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Platform: PlayStation
2
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Indigo ProphecyScore: 7.5/10 |
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Pros: - Open-endedness - Likeable characters - A decent story - The environments
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Cons: - Action sequences - Whose side am I on, anyway? - Some hotspot issues
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"For the most part, Indigo Prophecy is a step in the right direction..."
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Click Here for Image Gallery (Opens in new window)
Way
back when Shenmue first came out for the Dreamcast, it showed how the
adventure genre could evolve. The
game proved that the puzzle solving, and general sleuthing involved with
adventures could actually be incorporated into a more frenetic
environment thanks to the game’s Quick Time Events features.
Now, five years later, it seems that the folks at Quantic Dreams
saw a thing or two that they liked in Shenmue, and have translated it
into a gritty, supernatural adventure called Indigo Prophecy.
While the game’s “choose your own adventure” open-endedness,
engaging story, and well designed environments go a long way in making
for an interesting romp, some key issues with the gameplay prevent
Indigo Prophecy from being a truly great title.
From
the opening scene, this game is very cinematic.
It’s quite apparent from the camera angles, split screen scene
displays, and various settings that take place in Indigo Prophecy
that
its developers want people to feel like they’re playing a movie. On top of this, the overall details in the visuals are quite
high. Combined, these
facets of the game’s aesthetic work extremely well at drawing players
in.
Adding upon this is that the story is reasonably well written. Walking a line between being a crime drama, and spooky thriller, the game follows the story of Lucas Kane who finds himself possessed by mysterious forces that cause him to kill a man in the bathroom of a diner. Once Lucas comes out of his trance, he realizes he did a very bad thing, and has to quickly hide his crime and get out of that diner. Of course, the body is eventually discovered, bringing the police onto the scene. With that, players must help Lucas figure out what’s going on while doing double duty of keeping him from getting caught, while at the same time trying to catch him while playing as the two police assigned to the murder case, Carla and Tyler. What makes the plot work well isn’t the goals of the characters, or the events in the |
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game
so much as it is that the various characters are extremely likeable.
Tyler is hard not to like for his easygoing attitude, Carla,
while sometimes a little overly serious, fills the role of a hard
working cop quite well, and there are plenty of instances that draw
sympathy for Lucas’ plight. Even
the majority of the supporting cast are quite believable, which is nice.
However, the constant seesaw back and forth between playing as Lucas, trying to keep him from getting caught, and then playing as Carla and Tyler, who are chasing after him for murder sometimes takes away from the game because it leaves players confused as to just whose side |
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they
are on. Are we helping
Lucas or the police? With this,
it’s quite easy to find one’s self purposely choosing certain
options in dialogue boxes that can help or hinder the main characters in
the game, almost as though players are telegraphing later events in the
game. Having players take
on different sides with conflicting goals feels more like added gameplay
for the sake of adding it. Spending
a large part of the game trying to keep from being caught and catching
yourself at the same time just feels amazingly counter intuitive.
Further
impacting one’s ability to properly enjoy Indigo Prophecy are the
various action sequences in the game.
These work by players copying on-screen prompts that tell players
to move their analogue sticks in certain directions.
As the game goes on, these sequences can be good twitchy moments
to test one’s reflexes, but the developers went into overkill when
implementing them into the game. During
an action sequence it makes sense to have these prompts, but for reasons
that defy logic the sequences are also sometimes included during
dialogue scenes. All this
winds up doing is distracting the player from fully absorbing the
advance in the plot because he’s too worried about what button
needs to be hit next. Turning
down the game’s difficulty can make these sequences less obtrusive,
but this is something that should never have been necessary in the first
place.
However,
despite these two complaints, there are some facets of the gameplay that
are fresh and intriguing. Firstly,
there is the constant need to monitor the mental state of the various
characters. The more bad
things that happen to them, and the more often that they make bad
decisions, the more stressed out and depressed they will come.
Especially in the case of Lucas, it becomes apparent that the
ethically right thing to do isn’t necessarily the best thing to do, as
it can put a huge amount of mental strain on a character depending on
the severity of the outcome. In
fact, if characters get too stressed out, they can find themselves
committed to a psychiatric ward and the game will end. Because
of this, players need to think a lot more carefully about their actions.
While our instincts may tell us to “do the right thing” the
results may be too much of a strain on the game characters, thus causing
players to balance their actions a lot more, and possibly risk some
suspicious behavior while they’re at it.
This
ability to choose how to tackle a situation is often performed through
the game giving players a variety of responses that they can use during
conversations with other characters.
While these responses impact characters’ mental well being,
they can also cause the story to branch in a different direction,
bringing a “choose your own adventure” quality to the game.
It’s quite surprising just how much this can cause one person
to have a noticeably different experience with Indigo Prophecy than
someone else. When
discussing the game with Omni, we discovered that he had to play an
entire sequence of the game by going to the “Chapters” option in the
menu, instead of playing it as a natural progression of the game like I
did.
Interacting
with the environments is also quite a bit of fun, as there are plenty of
things that can be fiddled with that don’t have any direct impact on
the game but give players a little something extra to do.
One issue, though, is that hot spots can sometimes be tiny. As such, players
may find themselves fumbling around in order to get at an important
object. Nonetheless, it’s
fun just wandering around apartments eating stuff, rummaging through
cupboards, or turning on a radio. Being
able to do this helps to make Indigo Prophecy feel more alive.
For
the most part, Indigo Prophecy is a step in the right direction with its
wonderful atmosphere, likeable characters, and ability to choose one’s
fate. By going this route,
it’s helping the genre continue to break away from the traditional
point and click adventures from times of yore.
Sometimes the game throws a bit too many gameplay ideas at the
player through its constant switching between playing as Lucas and the
cops, as well as the over emphasis on action sequences, but they
aren’t so awful as to ruin the game.
If you’re itching for a new adventure title, Indigo Prophecy
should fit the bill nicely.
Mr.
Nash November 14, 2005 Search for Related Topics: ...More Playstation 2 Game Reviews... |
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