Review Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) Developer: Quantic Dream Publisher: Atari Genre: Adventure/Action Release Date: October 2005 Platform: (version reviewed), Review by Randy Sluganski November 14, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

Every year or so another starry-eyed developer promises the adventure community a game that will revolutionize the genre and thrust it back into the mainstream, and every year the adventure genre continues to plod along with nary a change – excluding better graphics – from the very first graphic adventures almost two decades past.

Until now.

For Indigo Prophecy is the game that finally, seamlessly meshes both action and adventure, both cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned puzzle solving. That it does so while also managing total immersion is even more amazing (in fact, I twice, literally lurched back in my seat and think I may even have soiled myself during one scary sequence). Indigo Prophecy is the game that Shenmue ultimately failed to be. Whereas Shenmue bogs down in the mundaneness of everyday details, Indigo Prophecy knows where to draw the line while still maintaining a realistic atmosphere.

David Cage, the director, is well-known in the adventure community for his groundbreaking Omikron: The Nomad Soul starring David Bowie. His goal with Indigo Prophecy was “to create an experience based on storytelling, characters and emotion.” Not only has he succeeded, but it is possible that Indigo Prophecy could be the spark that reinvents and rejuvenates the adventure genre much as Doom did for first-person-shooters. If you are not familiar with David Cage – and to be fair, while he is a gaming rock star in Europe, he is little known in North America – you will be once the game begins as he masterfully hosts the opening tutorial much like Alfred Hitchcock used to introduce episodes of his namesake television show.

At times, Indigo Prophecy feels and plays like a Alfred Hitchcock thriller which is really no surprise when you consider that Guillaume de Fondaumiere, the Executive Producer, also developed Arxel Tribe’s Hitchcock: The Final Cut (it is ironic though that Indigo Prophecy feels more like a Hitchcock thriller then did The Final Cut, which was based on the master of suspense’s classic movies). Guillaume’s previous efforts – The Legend of the Prophet & the Assassin, Faust & Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen to name but a few, were quirky, but admirable, choices that always seemed to be just a few pixels shy from critical and financial success, but now, teamed with David Cage, Guillaume seems to have found his muse.

What many of you may not be aware of is that there are actually two versions of Indigo Prophecy. The North American version, known as Indigo Prophecy, has been edited for sexual content. The European version, known as Fahrenheit, includes some scenes of lovemaking (a European developer once asked me if I thought it would be advisable to leave in a scene that showed a woman’s nude breast in his game for the North American release, to which I replied, “Only if you also blow out her brains with a BFG). Also, the original title Fahrenheit was changed for Atari’s North American release, because – according to a source that shall remain anonymous – there was some concern that us stoopid American consumers would associate the title with Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

Keep in mind that although Indigo Prophecy is not a perfect game, it is still the best and most innovative adventure game since the 2000 release of The Longest Journey and will, without a doubt, be included in many year-end top 10 lists.

Now that you’ve suffered through my excruciating minutiae, let’s take a look at the game with a hope that we can one day drool like petulant adolescents over the salacious European version.

There is nothing more boring and tedious than the tutorials that preface a game. Over the years, numerous developers – recognizing that the tutorials are a necessary evil as game controls become more complicated – have gone to outlandish lengths in futile attempts to disguise their tutorials as entertainment rather than a learning process.

Not so with David Cage, in fact, he has returned the tutorial back to its purest form – an empty sound stage. On said stage is a limber-jointed mannequin, nearby is the character who will help you lead the mannequin through its permutations – David Cage himself. While some may find this intrusive, I thought it a refreshing change of pace, almost as if the director were kind enough to take time from his day to provide me with a personal, behind-the-scenes view.

Maybe you have noticed the movie terms in the above paragraph –sound stage and paragraph – along with the previous references to Hitchcock movies. This is because David envisions Indigo Prophecy as a movie rather than a game. In fact, the menu prompt to start a game is ‘New Movie’. But rather, Indigo Prophecy is a movie that plays like a game and a game that has the narrative flow and emotional power of a movie (Think of it in terms of the eternal Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup conundrum – is there chocolate in the peanut butter or peanut butter in the chocolate?).

As the game begins, we witness not a murder, but a ritualistic slaughter as the normally docile Lucas Kane emerges from a bathroom stall in a zombie-like state to unpleasantly surprise a fellow restaurant patron who has picked an unfortunate moment to release his bladder. Once the cinematic has ended, we then take control of Lucas and alter the face of adventure gaming forever. For now, not only is Lucas’s destiny in your hands, but you will have full control over almost every minuscule detail of his life.

