In the video game industry, games follow under many categories, like action, fighting,
racing, ect. Most games are centered around the idea that gameplay dictates how great it is, but many games also focus on the idea of story telling. The game will send the player along a few hour long story, with the idea that their choses will affect the gameplay, and eventually the ending. This gives what is known as immersion to the game, it allows the players to set up a moral right and wrong system, and lets the events around you almost feel real. Indigo Prophecy was one of the first games to do this in ‘modern time’ which simple means the era of more technologically advanced games.
The game is set in New York in the year 2009, so when it came out it was modern. It starts out with you character Lucas Kane, standing over a freshly killed body in the restroom of a local diner. Within 30 seconds you must dispose of the body, hide your knife, and wash up as to not attract attention. This game has to be the most thoughtful one I have ever played, you need to be able to think logically about your choices. For instance, throwing the knife out the window seems okay at first, but actually a homeless man is sitting outside ready to turn you in for a free meal. Leaving the restaurant without leaving a tip will arouse suspicion from the waitress as she will remember you as “The one who didn’t tip”. So what seems like a romantic trip to the diner bathroom turns out in a bloodbath, now what? Well you go home, take a nap and forget it, right?
Well you think everything is fine until you awake the next morning with a cop knocking on your door, only because your took a cab home. The thought of all this is that every choice matters, every action, or lack of, will either aid or help you in your ultimate goal to find out why you killed the man.
The perspective of the character changes to one of the four main characters in this movie game, quite frequently. You play between Lucas, two cops, and Lucas’ brother. They fall a tad under main character just because they player seems to develop more with Lucas first, rather than anyone else who appear later on in the game. However the player also develops a bond with the other characters as well, as you build some common relatable ground with them.
Overall the first half of the game has some of the best plot I have seen, video game, movie, or book. It has enough twists to keep you involved, but not so much that you need a flowchart to remember who is who. The game is focused around telling the story, so you won’t shoot any aliens in the face with a shotgun, or get into a high speed chase down into Queens. Although they take this to an extreme, so the only way it’s classified as a game is with the sense of death. You have to maintain a sense of calmness, by doing actions that help you out mentally. Drinking milk, brushing your teeth, things that seem everyday and routine, actually keep you sane. If your sanity bar gets to low, your character sinks into a deep depression and has a mental breakdown, which is an instant game over.
Now this maintain sanity can lead to rash actions, for example I had just arrived back at my apartment, my sanity bar was low, so I reached under the counter to grab a drink, not knowing it was alcoholic. Unknowingly I drank a large glass of Vodka, stumbled to my bed, but just before I went to sleep, I made sure to take some anti depressants. Mixing pills and alcohol
Lucas over dosed on the bed, and it was a presumed suicide. So, it gets tricky trying to remember all the little details in the game.
Earlier I mentioned the first half of this game had the best story telling I had ever seen, and it’s true, but the second half is awful. It was so bad it had a phenomenon named after it. It got Indigo Prophecy syndrome. That is where halfway through a game, the story takes a hard U turn into a brick wall. The story until this point has been immersive, and intriguing, but it seemed like the writers had gotten bored of writing, and just started making up things to se if anyone would notice. I am not going to spoil anything, but at the end of the game you end up in a no rules mid air fist fight with a monster made of pure energy. It gets so far out in left field, no one could have predicted the ending.
I feel that with a little more time the game could have been a cherished relic. Something that was great, but instead we are left with what feels like a half baked pie, with a lightly gold crust. When you take your first few bites you think this could be the best thing in the world, as if nothing could stop you from enjoying it. Even after a few bites in, the taste is the same, a tad to similar but still amazing, but when you get near the middle of the pie, you find that it is underdone. It’s really cold, the berries are still frozen, but you’ve already eaten more than half of the pie, so you are forced stomach the rest of it. The worst part of it is that the pie looked so good, and tasted so great at one time. So all in all, it’s a great game, I would buy it, in fact I did, but I was really disappointed at the end result. At times this game was really difficult, I tried to look up ways to cheat through it with no luck. If you love movies, you will love this, and if you own an xbox you should really pick this title up.
