Indigo Prophecy
The adventure genre isn't dead. Here's your proof.
Published: October 10, 2005
I'll be the first one to tell people who don't know me that I'm probably not the best guy to give advice on movies. I tend to pretty much like everything, just to varying degrees. Of particular interest is anything with a hero that goes from average Joe to some kind of superhero. Dark City is a fantastic example of this.
With a lead-in like that, it's probably fairly obvious what kind of plotline Indigo Prophecy offers, but then that much is probably just as obvious a good hour into the storyline. It's a story, mind you, that goes from a man possessed to kill a complete stranger to a supernatural thriller/mystery that is expertly paced, wonderfully executed and just a little too zany towards the end for some.
Lucas Kane is your normal IT staffer working for a huge bank in snow-drenched New York. One night, while having dinner in a diner, he goes slips into a trance and kills a man he never knew. The two cops that investigate the murder, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, initially feel it's an open and shut case. As Carla plugs deeper into the case, though, things don't add up, and simultaneously, Lucas is in a race against time to discover why he committed the acts he did.
IP mixes heavy elements of noir, paranoia, the occult, ancient Mayan prophecy and just a little bit of that character transformation that made Dark City so fun. It's also a hell of an adventure game, and perhaps the last final push for games of the genre to make it through the leap to 3D and to expand beyond the old-school pixel hunts.
Developer Quantic Dream sprinkled interactive elements that use the controller in a Simon says-like bit of quick directional presses using both analog sticks, but most of the interaction in the game, from shimmying up pipes to just picking up objects or looking under others, is pulled off with simple flicks of the right analog stick. For the most part, it works well, but there are times (such as the aforementioned climbing bits) when the gesture detection fails, and in some cases it can mean the end of the game.
The controls also head south a bit when trying to navigate areas where the camera changes angles a few times. It can be frustrating to walk down a hall constantly grinding against the wall only to turn and slam into it when it seems like pressing away from the it would do just that. Still, control issues aside, the interactivity and complete freedom to tackle things with as much or as little detail as possible is immensely rewarding, not just in terms of how things play out later in the game, but what kind of thickness some of the relevant facts can add to the adventure.
In fact, while there are certainly some trial and error sections -- most notably the horrible sections of gameplay that involve running around Lucas' childhood home; when the game switches to a flashback, get ready to die more in a few minutes than you probably did for the past few hours - the overall flow of the game is fantastic.
Ignoring some of the glaring plot holes isn't exactly easy, but then the climax of the storyline and many of the events that build up to it are so well done that it's hard not to fall in love with what's happening to the characters, who really do feel genuine. Then again, that may have been just me and my ability to gloss over some of the more ridiculous parts of a storyline to arrive at the final end product with maximum suspension of disbelief.
With a lead-in like that, it's probably fairly obvious what kind of plotline Indigo Prophecy offers, but then that much is probably just as obvious a good hour into the storyline. It's a story, mind you, that goes from a man possessed to kill a complete stranger to a supernatural thriller/mystery that is expertly paced, wonderfully executed and just a little too zany towards the end for some.
Lucas Kane is your normal IT staffer working for a huge bank in snow-drenched New York. One night, while having dinner in a diner, he goes slips into a trance and kills a man he never knew. The two cops that investigate the murder, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, initially feel it's an open and shut case. As Carla plugs deeper into the case, though, things don't add up, and simultaneously, Lucas is in a race against time to discover why he committed the acts he did.
IP mixes heavy elements of noir, paranoia, the occult, ancient Mayan prophecy and just a little bit of that character transformation that made Dark City so fun. It's also a hell of an adventure game, and perhaps the last final push for games of the genre to make it through the leap to 3D and to expand beyond the old-school pixel hunts.
Developer Quantic Dream sprinkled interactive elements that use the controller in a Simon says-like bit of quick directional presses using both analog sticks, but most of the interaction in the game, from shimmying up pipes to just picking up objects or looking under others, is pulled off with simple flicks of the right analog stick. For the most part, it works well, but there are times (such as the aforementioned climbing bits) when the gesture detection fails, and in some cases it can mean the end of the game.
The controls also head south a bit when trying to navigate areas where the camera changes angles a few times. It can be frustrating to walk down a hall constantly grinding against the wall only to turn and slam into it when it seems like pressing away from the it would do just that. Still, control issues aside, the interactivity and complete freedom to tackle things with as much or as little detail as possible is immensely rewarding, not just in terms of how things play out later in the game, but what kind of thickness some of the relevant facts can add to the adventure.
In fact, while there are certainly some trial and error sections -- most notably the horrible sections of gameplay that involve running around Lucas' childhood home; when the game switches to a flashback, get ready to die more in a few minutes than you probably did for the past few hours - the overall flow of the game is fantastic.
Ignoring some of the glaring plot holes isn't exactly easy, but then the climax of the storyline and many of the events that build up to it are so well done that it's hard not to fall in love with what's happening to the characters, who really do feel genuine. Then again, that may have been just me and my ability to gloss over some of the more ridiculous parts of a storyline to arrive at the final end product with maximum suspension of disbelief.
