thing that bugs me about Indigo Prophecy...
It's a very short game.
Took me two days. TWO DAYS. That's it. And I wasn't even really trying. I had class one of those two days, so the first day I played about...seven to nine hours or so, and the next day, maybe four hours. Not that bad. But what's strange about it, is that I didn't feel like there needed to be more to the game or anything. It's like this sort of huge game was crammed into thirteen hours. It was just really, really good. I'm sure they could have added even more into the game, but it didn't give me that 'empty' feeling, like a cliffhanger.

Overall, this game is very, very good and worth buying. :]!

This game is absolutely one of my FAVORITE games.
-The plot is extremely submersible, and you can't help but feel like you're in a movie creating your own storyline.
-The intertwining storyline of this game is extremely heart felt. For me, it tugged at my heartstrings and made me fall in love with the characters.
-The game play is purely unique; it's a nice break from the most common game play.
-This game definitely has replay value since there are multiple, different choices to be made that will advance the storyline in it's own, unique way.

In my opinion, this game is a must-play for any gamer to broaden their game repertoire.

If you like playing games for the story then you will like this game, but if your a looking for action you will be disappointed.

For the most part you control the story, whatever you do will have a consequence good or bad. If you die you can let the game end there or load and try again.

Through out the game you will play as four characters, a man who was possesed and murdered another man, and two cops who are on his trail. Everywhere in the game there will be minigames, that can be a bit redundant, but are fun just the same.

So if you're into story like games you might want to look into this one.