Indigo Prophecy
September 26,2005 - When Shenmue came out in 2000 for the Dreamcast, it did so many things that no other game had done before.  In its purest form, it took basically every aspect of good gameplay that action adventure games had ever had and perfectly executed them all together at one time.  Since then, there had been no other game like it, that is, until now.  Indigo Prophecy, a game by Quantic Dream and published by Atari, is the first real step forward on the path paved by Shenmue five years ago. Since then, there had been no game to take that cinematic style of gameplay and incorporate it with a story that allowed you to control the way things happened.  Indigo Prophecy not only does that, but it offers you one of the most epic, disturbing, and original stories that gaming has seen in many years.

You are sitting in the stall of a bathroom at a small diner.  Your wrists are bleeding and you have no control over your body.  You see another man washing up and you unwillingly stab him to death.  You are Lucas Kane, and you are a murderer.

Indigo Prophecy stars two main characters as well as one major supporting character and a cast of others that liven up the world in which you play.  The first of the two main characters is Lucas Kane, the murderer, and the other is Carla Valenti, the New York Police Department detective.  Along with her partner, Tyler, they are trying to uncover who the murderer was on this fateful night in the small diner.

With a heavy reliance on plot, characters, and setting, Indigo Prophecy will offer you an experience you’ve never had before.  David Cage, the game’s director, describes Indigo Prophecy as “his contribution to the transformation of video games,” and boy is it ever.  Even though the gameplay elements will remind you of other games you may have played before, there has never been a story-driven adventure game that was so in-depth and allowed you to be the sole decision maker in what happens and what doesn’t.  For every action you make in the game, depending on which character you’re playing as, you’re going to find some reflection of that in another point during the story.

The actual plot of the game is a little more deep than the introduction would lead you to believe.  Though it’s clear from the get-go that Lucas is clearly not responsible for his actions, you have little idea just what exactly is going on for a very long time in the game and that’s what keeps the entire story so intense and exhilarating.  You’ll find yourself uncovering a mystery thousands of years in development to ultimately save man kind from destruction.

From a gameplay standpoint, Indigo Prophecy is amazing.  Though its wonky controls get in the way more often than one would like, the actual gameplay itself is fantastic.  Every action scene plays out through quick-timed events, like in Shenmue and Resident Evil 4.  This makes every cutscene you are going through interactive and pertinent to the gameplay instead of just watching it from your couch like a movie.  There are many, many parts in Indigo Prophecy that suffer from its strange control scheme and often make you enraged due to tedium.  It’s not an inherently hard game by any means, in fact, it’s relatively easy to figure out what’s going on.  But in several cases you’ll find yourself screwing up multiple times at points in any other game that you’d never imagine being a problem, like climbing a fence.

The quick-timed events in Indigo Prophecy are done on the PS2 and Xbox through the two different analog sticks, when a light goes off, you press the analog stick in that direction depending on which of the two sides it’s on.  Kind of like that one light-up game called Simon, only a little more intense and fun.  Other timed events happen through triggers, mostly manipulating them as fast as you possibly can by alternating and getting the event to trigger itself, like swimming, running, or whatever else they throw you through.  One of the more interesting timed events is a part in the game where you’re in the police station investigating files in a small corridor.  As Carla, who is absolutely terrified of small spaces, you must manipulate the trigger in order to keep her steadily breathing so you don’t have to go out of the area.  It’s a little annoying at first because it’s sensitive, but it’s very creative and makes it a little more interesting than just “Press this button!” styled timed-events, it actually makes sense.

That’s the thing about Indigo Prophecy’s gameplay, it makes sense.  Nothing that happens during the game makes you think, “Why did I do that?” but rather it’s like, “Oh, that’s pretty cool!” which is something you don’t see in a lot of adventure games.  No puzzles in the game, if you can even call them puzzles, feel out of place.  Everything that happens has a purpose and it all consecutively leads up to the conclusion of the game.  One of the cooler gameplay mechanics in the game is how it actively makes you manipulate your control device to do a certain action.  If you’re going to sit down on the Xbox for example, you would push the right analog stick down.  If you’re going to climb up a pole (which you happen to do twice!) you’ll have to swoop the right analog stick right-then-up and then left-then-up, it’s like alternating it as if you were doing it in real life.  It’s a nice touch, but it could use a little work in terms of responsiveness.

All the praise aside, the gameplay of Indigo Prophecy is by no means flawless.  It may be exciting, it may be interesting, and it may be unique, but there are some issues that keep the gameplay from being absolutely perfect.  As previously stated, the controls are really not that good.  They work along side a static-camera in most scenarios throughout the game, unless you’re outside or in a big building, and it makes for some confusing movement issues.  Similar to the older Resident Evil games, at one point you may be pressing left to move left and then the camera may switch up on you and you’ll be accidentally going a completely different direction.  Though this doesn’t make for too many problems in the game because it’s very rare that you can “die” or lose because of it, it can get a little tedious and certainly make you frustrated.  Another slight problem in the game is that in some of the later scenes in the game, you’ll find yourself going through some pretty frantic timed-events and since they’re right in the middle of the screen you will not be able to pay attention to the screen and what’s going on as well as you could be if it wasn’t there.  But that’s the price you have to pay for interactivity, and it’s fine.

There are a couple of other little gameplay elements in Indigo Prophecy that don’t really rear their heads often but still are worth mentioning. There is a little mental stability bar at the bottom right corner of the heads-up display while you’re playing that lets you know how your character is doing emotionally. Hearing bad news, not being clean, not eating enough, seeing something disturbing, or really anything else can add or subtract to your overall state of mind. If you let your bar go down to the bottom you ultimately lose your mind and have to redo the chapter you were on. It’s not rare that the bar will get that low, but there are instances where it comes close and if you weren’t previously doing okay with your character, you could lose.

Don’t be turned off by that, however, because other than the minor gripes in that respect, there is nothing that isn’t done well on the gameplay side.  The overall plot structure and way it’s presented with the gameplay is absolutely fantastic.  There isn’t a game on the shelves right now that is like Indigo Prophecy, so it’s definitely a unique experience from start to finish.  One of the nicest parts about the gameplay is the way the story actually plays out from chapter to chapter.  The two main characters take up the majority of the chapters that you play, but sometimes you’ll play chapters as other characters besides Lucas, Carla, or even Tyler for that matter.  So, to say the least, you’re going to get several perspectives of what’s going on so you can get the full story at hand.

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