Indigo Prophecy Review

The Story

Hold on to your hats, because this story is deep. Indigo Prophecy is about Lucas Kane, who’s your average IT man working in New York City. Amplifying the phrase, “wrong place at the wrong time”, the intro movie has Lucas sitting in a diner’s bathroom having a seizure and stabbing crazy symbols on his arms. Some random guy walks in, Lucas loses control and kills him. Lucas seems to be in a trance and when he snaps out of it, he is confused by the scene around him. Then you take over Lucas. Oh great, just in time. So you have to get him out of the bathroom, past a policeman sitting at the counter and out of the diner.

Your choices at this point reflect the rest of how this game plays out. The basic story is affected by the decisions you make and branches off in different directions, depending on your interactions with other characters and the choices you make. At first it appears that you can choose any answer or ask any question and it doesn’t matter, but let me tell you that this isn’t the case. You might think the decision you have to make is boring, but in real life it could change something immediately or later down the road.

With a deep story, there are equally deep characters. Besides the tormented Lucas, you will get to play (for a short time) Detectives Tyler Miles and Carla Velinti. Tyler is the no-nonsense type and Carla is the obsessive-compulsive type. What makes it interesting is that your play the good side and the bad side and it’s hard to choose which side to be on because the characters are so profoundly developed that you’ll find yourself empathizing with their actions and thoughts.

There are some plot point issues, but they occur later in the game. I think the developer wanted to draw you in immediately because large, unbelievable storylines jump around a bit near the last 1/3 of the game as well as some strange character decisions. Being a screenwriter by trade, I loved the way the story DID progress, but found the blank spots in the plot annoying near the end.

But, since there are 3 different endings (ranging from intense to mediocre), the game redeems itself quickly when the holes are fixed and you make it to the finish.

The Gameplay and Controls, Since They Go Hand in Hand

While most of the game has you walk around exploring environments and interacting with objects and weapons, there are a number of scenarios you’ll have to use a little skill to get past. Indigo Prophecy foregoes a lot of buttons presses in favor of analog sticks.

The two analog sticks control about 95% of the game. You move around in 3rd person like any other type of game, but interacting with the environment is also done this way. When you’re able to use an object or talk to someone, an arrow will appear on the screen, which indicates which way you need to press the right analog stick. For instance, you’ll press up to open a door or down to turn 180 degrees to talk to someone. I admit that I was clumsy with the controls at first, but I got used to it.

When you talk to someone, there are usually a few choices you can go with the conversation. A little meter gives you a small amount of time to ask a question or direct a line of talk, so you better be able to read fast and use the analog stick quickly in some situations.

Often times you’ll get to use Lucas’ psychic ability. I won’t go into that part of the story, but basically it’s like Dance Dance Revolution for the buttons. When you’re talking to someone, Lucas can hear what the person is thinking. When these little circles appear, you have to hit the left and right analog sticks in the correct directions that match the colors. The better you do, the better Lucas can hear the thoughts. Other times, you have to do the same thing for the escape scenes and the actions scenes. The funny thing is, when I got stressed doing it, the character performs badly or makes a bad decision.

The Graphics

This isn’t the best looking game out there, nor is it the worst. Character animations sometimes lost their frame-rate and spasmed around their motions, looking unnatural. The three main characters, however, are richly-detailed, but the gamemakers didn’t give the secondary characters the same attention. The city design in stupendous, give you that constant eerie feeling, even though it’s New York. What’s going on? Where’s it coming from? How am I going to deal with it? It’s New York, right? Deal with it.

The Sound

Voice-acting is where this game really shines. The actors nailed down the personalities of the characters really well and you’d be hard-pressed to find an animated movie that has done better. Another good sound feature was the minimalistic orchestration of the tenser scenes. There were no crescendos, no fast music; just soft strings that never foreshadowing impending doom. Reminded me of the Silent Hill games.

Thompson’s Two Cents

You can’t really know the game until you played it. You can read this review over and over and not really understand that Indigo Prophecy is non-media hyped game ready for it’s day in gamers’ hands. The story is phenomenal, the gameplay is different, and the characters are so involving that you’d be crazy not to play this game. You’ll get a good 10 hours on it and a couple more if you want to see all 3 endings. And believe me, you will.