As Lucas regains his normal demeanor and realizes the horrendous act he has committed, you now must decide his next course of action. Should he just walk calmly from the restaurant as though nothing had happened? Well, a split-screen shows us that a policeman has since entered the restaurant and is sipping coffee at the counter. Maybe it would be best if we were to drag the body into an empty stall. But if you do, take care to wash the blood from your hands at the sink before leaving the restroom. And that blood on the floor, should you mop it up? Oh oh, the split screens shows the policeman leaving his stool and walking towards the restroom. Quick, make a decision!

Now the entire game does not require such split-second decisions, but much of it does and it does become emotionally draining as you delve deeper into both the game and the psyche of the characters for you will eventually also play as Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles – both NYPD detectives – and Markus Kane, Lucas’s brother and neighborhood priest.

Nor will you always need to make such important and life-altering decisions. Oft-times you may only need to pour a glass of wine or take your medication (but be careful when you take your medication for, just as in real life, if you don’t follow the prescription, you will die!). It is these mundane, everyday details that push the game into the realm of an involving, affecting experience as you become familiar with the routines of the characters and go along for the ride as their personalities undergo subtle - and sometimes life-altering – changes and you feel as though you were personally responsible for those changes!

If you think all of this sounds stressful, well it is even more stressful for the game characters mental health as certain moral choices and physical actions you decide to undertake can have positive or negative effects on their mental health and lead to negative outcomes or even depression. A character’s Mental Health Bar is located in the bottom right of the screen and if it gets too low, you can counteract some of the effects by using common, everyday methods such as drinking a glass of water or soda or simply resting. It’s just another nice touch that adds to the realism and interactivity of the game.

There is no need to worry over missed dialogue or even evidence as the game’s AI will not allow you to advance unless you have the minimal amount of information you need to understand the story’s progress. There were times I overlooked what could have been considered crucial evidence, for example a book left in the diner at the initial crime scene. But instead of being artificially forced to replay that chapter or wandering around an area unable to advance until I found the necessary ‘trigger,’ my character was allowed to continue and was later given the book by a police office who stated, ‘hey detective, we found this book at the crime scene.”

What personally draws you into the game though is that the same commands are often used to question a suspect as to escape a pursuer and thus action sequences feel as natural as routine activities. The keyboard arrow keys need only be pressed in the direction indicated by a moving red dot at the top of the screen in order to perform an action. The same method is also used to choose dialogue options with the added pressure of a rapidly shortening blue bar that forces you into snap decisions – think of it as an updated version of the dialogue tree.

The arrow keys are also used in certain sequences requiring feats of strength by pressing both the left and right arrows alternatively as quickly as possible. This was one of my small quibbles with the game as the quick key pounding was reminiscent of those old Track & Field games where the only skill required was finger strength.

The most intriguing and original command though is saved for the ‘action’ sequences. These also involve the arrow keys, but now they must be pressed – up, down, left or right – to correspond to colored rings that flash at the top of the screen. It’s basically a version of Simon and though it takes some time to feel comfortable with, it does become very involving once mastered. This also leads to one huge, though not insurmountable, problem though as you become so focused on following the patterns that it becomes difficult to watch the onscreen action. It would have been a welcome addition to have an option to watch all of these sequences in full at the end of the game.

The voice acting is excellent as is the film-quality soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks etc.) and music tracks by Canadian band Theory of a Deadman (Spider-Man soundtrack). The main menu has a plethora of nifty special features – concept art, Making of Material, movies, etc. - that can be accessed by spending Tarot cards found during gameplay.

Indigo Prophecy is an immersive, cinematic experience that succeeds due to an excellent script, believable characters and the impudence to go where no adventure game has gone before (btw, I do fervently hope that the powers-to-be at Quantic Dreams are smart enough to ignore the moronic – and that’s not the word I really want to use - advice of the console community, such as PSM Magazine, who wrote that Indigo Prophecy would be a better game if it had “less talk and more action.” Stupid, stupid twitch jockeys.)

Does Indigo Prophecy have its faults? , Sure it does, it is at times overambitious, the end-game is a little too ‘actiony’ and there are some plot twists that probably looked great on paper, but fall flat during the course of the game - but better to have tried and failed then to just be another run-of-the-mill game. No game is perfect, but Indigo Prophecy will be the standard bearer for a future generation of adventure games and would be a great candidate for a feature film. It deserves to be played, scrutinized and devoured by all gamers – action and adventure, casual and hardcore alike.

Final Grade: A+
(find out more about our grading system)

System Requirements:

• Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP
• Pentium III 800 MHz or faster
• 256 MB RAM
• Approximately 2 GB free hard-disk space
• 8x CD-ROM drive
• 32 MB Windows 98/Me/2000/XP-compatible SVGA video card*
• Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP-compatible sound card*
• DirectX version 9.0 (included) or higher

*Indicates device should be compatible with DirectX version 9.0 or higher